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You never knew how beautiful the ocean could be until it's staring into you in the form of deep, endless azure eyes.
He's smaller than you. His frame is thin and fragile as he trembles behind his mother's legs as if she were the barrier against your fearful form at the very scary age of ten. His hair is tumultuous with fluffy orange tufts flying in every direction as if they were fallen rays of pure, fiery sunsets that yearn to return to its celestial body in the sky.
A crimson scarf wraps around his neck, nearly engulfing his entire body with the sheer length. The knitting is tight with love braided into every stitch; the yarn is soft to the touch from a simple glance. The boy buries his face deeper into the sea of red the longer you stare at him as if hiding from your piercing gaze.
Despite the young boy's small frame, his wide blue eyes and mere presence alone were palpable like peering into an abyssal trench hidden beneath cerulean waves.
How funny he is; a golden sunset setting behind the horizon of the ocean personified into a child that shakes at your mere glance. Yet, even through the obvious shaking in his small frame, the azure ocean seems ready to swallow you whole.
"Go on, introduce yourself," his mother urges her shy son forward with a gentle hand on his back. "They're new here, wouldn't you want to help be their first friend in Morepesok?"
He moves with hesitance, mouth parting just a moment before speaking to you with a quiet voice as small as he is.
"I'm Ajax."
Your eyes blink once, twice. Then, a smile grows on your lips even at his simple greeting before you share your own name with him, sealing a fate intertwined with him without even realizing it.
—
From then on, the little Ajax is glued to your side through every passing day. His fingers curl around the hem of your sleeve, tightening only when the other kids of the small fishing village approach you. His body remains flush to your own as if shrinking himself away from the attention of the numerous children asking you to play.
And yet, you turn them down in favor of accompanying the small boy beside you. Perhaps it is because you pity him and his hesitant behavior; with his body hiding behind your own as if shielding himself from the words and attention of any of the other children, he resembled a tiny lamb and you his shepherd.
Or maybe it's because every time he stares at you with those wide, open eyes you're reminded of the never ending abyss that is the ocean and the only way to survive is to placate whatever lurks underneath sea foam crusted waves.
Ajax's birthday falls in the middle of summer and, despite being deep in the middle of the warmest season of the year, the chill does not escape the small village of Morepesok. Even as the sun shines brilliantly at the peak of noon, the frigid afternoon wind does not melt away the frost clinging to the flora.
And it does nothing for the icy dread that shoots down your spine when you open the front door of your home excited for the day to come only to find Ajax himself sitting on your small porch.
His knees are pulled to his chest and his scarlet scarf nearly engulfs his entire head. Familiar orange tufts fly up into the air like usual as his small, freckled face hides beneath red fabric. But, even through the bundled knitting, it cannot hide the shaking of his shoulders or the scrapes on his small hands.
He's already looking at you when you finally meet his gaze.
"Ajax…" You breathe out his name, kneeling down beside his small body. "What happened to you?" Your hands, just as small as he is, gently tug at the red scarf around his neck. You expect him to reel away from your touch, both in fear and embarrassment, but he doesn't fight against you as you reveal his face to you.
Freckled skin is tarnished with scrapes and dried blood and tears stain his plump cheeks. There's a cut on his upper lip and his knuckles are heavily bruised.
"I'll go get-" You begin, but your words are interrupted when a hand reaches out and grabs the edge of your sleeve.
"Don't leave me," Ajax finally says to you. His voice is barely a whisper, words nearly taken away by the brisk breeze flowing through the quiet streets of Morepesok. But you catch them anyways as if the breeze carried them directly to you.
You want to disagree; seeing him in such a state sends your heart into disarray, but the lull of the sea hidden behind blue eyes makes you bite your tongue.
And so you stay.
Settling beside him, your knees gently bump into his. The sun continues to shine with its radiance, casting everything in its subtle warmth. Morepesok is awake with its few citizens off fishing for the day or herding the rambunctious children away from the outskirts of the village and from the dangers of the sprawling woods surrounding the town. Your mother's singing comes from within the house almost like a calming lullaby alongside the quiet sniffles and hiccups from Ajax.
"Was it those kids that did this to you?" You ask after a few moments of silence.
Ajax parts his lips, then closes them with a slight nod of his head.
"They…" he begins with a shaky breath, voice slightly congested from the tears shed. "They told me to go into the woods if I wanted to continue being friends with you. That you wouldn't want to stay friends with someone like me."
Heat bubbles up from within your chest and your heart rate slowly begins to rise. "And so you went into the woods?"
