Work Text
"I love you." Frey said breathlessly.Her words hung in the air between them, bereft of an answer.The big man blinked at the Princess of Selphia, his blue-gray eyes searching her emerald green ones momentarily. He wasn't shocked. He'd known this was a possibility. Frey was clearly smitten with someone, and she spent a portion of every day with him, of all people, bringing his favorite foods and playing along with all his foolish games and humor.And, even though a deeply honest part of him had wished so desperately for these words from these very lips, he'd prepared his lies carefully just for this moment. She stared up at him, trembling, frozen, waiting. He rolled the script around in his head, testing the words on his tongue before speaking, preparing to break her heart, and shoving the sick feeling in his gut down, down deep."Hmm...." He began, cocking his head as he looked at her with his usual lazy air. Her brow tilted upward and her eyes shifted slightly as she looked into each of his eyes in turn, searching for the emotions he refused to show her."Well... Way long ago, I did some knight-ish stuff for a while." he mused aloud, letting his gaze drift upward, as though he were remembering something faint."Wha-?" Frey squeaked, thrown by the incongruity of his words."But then one day I realized something. See, it's easy to do the stuff you're good at. But it's doing the stuff you think is fun that can really make a person happy." He continued."What are you talking about?" She squeaked, with a half-crazy grin, the look in her eyes showing the cracks in her. His insides squirmed. He continued his delivery of the carefully rehearsed words:"See, what I find fun is thinking up ways to make money, not actually MAKING money, see just thinking up ways to do it." he said in thoughtful tones."Oh and making people unhappy is right out. Getting rich off of making people unhappy isn't fun at all." He added, holding a finger up."Bado..." She whispered, face a mixture of hurt, and near-manic confusion. He forced his face into an approximation of a mischievous grin."So how'd it sound? I just made that all up." he chimed, looking expectantly at her as if he had not just dragged her feelings through broken glass."What?!" She shrieked, shocked, now. He had to admit, it was a very difficult speech NOT to feel shocked and confused by, so disjointed from the context of her confession that it lent a sense of unreality to the moment."Well you told some interesting lies, so I thought I'd give it a try, too." he said, and forced out a booming laugh. Frey stared up at him in disbelief, then her gaze fell in time with her drooping shoulders."My profound apologies for underestimating you, sir." she mumbled, a perfunctory answer to his joke. She turned and fled from his blacksmith's shop without a word, but Bado's blue-gray eyes did not miss the small spots on the flagstones of the shop's entryway where the rock was dyed a darker shade by the tears that had fallen on them.He stood still, staring into the distance for a time before the rising sickness in his gut, and emptiness in his chest drove him to budge. At least the sorrow was further down, underneath self-loathing.The big man sighed, a desolate sound in a desolate room, having sentenced himself to permanent isolation when offered bliss and love and, well... her.He sat down on his creaky wooden bench by the forge and stared down at his big hands in his lap, brow furrowed, reliving the pain in her eyes to punish himself. Bone and muscle grew stiff as he refused to let himself move for perhaps a quarter of an hour. Discomfort suited him. He deserved it.The front door opened again suddenly. He grimaced, but denied his newest guest his attention. He was nothing. Less than the dust on the shelves. He would not raise his head.Footsteps sounded, a soft but determined 'tap tap tap tap' across the shop, getting closer. Irritation stirred. Was some fool really going to make him break from his self-inflicted paralysis just to buy some damned piece of garbage from his shop?"Bado." Frey's voice called, not soft but firm and commanding, despite the pain still dripping from it. His head snapped up in his shock. She didn't wait to meet his eyes.Bado flinched as soft warm lips, wet with tears brushed his own unworthy mouth. This time he could not suppress his shock. He'd killed this possibility, damned himself, dashed her hopes. Why did she yet persist, pouring all her genuine heartfelt affection for him into that desperate kiss, a kiss that met no reciprocation. He refused to move a muscle, railing inside at the impossible situation. There were no words ready on his tongue to fend her off this time. Her movement slowed, so that all that was left was her trembling. Silent tears streamed down her face. She pulled back and challenged his gaze with her green eyes glittering with sorrow."You are a liar," She hissed softly, straining to articulate her speech through her pain, "but the lie wasn't in your words..."Aching agony wracked him from inside. So much pain, hers on top of his own. He felt his resolve slipping. Her eyes refused to release him. The muscles in his face betrayed him, allowing a slight wince to creep into his expression."The lie is what you wouldn't say, so you implied it." She continued, her rasping voice a whisper, then intoned. She grew stronger, eyes blazing. "So unless you say it now, to my face, I'll never believe you." Bado's eyes widened. She had pierced his charade and all his armor with her truth. He swallowed."Say it." She commanded. He flinched again. She calmed, her body still now. "Say: 'I do not love you'."His resolve fractured. Now he was the one to tremble and feel his voice slip away to a rasping whisper:"You just don't know when to quit do you?" he gasped, eyes burning. Passion roared up from the depths of his soul, incinerating everything else on its way out of him.He kissed her.It was a blinding, unchained free-fall of confused ardor and earnest need. His lips pressed hers with the fever of all his agony and loneliness behind them. He tasted the salt of her tears as her eyes snapped shut and she unleashed her own passion. They suffered that kiss. They drowned in it. Bado's eyes burned and stung, sparse tears scattering into droplets in his eyelashes and in her bangs. He told her all of his loneliness and isolation with his lips and tongue and arms desperately grasping at hers. He gave her the truth of him and held nothing back, groaning softly into her mouth as hope flickered to life somewhere deep inside him.When at last he let it end, exhausted by the exchange, he stared into her eyes, lost and bewildered."I was supposed to tell you 'no'..." he murmured, all but gasping for breath."Why?" She breathed, brows knit."Because..." He said, letting all of it lay bare before her, "You deserve better than me... and I deserve no-one, especially not you." He stared into her emerald eyes as he let the words settle between them. She blinked, swallowing, tears welling in her eyes again."I don't want someone better and I don't give a fuck what you deserve." she whispered, firm of conviction but shaking all over. "I love you, Bado..."There it was again. The confession he'd hoped for but denied. The love he'd banished himself from accepting. And now he was completely cornered and exposed."You stubborn--" He growled, eyes burning again. He hung his head, overwhelmed. "Maybe..." He began, choking on the words. "Maybe if it's for you... I could get better."Soft, slender fingers found his jaw and gently lifted until he raised his eyes once more to the woman he'd mercilessly rejected just minutes before."Get better for you." She insisted. "You're already good enough to love." She gathered him up in her arms, the huge, burly man half again her height and perhaps three times her weight. He felt lost and small and... safe in her embrace. He returned the hug, needing so deeply the acceptance she'd never hesitated to give.'Even though I'm worn out... Even though I'm broken...' he thought, marveling. 'You... still see something worthy...'"I'll trust your eyes." he breathed almost silently, heart aglow. She stirred and pulled back enough to look into his blue-gray eyes, glinting with life for the first time in so, so very long."What?" she murmured quietly.He closed his eyes and sighed out all that was left of his resistance, breath carrying with it the protestations he no longer had the will to speak. Then, he breathed in anew, opened his eyes and whispered:"I love you too, Frey."