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shardpencil · 4 months ago

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Conspiracy theory time!!!

I know Odium's Champion theories are probably redundant at this point BUT i have one cooked up hot for you all. It's a long one.

Featuring Spoilers from all SA books and some minor spoilers from WaT previews..

Adolin will be TOdium's Champion!!!

Let's talk about it:

RAYSE VS TARAVANGIAN

I first want to draw attention to the differences between Rayse-Odium and Taravangian-Odium and their Champions. As the vessel of Odium has changed since Oathbringer, so must our perception of their chosen ones.

According to Hoid, Rayse was an awful person. He was cunning, ambitious, and often had selfish motives for wanting to obtain power and conquer the Cosmere. "Blackthorn" Dalinar made sense as Rayse's Champion, because as a young man, Dalinar's "passions" were selfishly motivated as well. Yes, he was helping his brother, but Dalinar did enjoy the wanton killing and longed for the feeling of the Thrill.

Taravangian carries himself differently as Odium. He has always been motivated by noble causes, such as saving his home city of Karbranth, knowing that he might have to do evil things to reach his end-goal. Even after he ascended, Taravangian holds on desperately to this notion that he alone has the power and willingness to reach the greater good in the end. I firmly believe that his pick for Champion must represent this very same philosophy.

BOOK EVIDENCE POINTING TO ADOLIN:

This first passage comes from WoR. Sadeas is talking about Adolin as he watches him duel:

We learn a few things from this

Sadeas thinks Adolin can be goaded into anger and is capable of making rash, impulsive decisions.

Adolin has less control of his "passion" than Dalinar. Plainly this means he has less self-control than his father. I also note the careful use of the word "passion", as it is used often in OB in association with Odium.

Now Sadeas is comparing Adolin to Dalinar--and not just Dalinar, but the Blackthorn.

What do you know? Sadeas proves himself correct by goading Adolin, threatening his family, and causing him to get angry and lash out. As Readers, we now know that Adolin is capable of extreme, impulsive actions--including murder--if the end goal is to protect his family.

I also think Adolin's wording here is very ominous "My father thinks I'm a better man than he is...he's wrong" Knowing what we now know about the kind of person Dalinar actually was in the past, the wording of this passage, in retrospect, reads eerily.

Then in Oathbringer,

He clearly has complex feelings around what he did. It's a little worrying that there was a part of him that actually enjoyed the physical sensation of killing Sadeas, but he at least has some shame about the act itself.

Interesting that he thinks of the sensation of stabbing right after thinking of his father, too.

Now we learnt hat Adolin doesn't feel sorry about what he did and says that he'd do "it again right now" (directly to Dalinar, no less). I think it's important to note here that he did it because "it needed to be done". He did it because specifically he thinks Dalinar never would, because he knows his line of thinking does not agree with his father's. In Adolin's mind, the destination was more important than the journey.

There was a part of him that was ashamed that he murdered someone, but that doesn't really matter--because he easily dismissed the whole act because it allowed him to achieve the optimal outcome.

Next, lets flash forward to RoW...

The passage above is from the last conversation between Dalinar and Adolin before Adolin leaves for Shadesmar.

This is where we start getting the hint that Dalinar sees something..off within his son. He says he's not disappointed in him, however, Dalinar's wording here implies that Adolin is not quite living up to his own expectations, morally (aka he's disappointed). This passage also reflects Adolin's words as he's killing Sadeas, when Dalinar says something along the lines of, "I want you to be...a better man than I was at your age." So many uses of the phrase "better man" are being thrown around specifically with Adolin and Dalinar.

This next passage I think is the most condemning. Here, Dalinar is placing Adolin and Taravangian in the same bucket, ideologically. Funny, since Taravangian literally becomes Odium later in the same book.

Shortly after this line Adolin does insist that he isn't like Taravangian and wants to carve his own path, however, his previous actions speak louder than his words and he certainly does not regret those actions.

I also think the highlighted line above foreshadows something darker in store for Adolin...in general. The consequences of this conversation did not come to pass in RoW, so we can only assume that it's going to go down in WaT.

Since the end of Oathbringer, anger has been building within Adolin, directed at his father.

Adolin recognizes that his own anger is volatile. He "doesn't trust it".

In the latest passages of WaT, Adolin reported that he assumed that his negative feelings would eventually wane, but he has instead become even more angry. I was a little surprised reading this, since it feels a little too intentional, too deliberate. Brandon is building up to something, but its not clear what that is.

What I'm thinking is that , this pain/anger will lead to an impulsive action on Adolin's part that he may regret making. He's already done it once before (though he had no regrets about that lol).