"Only for a little bit… I followed them in and then they pushed me into the ground. I tried to get up but some of them shoved me back down," Ajax tells you. "I… I fought as hard as I could but I could only do so much."
The heat fills every inch of your body at the thought of your friend being harassed by some… some hooligans in this town. Your nostrils flare and your fingers clench tightly into a fist.
But, as if reading your mind and the intentions permeating off of you, Ajax turns to look at you. His eyes, reddened and raw from crying, bring you a sense of calm. They're a sea of the deepest blue, something that should unsettle you to your core from how vast it seems. Yet, the heat in your chest slowly simmers down because of him.
"You won't leave me, right? Not because I cry a lot?"
A scoff leaves your lips as you lean closer to your small companion. His eyes are wide open, both in surprise from your reaction and the proximity of your face to his. From here, you could see the constellation of freckles across his cheeks and the dirt and grime from the woods smeared across his face—you'll get your revenge on those hooligans one day.
But for now…
"Of course not. I'm your friend, and you'd have to do a lot more than cry to get rid of me," you reassure the small boy with a smile. "I cry a lot too; Mama used to tease me about it, but she always told me it's never a bad thing to cry. That just means you care."
At your words, the sun finally pierces through the chill surrounding Morepesok. The frost dusting over the small village melts away, leaving nothing but a trail of dew in its path. And there's a warmth that grows even brighter in pure, blue seas.
"Promise?" He holds his little pinky out for you to hold. Your lips curl upward and lock your pinky with his.
An eternal promise.
"Until the day I die."
The front door of your house creaks open with ease and both yours and Ajax's heads swivel towards the sound only to be greeted with the sight of your mother. Her eyes snap on you, then your friend, and a sharp gasp rips through her mouth. Within the blink of an eye, your mother scoops Ajax up within her arms and ushers you inside in a hurry.
"Oh goodness, what in the world happened to you?" She asks, setting down your companion on a wooden chair pulled from the dining room table. She leaves for a brief moment and returns with a box filled with various medicinal ointments, disinfectant wipes, and bandages.
"Don't tell me you and Ajax got into a scuffle?" Your mother turns to you, brows furrowed and lips pulled into a tight frown.
"They would never, Miss," Ajax responds for you. His hand gently tugs on your mother's sleeve and she turns her attention to him. "I just fell in the woods."
In the midst of your mother's concerned scolding and her deft fingers cleaning up the scrapes on Ajax's skin, the two of you meet your gazes. The same thought seems to flash through your minds—the promise you swore on the porch of your home—and both laughter and warmth fills your home in the middle of Morepesok.
The melodic warbles of songbirds amidst the gradual ascent of the morning sun seeping through sheer curtains pulls you away from the comfort of your dreams. The morning air nips at your cheeks, but it's far from the bite that you're used to from the small fishing village you grew up in. The heating magic surrounding Snezhnaya City warms the capital despite the sheer cold in the outskirts of the city.
It's warmer here than in Morepesok. A bit too warm…
Your eyes snap open to the body laying smack in front of you. His breathing is even, barely making a sound. Constellations dance across his cheeks and nose in a way that you're all too familiar with, and tangerine strands curl in every way imaginable. He's sleeping above your covers and a breath of relief slides past your lips.
Even with the permeating cold that haunts Snezhnaya, there's a comfortable warmth from your childhood friend. Is it because his body temperature has always run on the warmer side since he was young? Or maybe it's because his presence alone brings you enough comfort to warm your heart, rather, your soul?
As your heart rate slowly comes back down, your eyes slowly take in the sight in front of you. Ajax is much bigger than he was all those years ago. It didn't take long for him to grow taller than you and, much to your chagrin, his height only continued to grow until he towered over you. His shoulders broadened the older he got and, after he was sent to work for the Fatui, his constant sparring and dangerous missions defined his muscles further.
Even his personality has slowly changed from a small boy who constantly hid behind you and shook like a leaf to a man who holds his head high and brightens up the room with his mere presence alone. Though, some of this could be attributed to his sudden disappearnce when he was fourteen, you want to thank the Fatui for building his confidence even further.
He's much different than the Ajax you once knew. And yet, despite everything, he's still the same Ajax you know and love.
He still wears that red scarf his mother knit him all those years ago whenever he visits Snezhnaya—it's cold and smells like home is always his excuse—its presence lost draped somewhere in your apartment. He always tails you around when he's in town to visit both you and the Tsaritsa on the terms of 'protecting you' in the streets of Snezhnaya City. He eats all of your cooking with that cute, boyish smile on his face that he never really grew out of—the dimples in his cheeks deepen the wider he smiles and sends your heart into a panic.
