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“Meliodas-sama? It’s time for the tavern to open, and –okay Hawk-san, I’m telling him – and Hawk was wondering if he could have some food?”
“Elizabeth! Don’t pretty it up for him! I’m gonna die of hunger, I’m already skin and bones, look!”
Elizabeth frowned slightly at the small pig dramatically sucking his stomach in, or sucking what he could in. “You shouldn’t be so dramatic, Hawk-san. It’s bad!”
Turning back to the door, Elizabeth realized there had been no answer to her previous greeting.
Maybe he’s still sleeping… she thought, confused. In all her time knowing him she’d seen Meliodas in his room maybe a handful of times, and never sleeping. She wasn’t even sure he did sleep. Before she could call out again, matters were taken out of her hands.
“That’s it, we’re going in!” Jumping off his perch on her shoulder, Hawk ran down towards the end of the hall before snorting and lowering his head with a cry, rushing at full speed towards the door, which flew open upon impact, banging against the wall loudly.
“Hawk-san!” Elizabeth cried in dismay, as he disappeared in the room, already chattering at full speed.
“Ah- Meliodas-sama, sorry for the intrusion…” trailing off, she stopped in the doorway and looked inside the room. Tidy and clean as normal, apart from the bed. After a moment (during which Hawk repeatedly bounced his full weight on the misshapen lump underneath the blankets) the blanket moved and a dishevelled blonde head emerged.
“Mm, pork-san, why are you jumping on my bed?” Trying to be heard over Hawk’s shrill cries of outrage Elizabeth dared step into the room a bit further.
“Meliodas-sama, we didn’t mean to wake you, it’s just that Hawk-san was getting hungry and said we should check on you…”
“Ah! Elizabeth-sama!” A blush rose easily to her cheeks as Meliodas moved his head and caught sight of her. Propping himself up on his elbow the blankets slid back, exposing his bare torso. This only served to cause her to blush even more furiously.
“Don’t be silly, you’re always welcome in my room, I actually encourage it-“
“Meliodas-sama, what are – snort- your intentions – snort - with Elizabeth!?”
Elizabeth covered her cheeks as the two team-mates began to argue. Honestly, she had never become used to the crass actions and comments of the captain, no matter what Diane said. Her never-ending crush never helped matters either. She began to make excuses, taking a step towards the door, before stopping as a third voice joined the commotion.
“Ahhh! What the hell’s going on? Why’re you shouting, Captain?”
Elizabeth was in total confusion as Meliodas and Hawk stopped their bickering, Meliodas with a strangely mischievous expression on his face. What was even stranger, it had sounded exactly like Ban, but he wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
Hawk seemed to take it in stride, immediately bouncing in place and demanding scraps.
Elizabeth opened her mouth, entirely confused about the entire situation, when, with a lot more rustling and moaning, Ban’s recognizable head of grey hair popped up behind the Captain.
Elizabeth wondered if she was seeing things. Ban was in Meliodas-sama’s bed. Without a shirt. Rubbing sleep out of his eye and glaring peevishly around the room, like this was an entirely normal thing to do.
“I – I – I “ she couldn’t get her words out, she didn’t even know what she was trying to say, but her entire face felt like it was on fire. “I- have to go!” and with that, she fled, down the stairs and out of the tavern’s front door.
Hawk looked at Ban. Ban looked at Meliodas. Meliodas looked at the door.
“What was all that about?”
Elizabeth didn’t think she’d ever head anyone laugh as loud or as uproariously as Diane did when Elizabeth finally worked up the courage to ask about what she’d seen.
“That’s why you’ve been acting so strange! It makes sense now!”
Elizabeth simply nodded, slightly flustered. If anything, she was glad Diane was currently human-sized, because she didn’t particularly want this conversation carrying, as it tended to do when her mouth was the size of a caravan.
“I just, I didn’t really know that they had that sort of relationship? Not that there’s anything wrong with that!” she hurried to correct herself, afraid Diane would misunderstand.