So Adolin has all this built up anger directed at Dalinar, and one of these days he's just going to snap, just like with Sadeas. I sincerely doubt Adolin would just straight up kill his father like he did with Sadeas, but I do think Adolin is capable of making some sort of stupid decision directly in opposition to Dalinar, in affirmation of his Consequentialist beliefs. Whatever this is, will likely be Adolin's downfall.

WHAT MAKES THE IDEAL CHAMPION FOR ODIUM

I fully think the optimal opponent to Dalinar has to have a few things:

Significance to Dalinar that forces him to NOT want to kill the champion and challenges his Idealism (this is the most important one IMO--this is the real "heart and soul" of the contest)

The capability to actually beat Dalinar in a fight

Significance to the audience (aka us, the Readers)

SO NOW ON TO THE CANDIDATES

A Fused

OC being a random Fused would make sense somewhat, however, this choice would be awful since they wouldn't have any meaning to Dalinar or us the audience. I think a Fused as champion would be such a letdown personally.

2. A Herald

Again, this might make some sense and would be a very formidable foe, but it just doesn't provide the emotional stakes for Dalinar or the Reader. A Herald as OC would likely not challenge Dalinar's existing ideology as strongly as some of the other candidates here.

3. Gavilar

This would be interesting. Brother vs brother would definitely satisfy condition #1, and potentially #2 and #3 depending on how invested he is. Overall, this pick just isn't giving enough of anything for me to support it. I just think we haven't gotten any evidence for this other than a faint ambition of Gavilar to become immortal and just being an absolutely shitty human being.

I think its theorized that hes somehow still alive, but IDK, there's just not enough evidence presently...and Gavilar just coming out swinging from the spiritual realm would be so bizarre. I love the stakes it creates between Dalinar and his brother though!

4. Moash

Yes, Moash has done some shit and works for Odium, but I think the only way he makes sense as Odium's Champion is if Kaladin somehow becomes Honor's Champion.

5. Gavinor

Probaby one of the more popular OC theories presently, because of that one quote from the WoK epigraphs.

“I hold the suckling child in my hands, a knife at his throat, and know that all who live wish me to let the blade slip. Spill its blood upon the ground, over my hands, and with it gain us further breath to draw. ”

This quote is often attributed to the Gavinor theory because it mentions killing a child. However, Gavinor is not "a suckling child"--he's older than that.

I think Gavinor as OC perfectly satisfies the conflict between Taravangian and Dalinar. Killing Gavinor would challenge Dalinar's personal worldview and force him to submit to Taravangian's. There's no way Dalinar will kill a kid, simply because killing an innocent child is wrong and there's no way around that within the confines of Dalinar's Idealism. Gavinor would also be easy to trick into making some agreement with Odium.

The only problem is, Gavinor is a CHILD. Dalinar could easily kill him if he wanted, and I'm not sure if T would take that chance, even if it means having Dalinar submit in ideology. I feel like each Champion must have at least some understanding of the philosophies they represent... Dalinar for Idealism, and OC for Consequentialism. Gavinor would not understand his role and the stakes involved and thus, I believe it would cheapen the whole experience.

As Readers, we are somewhat familiar with Ganivor, but whether he lives or dies to us is more of a question for Dalinar and the plot, leaving us to feel indifferent. We don't know who this kid is, and we haven't spent enough time with him to be truly emotionally invested in his fate.

6. Adolin

Adolin perfectly satisfies point #1. There is no way Dalinar is going to be comfortable with the prospect of killing his very own child. He may flat-out refuse to fight him, which would consequently void the contract and release Odium into the Cosmere.

(Probably inconsequential but, vaguely, I think the "suckling child" epigraph could fit Adolin. He isn't a child, but he is Dalinar's own child, and we even got a flashback chapter in OB where Adolin was literally a suckling child...anyway.)

Based on Adolin's recent developments , I believe he could champion Consequentialism (he's already teetered on the edge of it before in conversation with Dalinar). To reiterate, he is clearly the type of person to do anything, including murder, to protect those he loves. I could see Adolin and Dalinar's present argument turning into some big philosophical conflict that they'd have to work out on the top of Urithiru. The point here is that Adolin would actually be representing Taravangian's philosophy as his Champion, as well as challenging Dalinar simply for being what he is.

#2 Adolin is the best duelist in the world, and according to Brandon, one of the best swordsmen he has written (excluding Lan and immortals who have unfair experience). Unlike Dalinar, Adolin is a "regular person" and doesn't use any form of outright investiture. Dalinar on the other hand, does not wield a shardblade, and only has his Bondsmith powers. The match-up would be interesting to say the least: all magic vs all "physical". Opposing in fighting style as well as opposing in philosophy. I also think Dalinar would have a hard time winning if Adolin decided to go all-out for whatever reason.