And he treats you the same as he always does; like his best friend that he has known for his entire life.
Your mother used to tease you with the idea of being Ajax's partner in the near future, a silly idea that you always brush off with a scoff. Because why would that even be plausible? A risk of ruining the friendship built on years of trust?
Even as your heart thumps loudly in your eardrums when Ajax heartily laughs at your jokes and looks at you like you're the light guiding him home in an abyss of darkness, you shrug those feelings off and push away the steady rhythm of your heart and the heat that spreads to your finger tips.
With a heavy exhale, you slowly pull back your blanket from your body in hopes of letting your dear friend sleep for a while longer… Only for deep blue eyes to open and meet your gaze. Your chest lurches.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to…" You murmur softly, turning to look at him fully. His gaze never leaves yours. "I was going to make you breakfast."
"For what reason?" Ajax responds to you. He shifts his position in the bed to where his head rests on his arms as he lay on his stomach. "You can stay in bed and sleep a bit more since we slept so late yesterday night."
"You make it seem like I'm old; I didn't even make it to midnight!"
"I mean, if the shoe fits— Hey!"
A fluffy pillow is thrown into his face, one he could easily deflect but when it comes to you it seems that you always get your way with him.
"Be nice to me, it's my birthday!" He exclaims amidst a sea of chuckles. His voice is still a bit rough from just waking up; a pleasant timbre that you don't seem to mind listening to.
"Exactly, and you're my guest. Isn't it better to be served breakfast in bed?" You reply, sitting up so you could look down at him. This simple act was so that you could have the advantage of higher ground—something you never got to experience when it came to him and his height—and yet peering down at his figure laying in your bed still rendered you helpless.
The most beautiful shade of blue gazes up at you; the sun's golden rays seeping into your bedroom cast warmth and light over his entire being as if he were warmth incarnate. Those deep, oceanic eyes are nothing but shallow tide pools waiting for you to take the step into their crystal clear waters.
An invitation into the safety of his sea.
He's smiling at you; crinkles at the corners of his eyes and the faint echo of his dimples peeking through the corner of his lips almost taunting you to make him smile any wider. Like the comfort of the hearth and the serenity of basking in the fleeting glow of the flickering embers, the radiance of his grin sets your heart ablaze.
And you turn from it when your heart skips a beat.
"Remember when we were young and I followed you everywhere?" Ajax's voice is gentle, as calm as the ocean waves lapping at the shoreline of Morepesok where the two of you played during your youth. His fingers brush against your own and sparks light up where his calloused fingertips touch your skin.
"What about it?" you ask, holding back the urge to pull your hand away to save your poor beating heart.
Your friend doesn't answer at first and, instead, there's a glimmer in his rather dull eyes.
"Nothing much," he begins. His fingers slide forward, filling up the spaces between yours with ease. "But, thank you for being my friend for all these years. I know I was a little annoying always latched onto your side but…
"You were- are my haven. Everything intimidated me as a child, even when I wanted to adventure out with the rest of the kids there. My older siblings used to tease me about it, and of course the village kids did to the worst degree." Ajax's fingers brush past your knuckles and squeezes your hand with a tender touch. You can feel every callous, every scar that runs across his hands; a hand that has dealt with nothing but combat and adrenaline holding yours like all he knows is fragility and affection.
"But you never did."
"Of course I didn't," you say almost immediately. "Why would I when you're my friend? And I promised you we'd be friends forever, right?"
Ajax doesn't say anything; his eyes reflect the light like the sparkling of the sea's surface and, through the tender gaze directed at you, a waterfall of words begin to spill from your heart.
"Just as you find me important in your life, you forget that you've changed my life too. I don't think I could remember a time without you. You've always been with me, always cheered me up when I needed it, and I could never imagine a life without you. I mean, you're here with me now spending your birthday with me when Morepesok is so far away.
"You're nothing but brave and compassionate, someone I look up to even now as we're older. You've gotten through everything, from being lost in the woods for who knows how long and now when you've climbed your way up the Fatui ranks to be one of the Tsaritsa's beloved Harbingers. You're so hard-working and so loyal to Her Majesty the Tsaritsa and to your family. There's no one I'm more proud of than you, Ajax."
He blinks for a moment, blue eyes gazing deeply into your own as if searching for any playfulness hidden between your words of sincerity. Two. And then he swiftly turns his head over his shoulder with his free hand covering his mouth. His face is hidden from your direct sight, but nothing can hide the bright red creeping across his ears and neck.
