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tysonrunningfox · 6 years

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Open Flames Part 8.5

I needed to understand Fuse’s brain and I still Don’t, because she’s Beyond me and I am just the sentient, tortured presence behind Eret’s weird little self, but then I realized that I clearly needed to share this.

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Only Eret can make Fuse so simultaneously proud and fiercely jealous at the same time. And then she feels guilty for being jealous, even though it won't help anything, and it wastes time and energy she could put into helping him. And it's starting to seem more and more like he doesn't need her help, even if he's so sincere about reminding her that he wants it, and she's trying so hard not to hear pity where there is none. Eret says so many things at once, there are so many layers to the careful, coddling hands on her shoulders and face and the gentle words and the apologies she doesn't need for things she shouldn't be upset about that she can barely think straight around him sometimes.

The truth is she's not sure why she cried this morning, it came out of nowhere and compounded with every bit of selfless comfort that Eret offered when he shouldn't have to.

Fuse fidgets with her vest after leaving Hotgut outside, shoving the reinforced front door of her house open with a shoulder and pausing when she sees her parents and Darren eating at the table. Her mom gives her a sympathetic look.

"Eret gone again, honey?"

"No, he stayed." The guilt, again, confused and victorious in her stomach where nausea only recently made room for other, far more unpleasant feelings. Eret stayed because of her and as happy as she is that he cares so much, it just reminds her of his mom at the pier with a bag she packed, helping without him having to ask her to.

"Shouldn't you be happy about that?" Her dad asks around a mouthful of bread, "you two aren't even married yet, it's way too early to stop liking each other."

"Shut up, Tuff," her mom throws a chunk of cheese at her dad and it bounces off of his head onto the floor, where Chicken VII starts pecking at it, excited. "There's food on the hearth if you're hungry."

Fuse starts to brush her mom off but her stomach growls like it personally heard the offer and it's hard to avoid rubbing the strange new shape of it. It feels like concrete data she hasn't had time or space to think about, and the way Eret looked at her when he touched it only adds on to the pile of things she has to solve. It's a bigger pile than ever, taking up space in her brain and shed and room in a way she's not used to at all, triggering the stupid, useless guilt like a pressure plate every time she remembers it. Eret is dealing with so much more. Eret's list is a mile long and he still has time to help her, even if he loses sleep over it. She shouldn't need so much help, but lately, every problem she solves seems to spawn two new ones in its place.

She scoops up the rest of a loaf of bread and a block of cheese and starts heading to her room, only to be interrupted by Darren's most irritating sing-song voice.

"Are you sure you're that hungry? I think your butt's getting bigger--"

"Shut up," Fuse cuts him off with a glare, adjusting her vest again. It's true, she knows it is, but she doesn't necessarily like Darren pointing it out, especially when she knows he's just trying to get under her skin.

Especially because it works, like her skin is way thinner than it used to be.

"I'm just trying to help you, you might want to watch your butt if you want Eret to keep watching your butt."

Fuse tucks the loaf under her arm and takes a handful of powder out of her lower vest pocket to smash it onto Darren's chest with a puff of blue-gray dust. It's expired after hanging on a hook for the better part of a year, but it should still itch like poison oak if Darren gets his clothes wet.

"Not inside," her mom cautions her, glaring at Darren, "as much as your brother deserved that."

"He deserves more than that," Fuse glares at him, "and it's not flammable here."

"Here?" Darren squeaks, "what do you mean by here?"

"You'll see. Maybe." Fuse wrinkles her nose at the smell of him. She expected that to go away with the nausea but it didn't, if anything, it's worse now that feeling sick is less constant and more triggered by random, sudden things.

"What does that mean?" Darren looks between their parents and Fuse is relieved to see that they're both unsympathetic.

"Don't comment on a lady's weight, son, especially if she's armed." Their dad says with a shrug.

"It's Fuse, not a lady." Darren's grumble picks at Fuse's open emotional wound again, because it's true. She's not a lady, not even in the Viking sense where a bit more spitting and cursing is allowed, but there's still not room to strike without checking in first.

"Even more dangerous," her dad sighs, brushing some of the dust off of Chicken VII's feathers with gentle fingers. Fuse takes that as her cue to walk away and she manages to shut herself in her room before anyone says anything else.

Her room is covered and filled with hints of Eret. There's gifts he's given her and the vest he made her all resting on shelves that he installed himself after the fire. Fuse doesn't understand how he leaves his mark so thoroughly on things, why his intent hovers around them like mist every time she looks at them. She used to think the only way to really make a permanent mark was a crater, but even then, the dust settles eventually and no one remembers when it was anything but a hole.

Fuse decided to bomb the princess, it's everything that came after it that she didn't plan on.

First, it was bad enough coming back to Eret so distressed, like his biggest worry was upsetting her instead of being married off by the chief to someone he didn't know or love. It was the thrill of success as much as the need to remind him that she had his back, entirely and always, that had her pushing him into her shed. She didn't think he'd be disappointed in her though, and even though he never admitted it, she saw it in his grim expression and heard it in the way he talked to the chief, promising to fix other people's messes.

It was just the first time the mess was hers.