Odium is going to want to make sure that if the plan to ensure Dalinar refuses to kill his champion falls through, that OC will not be easy to kill. This way, there is no possible way that Dalinar can actually win the contest. Adolin is the only opponent to Dalinar that can truly create this no-win scenario, making him the ideal pick over all of the others.

And #3... Adolin means EVERYTHING to us, he has been so many characters' rock, and he's been so important to us as the Readers. He's made us laugh and cheer and cry. Being in such a difficult position would hit so many emotional levels. This duel between champions is the one event these first five novels have been building to...I think that it has to pack one of the biggest punches Brandon has ever delivered.

OTHER THINGS THAT MAKE ME SUSPECT

Adolin isn't a Radiant. He's free real estate

He has death flags all over the place. Adolin is the type of character who means everything to everyone around him--his death or corruption would be the perfect plot device to ruin everyone's day and all their days to follow. Whether or not he becomes OC, i sincerely doubt he will make it through WaT alive.

I forget where exactly this is mentioned, but in the text Adolin says he was born "under the sign of nine". The number nine is associated with Odium and the Unmade.

Adolin seems to be associated with an Unmade, Ba-Ado-Mishram (BAM), in some way. Shallan, Renarin and Rlain will be looking for BAM during WaT, which makes sense because they can see into the Spiritual Realm, where BAM resides. However, Shallan reported seeing BAM in Adolin's shadow, which felt like a very intentional detail from Brandon. Odium's Champion has been known to have nine shadows...and there are nine Unmade. The Unmade seem to have a connection with OC as well, such as the Thrill and Dalinar. Adolin has slowly been "reviving" his deadeye Maya, and BAM had some involvement with the ancient Knights Radiant killing their spren and the deadeyes. There's definitely going to be some connection there. We also know that Odium's Champion can be seen from the Spiritual Realm, where Shallan, Renarin, and Rlain are looking for BAM and Adolin will have some involvement. Lots of suspicious pieces of evidence surround this plotline that I haven't quite pieced together, but they're there.

I would also like to point out that ADOLIN IS THE ONLY MAIN CHARACTER WHO IS A DUELIST. I personally see it criminal that he wouldn't be involved in this "contest" in some way.

SO HOW WOULD IT EVEN HAPPEN

He could get into an argument with Dalinar and volunteer to prove a point.

Similar to the first one: Adolin could volunteer...with the intent of killing himself or letting Dalinar kill him. I personally think this is the most interesting of all these scenarios

All of Adolin's built-up anger towards Dalinar could simply make him more malleable/easily tricked

Odium forces him into making a deal by threatening his loved ones.

Odium or BAM convinces Adolin that serving the side of Honor will bring the downfall of civilization and his loved ones. I'm kinda thinking in a similar way that the ancient Radiants and their spren abandoned their oaths and rejected Honor...but the full story has yet to be revealed here (which may happen in WaT)

I do not think Adolin will suddenly just "turn bad". If he does become OC, it will be because he is trying to be heroic, to do what he sees is the "right thing" and put the end-goal above the means to get there. Adolin has had disagreements with his father but he still loves him. And I definitely think Adolin is the type to be self-sacrificial, to put himself in harms way to let his father, brother, wife, friends, and the world live in peace.

Whatever ends up happening or not happening, there needs to be a lot of character work going on with Adolin to actually get to any of these points!

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

Obviously the problem with this whole theory is that it seems like Adolin is being set up to revive his shardblade, Maya, and become an Edgedancer. Personally, I think there's no room for Adolin to both become and Edgedancer and become OC. It feels like he's gotta go one way or the other.

So I'll just throw out some reasons why Adolin can't/shouldn't become a Radiant:

Every member of his family is a radiant--it's too redundant within the narrative.

Lift is our Edgedancer POV character, we don't really need another one.

Adolin works really well as a non-radiant

Even if Adolin revives Maya, does it necessarily mean that Maya will bond him and make him an Edgedancer?

Adolin is pretty expendable at the moment. What point is there to have him revive Maya with an unusual type of bond...just to die immediately?

To say the least, Adolin isn't a "journey before destination" kind-of person. He likely couldn't speak one of the most basic Radiant oaths.

Right now, Adolin-Edgedancer seems like a waaay more obvious path, which is why I'll say I am skeptical that it will actually happen the way we all think, especially since Adolin has this darkness within him that he still needs to address.

But, Adolin's train of thought does have a LOT of similarities to an Edgedancer's. He remembers those who have been forgotten--especially his mother and Maya. But you know who else "remembers the forgotten"? Yep, it's TOdium:

Lets look at the WaT interludes. Here, Taravangian-Odium is literally remembering the the children who died in some forgotten country. He also refuses to forget his old self, Taravangian, and let the shard of Odium consume him.