The other remains holding yours, grasping it as if you'd fade away if he let go.
"That's not fair…" he mumbles into his hand with a voice that's carried off by the morning breeze. But you hear it as clear as day.
"I'm sorry if I said something wrong," you begin, slowly sliding your hand away.
However, Ajax reacts faster than you do. His fingers squeeze around yours before you could slip away from his grasp. His head swivels back to your direction and you're face to face to the state your words, what you, had reduced your friend to.
A bright rosiness spreads across Ajax's face. The freckles that dance across his cheeks swim in a sea of warm pink. His brows are furrowed, bunching up slightly at the center. His eyes, however, wide open at your fleeting touch. The ocean is in turmoil with panicked waves desperately clinging on to whatever they had left of you as if afraid you would slip away from him.
"You didn't!" Your dear friend interjects abruptly. His lips close silently when he notices the surprise in your expression. Blue eyes avert for a second, but they meet yours again, much calmer.
"You didn't upset me," Ajax repeats in a tone less agitated from before. His throat bobs, teeth clenching down on his bottom lip as a million thoughts race through his mind. "When you tell me those things, when you speak from your heart with nothing but honesty, I get so dazed. You make my heart go to war with the way it beats around you, but it's a battle I'm ready to lose if it means losing to you.
"It's not fair how defenseless I feel when I'm around you."
Endless blues are filled with candor and the warmth that seemed to emanate from him seeps further into you from where his fingers touched yours to your chest. The steady rhythm of your heart gradually staggers and pulls your heart into an accelerando that's difficult to ignore.
"…What are you saying right now?" you ask amidst the thunderous lurching of your heart.
"I love you." Ajax says it so naturally, as if this was something he was born to do. As if loving you came naturally to him. Azure seas never leave your gaze and it does nothing to calm down the thrumming coming from your chest. You can feel the heat burning your ears and face; are you dreaming?
Your childhood friend smiles one more time. "You don't have to respond now-"
"I-I love you too!" You say almost immediately, an echo of what he did earlier. His eyes widen at your outburst and your lips immediately press into a thin line. You close your eyes and send a silent prayer to Her Majesty the Tsaritsa so she may smite you down in this spot right now; what a way to answer a confession. "I'm sorry, what I meant was-"
Soft chuckling is what you hear at first; it's breathy and light like this morning shared with your childhood friend before they grow louder and, suddenly, Ajax is laughing heartily beside you. His mouth is pulled to a huge smile to the point where the indents at the corner of his mouth are prominent. His eyes are closed and you're able to see his long, orange lashes that sit perfectly on his skin.
Everything about him is loved by the sun; from his orange hair that matches the heat that it radiates to the dozens of freckles that only grow in numbers the longer he basks in its radiance to the warmth that he shares with his mere presence alone.
And you are caught in his orbit, pulled closer and closer by the hand riddled with scars that you've come to recognize and love all the same.
When the laughter spilling from his lips has calmed down, Ajax is smiling at you with mirth seeping from every inch of his expression. There's a certain softness that his gaze holds; you want to indulge in it for the next forever.
"Can I be greedy just for one moment?" he asks you.
"After laughing at me, I don't really want you to," you respond curtly, though your faux anger fades away shortly after he chuckles again.
"Please? It's my birthday."
As weak as he is to you, you are to him. With a simple nod, Ajax's smile widens and his free hand reaches towards your face. His palm is rough as it touches your skin, but you don't recoil from his touch. His thumb brushes your cheek briefly before he's pulling your head down.
His lips are much softer than the rest of his body, his kisses even more so. And yet, even as his hands shake beside your face and the other clings to your own to ground himself, you find yourself completely enamored by this simple display of affection. If your heart wasn't exploding at the confession prior, it definitely exploded now as Ajax moves his lips in tandem with yours.
A kiss filled with nothing but your shared love and the comfort of loving someone you've shared the first half of your life with.
And yet, your heart does not calm even as you pull away from him. For the beautiful, cerulean seas that you've come to find your solace in are gazing at you as if you've written his name in the stars.
"Happy birthday, Ajax," you murmur softly as your friend, no… lover, holds you in his hands like you're his entire world. Like every cloud floating in the sky were formed by your own hands and every wave created with a simple wave of your finger. You are his everything, and he is yours. "I love you."
Ajax grins boyishly, the smile that you love and yearn to see for your next eternity together. "I love you more."
And he's kissing you again and again.