She didn't decide for him to leave, especially so much and for so long, and for the first time without her. She didn't decide to hit dragon hunters, if she had, she would have done a better job and he wouldn't still be dealing with the problem. She definitely didn't decide to get pregnant, she didn't decide to impose this time limit on them. She didn't decide for Eret's eyes to light up when she told him, for him to practically glow with the news like only rare explosives are supposed to.

She didn't decide to change things, the change all just spawned out of the crater of her decision, like Snaptrapper heads peeking out of a nest one by one.

Bitterness, like guilt, is another useless emotion, but Fuse can't help but feel bitter that she knew Eret was important before anyone else did and now she has to share him with everyone who doubted him. She's proud to hear him giving orders, sounding like the chief she knows he's going to be, but it makes him feel distant, like he belongs to something else. To someone else.

It makes him sound like his mother's son and that's who he has to be as chief.

Fuse was never particularly troubled by the fact that Astrid didn't like her, so she didn't expect to be so instantly frustrated when Astrid decided she was alright after all. It was like she was being judged when she didn't even know it and suddenly, she became useful in a way Astrid would tolerate. She's never needed approval, but that didn't prepare her for the abrasive itch of unwanted acceptance, like a wild dragon rubbing up on her leg. And now that she's pregnant, there's no ignoring it, Astrid is going to be in her life, approving or not but always judging, forever.

And it's worse than that because Eret said it himself, his mom handles the chief's wife part perfectly. It makes Fuse jealous of things she doesn't think she cares about and that's worse than wishing she were different or better, because she doesn't wish that. She kind of wishes that Eret didn't have to be chief, and that's awful, because he wants it so much and he'll be so great at it. But in the moment, she kind of resents the pressure it puts on her, especially since she'll be competing against the person who's always thought her least capable of the job of supporting him.

Which might be kind of fair, considering the last decision she made ended up making Eret's life so much harder.

The bread is good, but dry, and Fuse wishes she'd grabbed some water before shutting herself in here. She could go out and get some, of course, maybe even spill it on Darren to be sure he itches the way he deserves, but she feels exposed because he noticed something was different. It was different when only Eret noticed, because she told him, and because he's dealing with the difference too, on top of everything else. Even then though, as much as his careful, awkward joy makes her think of a future where this works out, she doesn't want things between them to change.

She likes not being married to him. She likes how it makes her feel unbiased, like she's following him because he's right and not because she has to. She likes being a Thorston, a step away from the Haddock-Hofferson alliance that holds so much sway and spends all of its time in everyone's private business. Of course, she wishes she could see Eret more, but it was never a problem until now because she could go with him, and just like many of his other problems, all of it started with the chief pushing marriage on him one way or another.

But Fuse couldn't control the chief, she could only react.

That's true now too, of course, all she can do is react, but it's Eret and he keeps startling her. He's never wanted to get married and all she heard when he proposed going through with it for a house, all she could think of was that things were already different. Are already different. Her vest doesn't fit and he's gone all the time and he wants to live with her, even if it involves marrying her.

She wasn't lying when she said she was happy about the pregnancy. Well, not so much the pregnancy, but the idea of a family with him. That's something she wants, of course it is. She confronted the possibility years ago, because despite the disorder of the last few months, Fuse still feels like someone who plans ahead and for multiple scenarios.

But this morning when he suggested marriage, she felt the weight of that Haddock label for the first time, heavy in her mind and on their future child. How is she supposed to raise an heir if she can't reconcile herself with being the chief's wife and maintaining all that goes with it? Especially when the position is already dutifully filled by the person Eret probably respects most. It's not like Astrid is going to step aside and let Fuse be the one to pack Eret's bag, if Fuse even thought of things like that reliably enough to volunteer.

Fuse has spent most of the last five years involved at least peripherally in the complicated web of Eret's parents and siblings and the thing that still overwhelms her the most is the number of perspectives Eret has to integrate into his decisions because he's so scared of disappointing someone. He tries to explain it to her, the contrasting fears and opinions and motivations that he either hates or believes or some twisted combination that makes her almost wary of the chaos he must hold in his head. There are three or four people in every decision or event meant for two and Fuse rests her hand on her stomach, nibbling on the block of cheese, afraid that she's just adding another one to the burden and confusion that Eret has to navigate everyday.

She lets that fear sink in, irrational and unavoidable and unproductive as worrying about it is. Getting through this is impossible, of course, because it'll never stop. The pressure, the diplomacy, the problems cascading onto him one by one will be constant and there's no way to cut off flow or dam it up. All she can do is support him the way she knows how, she can listen and talk him down. She can give him tools and hold him to the truth, even when he blows it so easily out of proportion. She's vaporized enough bedrock to know how to mimic it, the bigger question is if Eret knows how to stand on it.

Fuse snorts to herself and lays back on her bed, staring at the ceiling with her hand tapping rhythmically on her stomach.

Maybe the biggest question is if his mom will let him.

And suddenly, she finds herself understanding Eret in a way she never quite has before. She understand that urge to prove himself, to make people think that she's more than they did initially. She doesn't just want to support Eret, she wants to prove that all of Astrid's judgements about her were wrong, because if she wins that impossible approval, she'll understand her own path forward. She's going to make this easier on Eret, and she's going to do it first.

#open flames #eret iii #festerverse #feret #fuse thorston #fuse's pov is too powerful for a mere mortal to wield #also i love it because fuse is the only one on the planet who loves eret as much as i do

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