Note the similarity between the above passage and then the one below:

Both Taravangian and Adolin say that they feel like they are the only ones willing and capable of making "hard decisions" in order to stop the danger. This is the "dark side" that an Edgedancer, or any Knight Radiant for that matter, could never have.

Let's also explore the possibility that if Adolin does revive Maya completely and finishes that arc, that she will actually side against the current Knights Radiant...

"We chose!" were Maya's infamous words during the trial at Lasting Integrity. This confirmed that the Radiants and their bonded spren at the Recreance both willingly chose to abandon their oaths. The full reasons why they abandoned their oaths are still somewhat unclear. The Stormfather once reflected that it was because the ancient Radiants and their spren thought that by forsaking their oaths they would be saving the world.

There's no reason to believe that a revived deadeye spren such as Maya would actually want to reinstate those oaths upon revival or support the current Radiants in their fight. Maybe they would even side with Odium? If Honor committed some serious enough offense to have the bonded spren collectively on-board for suicide, it's fair to guess that they still wouldn't have a good opinion of him to this day.

ADDENDUM

I wrote the majority of this post before WaT chapters 16-17-18, so I'd like to add some additional evidence stemming from recent developments.

Let's start with some further conflict build-up:

Adolin takes this upon himself to fix this. Guess who also took it upon himself to save Kharbranth, who--only chapters ago--accepts the burden of saving everyone and fixing things?

This particular paragraph feels...unusually vicious for Adolin? Also, notice how similar what Adolin describes Dalinar doing is to what he himself did. Hear how this sounds when we replace one word, and it sounds like it could be an angry Dalinar talking down to Adolin:

"You always barrel forward. Doing whatever you want. Consequences be storming damned. Like you did years ago, killing Sadeas. And you never bothered to tell me."

One point Dalinar was particularly angry with son about was the fact that Adolin did not tell him that he killed Sadeas.

Adolin is so, so much like his father..and the version of him described here that Brandon is drawing attention to is, worryingly, the Blackthorn--the previous champion of Odium. Father and son are both hypocrites, but how can we be certain that Adolin will become the better man in the end, like Dalinar?

Interestingly, Adolin does recognize that perhaps his anger has gone too far. With the sheer amount of negative remarks out of Adolin this chapter, this felt like a welcome way of reeling in all of that. Yes he's mad, but he's not about to do something stupid...at least not now.

What I think Brandon is doing here is placing Adolin on this edge, where, to us, the character could swing one way or another--either Adolin gives in to his passion, or he learns to forgive his father. Teetering upon this edge, all Adolin needs is a push in the wrong direction (as Sadeas literally stated in WoR), and he can be brought to taking an extreme action. Again, this action doesn't need to be physically violent, but it will almost certainly be directed against Dalinar

WHY THOUGH?

Journey vs Destination is the heart of the first five books of the Stormlight Archive, and everything up until now has been leading to the infamous Contest of Champions. This duel doesn't need to be fought in a traditional sense with swords and sorcery, but what is important is that Dalinar and Taravangian's ideologies clash.

We understand Dalinar's side. Dalinar has a whole book about accepting the journey, growing to be a better person, and living his ideals.

We also understand Adolin's side. We probably cheered when Adolin "took out the trash" and killed Sadeas for the sake of protecting his family.

The point is that an Adolin vs Dalinar match-up will not just put the characters in conflict within the story, but it will also make the Reader stop and think about what they personally believe. With the contest painted in this way, both sides have perfectly valid points.

TO SUMMARIZE

Adolin is a Consequentialist, like TOdium

Adolin resembles an Edgedancer, but so does TOdium, so it could really swing either way. Plus maybe a revived Maya would side against Honor?

Adolin is pissed at his father, the alleged "Champion of Honor"

Adolin has a history of making rash decisions out when his anger reaches a breaking point

Adolin would be an ideal pick to challenge Dalinar's personal philosophy, he can hold his own in battle, and we care deeply about him...creating the perfect tragedy!

IN CONCLUSION

Adolin will be Odium's Champion, you heard it here!

THE AFTERMATH

So what happens next? I've been thinking about this a bit. What can be done with Adolin's character in the back five books if he does survive but has to live with the consequences of his shitty choices?

Adolin's present conflict with his father seems to be rooted from Dalinar killing his mother, which Adolin says he can never forgive.

In the next five books, Adolin is placed in Dalinar's shoes. Maybe at this point he regrets his decision, has to repair the damage he caused, and learns to forgive himself in the same way his father did (also--finally--forgiving his father in the process).

I really hope Adolin lives and gets to have his drink with Kaladin in Shallan. Maybe in Stormlight 10, they do get that ending :)

#wat spoilers #wind and truth #stormlight archive #cosmere #having my Alt Shift X crackpot theory moment #despite all the effort i put into this i still have my reservations about this actually happening #and in a few chapters this might all become irrelevant as Brandon throws us something from left field #still it was a fun write!