“I mean- they were fighting just the night before! All day in fact! I could hear it here, on the other side of the mountain! Then they came back, and they were still arguing, and I thought I heard them fighting again, but, but maybe they weren’t, maybe I was confused about the whole thing…”
She trailed off and Diane swung an arm around her shoulders.
“Nah, you didn’t misunderstand, Elizabeth. The captain and Ban sleep together sometimes, that’s all.”
Elizabeth wondered if there would come a day she wouldn’t blush. For now, it seemed her palace training was hard-wired into her.
“But – that’s all? I really don’t understand how you are so, so calm! And Hawk-chan was fine about it too, but isn’t that sort of thing… bad?” Lowering her voice at the end of the sentence, Elizabeth felt every bit of her 15 naïve years, spent watching people from windows and learning how to interact through the lessons of a strict nurse. Living with the sins could only help so much.
But Diane simply smiled and pulled away, skipping ahead then turning to face her.
“Hmmmm, I don’t see how. It’s just part of who they are!”
“But – I thought you… liked the captain? Like… really liked him?” she focused her eyes on the floor briefly, butterflies in her stomach at this new revelation. “So how are you… so okay with this?”
She was still trying to figure it out. She felt like she’d been hit with a brick, all her previous assumptions blown out of the water. She liked Meliodas-sama, she’d come to terms with that, and so did Diane, but now it turned out Meliodas-sama liked Ban… but fought with him as well?
Diane made a thoughtful noise, trying to figure out how best to explain.
“Well, we all have different relationships with the captain, right?” Elizabeth nodded. She’d noticed it, the differences between King’s aloof attitude, Gowther’s barely-there smiles, Ban’s arm wrestles, Diane’s forceful hugs.
“Umm, so like, when I’m sad, the captain cheers me up by coming to sit next to me, and he gives me flowers, and just really looks after me, you know? – No, I’m not saying that the Captain is – is doing that!” A blush proved that Diane was not as insensitive as she tried to appear. Evidently she’d read Elizabeth’s expression.
“Ah! This is so hard to explain! I bet Gowther could do it, but I don’t think he’s here… okay. You’ve seen how Ban and the Captain fight, but they never – or almost never—have really bad fights. Like, they both know each other’s limits, and even though it looks really bad to everyone else, they never go past them, because they care about each other, right?” Elizabeth nodded again, slightly less confidently. They’d had some pretty bad fights.
“So, that’s part of their relationship. If they feel bad, or if they need to work stuff out, they’ll fight, and like, somehow it helps them? I’m still not really sure how, or why, but you always see them getting along better afterwards, smiling and drinking, so it’s good!” Diane beamed in that unnervingly bright way she had, and Elizabeth couldn’t help smiling back.
“So, like, that’s different to how we – me and the captain, I mean – how we do stuff! And the, the whole, like, sleeping together thing is part of it too! So I can’t be angry at them, any more than I could be angry at Gowther for having those long boring discussions with King! We accept the Captain, and each other, for who we are, so… yeah, ha.”
The blush had risen again, Diane obviously surprised and embarrassed at the short speech. But Elizabeth felt better. She thought she understood, maybe not completely, but at least a little bit better. The captain and King…. spent time together, but it didn’t mean that Meliodas-sama felt… like that about Ban. Or maybe he did, but if he did then the spending-time-together wasn’t part of it. Her head was still swirling with confusion, but she no longer needed to leave the room when Ban shot a toothy grin at Meliodas, or when Meliodas casually leaned against Ban. That was how their friendship - relationship – worked.
“Oi, Captain, you didn’t do anything weird to Elizabeth, did you? She was being stranger than normal before.”
Ban frowned at his cards, trying - and failing to show any hints on his face.
“Ohoho Ban - what’s this, you’re worried about Elizabeth-sama?” Meliodas grinned.
“What – no! She wouldn’t eat the stew I made so I was annoyed, it was rude!”
Meliodas leaned back in his chair, tipping two legs off the floor as he chuckled.
“Hmmmm, well it doesn’t matter anyway, because Elizabeth-chan is all for me, anway.”
“You really are a perverted weirdo, Captain.”