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suddencolds · 1 year ago

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The Worst Timing | [3/?]

part 3 (6k words)!! you can read [part 1] here! (it gets worse before it gets better). this chapter is more character-centric (sorry again 🙇‍♀️). i wanted to post this before work eats me alive this week T.T

this is an OC fic - here is a list of everything I've written w these two!

Summary: Yves invites Vincent to a wedding, in France, where the rest of his family will be in attendance. It's a very important wedding, so he's definitely not going to let anything—much less the flu—ruin it. (ft. fake dating, an international trip, downplaying illness, sharing a hotel room)

—

It’s fine, until it isn’t.

—

Yves gets home, showers first (only after Vincent insists that he shower first), heads out into the living room, and shuts off the lights. The lights in the bedroom are still on, bleeding in from the doorframe.

His head hurts. Every part of him feels cold. He burrows deep into the covers on the pullout bed, rearranges himself until he finds a sufficiently comfortable position, and shuts his eyes.

Tomorrow, he’ll be away for most of the afternoon—with the wedding rehearsal, and then the rehearsal dinner with the rest of his family—and Vincent will grab dinner and drinks with some of Genevieve’s friends in the meantime. Yves will probably be home late. They won’t see each other for the entire day—at least, until he gets back from dinner some time in the late evening.

Everything for the wedding is ready. His suit jacket is ironed, his shoes polished; his speech has been written for weeks and rehearsed first alone, and then in front of Leon and Victoire, who’d told him how to make it funnier (Leon) and more concise (Victoire). Two days from today, Aimee and Genevieve will be married.

All he has to do, now, is just see it through.

—

Yves wakes up coughing.

He feels distinctly wrong. His head is throbbing. His limbs feel strangely leaden, like they’re weighing him down, like it’d be a considerable inconvenience to move them—he isn’t sure if he’d be able to sit up properly.

He presses a hand to his forehead, in an attempt to gauge whether he’s running a fever. It’s no use—his hand is warm and clammy. He can’t tell.

Fuck. This is not good.

One wrong breath leaves him coughing, harshly enough that the coughs seem to reverberate through his frame. His throat burns. He reaches blindly through the dark in an attempt to find one of the waters he’d bought yesterday night, at the convenience store. Had he left a bottle on the nightstand? Or had he gotten rid of the one he’d drunk from last night? His breath hitches, so sharply that he has practically no hope of holding back.

“Hhehh’YISHh-CHHiew! hhHEHH’iIDTSSHh-iiEW!”

The sneezes tear through him with little warning, leaving him flushed and shivering. It’s not warm enough in the living room. He doesn’t know if it’s the air conditioning in the room, or the relative thinness of the blanket he’s under, or if perhaps the window is open just a crack, or if perhaps he just hasn’t been moving enough to get warm. He’s not sure he could pinpoint the cause if he tried.

The only thing that seems evident to him, now, is that he feels immediately, uncomfortably cold. He could get out of bed and look for something to wear—he hadn’t packed any thick jackets, because Provence in March isn’t especially cold, but even one of the dress jackets would be better than nothing, so long as it’s one of the ones which can withstand getting a little wrinkled.

But when he sits up—or, rather, when he attempts to sit up—he feels the world tilt, uncomfortably. He braces himself on the frame of the couch, propping himself up with one arm up on the armrest.

He definitely has a fever, even if there’s no way for him to verify that right now. Otherwise, it would be strange for him to feel so cold. Even now, only half-vertical, he finds himself shivering so hard he can barely move the blanket back up to sit comfortably around his shoulders.

One wrong breath sends a painful twinge down his throat, and he finds himself coughing, gripping the armrest tightly to keep himself upright. He should get out of bed. He should find water, put on a jacket, make an attempt to get back to sleep.

For now, all he can do is muffle the coughs as best he can into a cupped hand. His chest aches with every cough. Every breath he takes in feels like it only manages to irritate his lungs further.

Through the haze of his exhaustion, he thinks he hears footsteps. The knowledge that he’s keeping Vincent up is the last thing he needs, right now.

Through the crack under the doorframe, he can see the line of light from the hallway, which is lit even at night. Maybe if he’s going to be up anyways, he should spend the night out in the hallway—at the very least, he’ll be a little quieter out there.

Someone presses a bottle of water into his hands.

“Drink,” Vincent says. “It’s uncapped.”

Yves brings the water to his lips and takes a short, tentative sip, and then another. His throat is sorer than it had been yesterday—the water burns against the back of his throat as he swallows.

Vincent steps past him, past the edge of the couch, to do—something. Yves doesn’t know what. He hears a click, and the lamp on the cabinet by the sofa flickers on, floods the living room with dim yellow light. Vincent regards him carefully, his expression unreadable.

“Sorry,” Yves says. The next breath he takes in exacerbates the tickle at the back of his throat, and he twists away, muffling cough after cough into a tightly cupped hand. “I didn’t mbean to wake you.”

Vincent’s eyebrows furrow. He looks… upset, somehow, though the light is dim enough that his expression is hard to make out. Yves tries to think of what else he should say, but his head feels heavy.

He tries to re-cap the bottle of water, though his hands are shaky enough to make it a little difficult. Vincent takes the bottle from him and screws the cap tight in one fluid motion. Yves tries and fails to think of something to joke about.

Vincent presses a hand to his forehead. His hand is comfortingly warm, and a little calloused. It’s strange, how good it feels to be touched—he knows and knows well that it means nothing, but the gentle press of Vincent’s fingers to his skin—when he’s spent the past few days trying to keep his distance from everyone—is strangely comforting. Yves leans into the contact, despite all logic.

Vincent pulls away, too soon. “You’re—”

“Warm?” Yves finishes for him.

“Feverish,” Vincent clarifies, with a frown. “Did you already know that?”

“I had a hunch,” Yves answers, honestly.

Vincent just stares at him, for a moment, frustration evident in the set of his jaw. Yves repositions the blankets over his shoulders, a little self-conscious. “It’s fide. I’ll take something for it,” Yves says. “You should go back to sleep.”

“We slept early,” Vincent says. “I’m not tired.”

“What time is it?”

Vincent glances at his watch. “5:34.”

“That’s still early enough that you should be asleep.” Yves sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. His head hurts, and there’s a prickle in his nose again. “Sorry. I can be quieter.”

His breath hitches. In a frantic attempt to keep his promise, he lifts the blanket to his face and stifles—or, rather, attempts to stifle—the sneeze into the fabric.

“hh—! hhEHH’NGKTSHCH-iiew!”

It’s still not very quiet, despite his best efforts, and the attempt to stifle leaves him coughing a little. It’s a good thing they’re not sharing a bed, he thinks. He hasn’t exactly been careful about keeping this illness to himself.

“Bless you,” Vincent says, rising to his feet. He ducks into the bedroom, only to be back a moment later with a box of tissues, which he tucks into the crook between the pullout bed and the sofa armrests, conveniently in reach. “Was it like this last night?”

“What?”

“Were you unable to sleep last night?”

It’s not an accusation, but Yves freezes at the question, nonetheless. For a moment, he worries—that Vincent knows precisely how little sleep he’s gotten since they landed in France. That Vincent was awake last night—or worse, that Yves was the one who kept him up—which is why he’s asking this question now.

But if he knew, wouldn’t he have said something about it yesterday?

“I slept fine,” Yves says.

There’s a cold breeze coming in from somewhere—from the hallway, or from one of the air conditioning vents, he can’t say. Yves tries his best to suppress a shiver. He can tell, by the change to Vincent’s expression—the way Vincent’s eyes linger on him a little too long—that he doesn’t do it well enough.

“You should really have taken the bed,” Vincent says, with a sigh. “It’s warmer.”

“It’s warm here too,” Yves says. There probably wouldn’t even be a problem if he weren’t feverish—it’s just the relative temperature difference that’s making him shiver. “Are you goidg to stop interrogating me ndow?”

“If you stop giving me reasons to be worried,” Vincent says plainly, “Then I will.”

Yves sighs. He’s cold, and exhausted, and he wants this argument to be over. He doesn’t want to have to justify all of this to Vincent, who should be enjoying this vacation instead of worrying about Yves and whatever cold-slash-flu he’s managed to pick up this time. “This is not the first time I’ve been under the weather,” he says. “I—” he veers away to face the opposite direction from Vincent, pulls the blanket up to cover his face. “hHeh-!-hHEHh‘nGKTTSHH-iiIEw!”

“Bless you.”

“—I kdow what I’m doing, snf. I don't even feel that—hh… hHheh'iiDDZZCHH-iIIEW!” The sneeze comes on too quickly for him to stifle. “—that udwell,” he finishes, sniffling, though that’s not entirely truthful. He lifts an elbow to muffle a few coughs into it, blinking through the tears that are surfacing, irritatingly, in his vision.

“So you’ve said,” Vincent says.

“Yes,” Yves says. “You can trust me on this.”

Vincent looks at him for a moment. For a moment, Yves waits for him to refute this, waits for him to point out just how unprepared he is, just how little of a plan he has aside from sticking this out until he has the chance to crash and burn.

“What do you need?” he says, instead.

Yves blinks at him. It’s not the question he expects Vincent to ask.

“Nothidg,” he says, honestly. “Seriously. It’s just a cold. I’ll take somethidg for it when I wake up.”

“Cold medicine?” To Yves’s nod, Vincent says, “I can get it for you, if you want.”

“No need. I’ll probably just — hhEhh-! HhEHh’IITShh-iiEW! Ugh… I’ll pick somethidg up from the codvenience store on the way to breakfast.”

Vincent turns aside to muffle a yawn into a cupped hand. Yves is unpleasantly reminded that he’s probably the sole reason why Vincent is awake right now.

“You should sleep, seriously,” Yves says, insistent. “Maybe you’ll be able to squeeze in a few more hours of sleep before sunrise. I’ll be okay.”

Vincent blinks at him. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay,” Vincent says, softly.

Then he stands, sets the bottle of water on the cabinet by the sofa, switches off the lamp, and heads back into the bedroom. Yves listens as his footsteps recede. His sinuses are starting to feel like they’re slightly waterlogged, and the pressure from behind his eyelids is back, throbbing.

The tickle in his nose heightens, momentarily, and he finds himself muffling another set of sneezes into the bedsheets. He desperately hopes it’s quiet enough to not be disruptive. It’s hard to be fully quiet when whatever he has leaves him sneezing so forcefully, but he’s determined to try.

The coughing fit that follows leaves his throat feeling like it’s been nearly scraped raw. He clears his throat quietly, though that hurts, too. He takes another small sip of the water, though it goes down his throat with such difficulty he finds himself coughing again.

Two more days. He just has to make it through. He’ll grab a pack of cold and flu medication from the convenience store downstairs—the kind that’s supposed to smother all the symptoms—and then he’ll be good as new, he’s sure.

Yves shuts his eyes, turns to the side, and tries his best to get comfortable. He’ll be less disruptive if he’s asleep. It’s just getting there that’s the problem. He’s exhausted—that fact only seems to become more evident the longer he stays awake—but every time he finds himself drifting off, he’s jolted awake by another untimely sneeze which wrenches him back into consciousness.

In college, whenever he was up unreasonably late for some reason, Erika used to tell him to Stop worrying, Yves, I can hear you overthinking from the other side of the room. Ask anyone else and they’d say that Yves has his life reasonably put together—being the eldest of three does that to you. He’d spent his formative years growing up trying to be the sort of person Leon and Victoire could lean on—the kind of person impervious to the sorts of stressful situations he’d gotten regularly thrown into—and for the most part, it’d worked.

He’d learned, early on, that it is not really that difficult to keep things from people. He likes to think of himself as reliable, even if that means that whenever something does come up—something that feels frustrating and insurmountable—it doesn’t really hurt any less when he goes through it privately.

Erika had always been good at seeing through his bullshit. It was one of the things he liked about her—that he could lean on her if he needed to, without worrying that it’d take its toll on her. That she’d take a look at his problems, which always felt so all-consuming in the moment, and make them seem simple and solvable and almost trivial.

It’s hard not to miss her, now, when he’s alone in the dark, devoid of any and all distractions. Or maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe it was just having someone he didn’t have to hide from.

Yves wonders, faintly, what Vincent would’ve said if he were more honest with him. He and Vincent aren’t actually dating, but he thinks maybe Vincent would understand. He thinks that they’ve been getting along well, as of late—he might even consider them friends.

But then again, hasn’t Vincent agreed to do all of this—lying to Yves’s friends and family, falsifying their relationship, letting Yves drag him from one celebration to the next—because it’s easy? Because he is willing to tolerate going to a party, or a housewarming, or a wedding, where there are no strings attached, when after the night is over he can drop the act cleanly?

It’s a lie that they’re telling, but it’s a self contained one. The moment they step foot out of whatever event they’re attending, there’s nothing left to pretend. Yves can go back to living his own life, and Vincent can go back to living his. Would Vincent really have agreed to do any of this if that weren’t the case?

It’s going to be fine, Erika would have said. Just breathe. She’s not around to tell him this, now, but he still tries.

The medicine will be enough to get him through today, and the day after. It has to be.

—

When Yves falls asleep, it’s the kind of restless sleep that sits somewhere in between unconsciousness and wakefulness. He dreams in fragments of scenes—him at Aimee and Genevieve’s wedding, the details hazy and illogical and unusually bright, the weddings he’d been to in the past all superimposed into one.

When he wakes up to the sound of his alarm, it’s to a pounding headache and what he’s certain must be a fever. He can’t seem to stop shivering. It’s already bright out—the curtains in the bedroom are pulled shut, but light streams in from the sliver of space between them.

He feels too cold and somehow entirely devoid of energy, though he doesn’t remember doing anything particularly tiring. Sitting up makes the throbbing pain in his head sharpen, so painfully that he has to grip the side of the couch to steady himself, blinking against the dizziness. If Aimee saw him right now, he thinks, she’d send him straight home—he’s in no state to attend a wedding, and he’s not sure if he’s in any state to pretend that’s not the case.

He breath hitches. He raises an arm to shield his face, habitually, even though there’s no one here to witness—

“hhEhh-’iZZSSHH’Iew!” The singular sneeze is, unfortunately, far from relieving. The tickle in his nose is irritatingly persistent, even when he reaches up to rub his nose, which is starting to run. “Hh-! hhEH-!! HEHh-’IDDZSCHh-yYew! hHEHH’iDDSCHh-iEWW!hhEhH-! H‘IIDzZCH-YIIIEEew! Ugh…” The sneezes scrape unpleasant against his already-sore throat, leaving him hunched over as he muffles cough after cough into his arm.

There’s a small packet of cold medicine on his bedside, along with an uncapped bottle of water, and Vincent is nowhere to be found. The medication is a relief. It’s strangely thoughtful—a part of him is a little worried that Vincent’s only gotten this for him out of a sense of obligation—but he’s grateful for it, nonetheless.

It’s exactly what he needs. Surely if he takes something for this, his symptoms will be, at the very least, tolerable enough for him to function as usual.

He picks up the packet, squints down at the instructions. The text is inconveniently small, and he’s always been better at speaking French than he is at reading it, but he gets it eventually. It’s supposed to last six hours. If he times this right, he can take a dose that will last him until the end of the rehearsal dinner tonight, and then—if he’s not feeling better by tomorrow—take another before the wedding starts.

It will be fine. He uncaps the bottle by the cabinet, downs two pills, squeezes his eyes shut, and sits there for a minute, forces himself to breathe, waits for the uncomfortable pressure in his temples to subside.

Then he shoots off a quick text—

Y: thanks for the cold meds :)

Y: sorry i essentially left you with some strangers (again)

Y: this seems to be a theme for me huh

Vincent texts him back just a few minutes later:

V: No problem. I hope you feel better soon

V: Leon and Victoire invited me out for lunch

Yves blinks. That’s a little surprising. But come to think about it, Vincent’s plans with Genevieve’s friends aren’t until dinner time, so it makes sense that he’s out doing something else.

His second thought is: he is definitely in for an earful from both Leon and Victoire.

Y: jealous! have fun!

His phone buzzes not long later with Vincent’s response.

V: I considered waking you, but I figured you could use the sleep

V: Do you want me to bring anything back?

Sure enough, when he checks his unread texts, Leon has texted him, are u alive????? And then, a few minutes later, ur sick? dude worst fucking timing ever 😦, to which Yves types back, thanks for your glowing reassurance

Victoire has sent him, vincent told me you’re sick :((( and, feel better soon (preferably before 3pm tomorrow!!), to which Yves says, thanks, fwding this to my body. hope it gets the message ✌️

Then he sends back to Vincent:

Y: i’m good, but thanks for asking! enjoy lunch

Vincent doesn’t say anything, to that, which means that he’s probably busy. Yves makes a note to thank him in person later. And again, much later—when all of this is over.

He just has to get the next day and a half to go according to plan.

—

The wedding rehearsal is mercifully uneventful. They walk twice through the processional, and then twice through the recessional. Yves picks a seat near one of the back rows, shivers through thirty minutes of run throughs, and tries to cough as discreetly as he can. He stifles every sneeze into a vague approximation of silence—he’s never been good at stifling—and does his best to ignore the mounting congestion in his sinuses, the persistent ache behind his temples.

It's easy enough to ignore all of those things in his excitement. He’s happy to be back—here, in France, surrounded by his whole extended family A part of this still feels unreal to him. He’s really here, in a place that feels familiar and simultaneously so novel, to watch someone who’s influenced him so fundamentally get married.

They’re all dressed for the spring weather. For the wedding rehearsal, Yves picked out a gray blazer over a dress shirt, chinos, and dress shoes. It’s not quite as formal as what he’s planning to wear tomorrow—the shoes are the only item he’s planning to rewear—but he finds himself distinctly grateful for the blazer jacket when the wind threads through the trees, knocking his tie slightly out of alignment.

It’s not unusually cold out—this would probably be considered temperate weather here, in March—but the wind is cold enough to offset the otherwise agreeable temperature.

The cold medicine helps, too—it keeps him feeling well enough to stay upright, which is already an accomplishment. He’s congested—his sinuses hurt a little, like everything’s a little waterlogged—but at least he isn’t sneezing as much as he was last night. His head still feels heavy, but the pain is a little duller, a little more muted; he’s tired, but he thinks right now he could stay awake on pure adrenaline alone.

“Dude, you sound awful,” Leon says, after the rehearsal ends.

“Thadks,” Yves says, muffling a fit of coughs into his elbow. “You always kdow just how to flatter me.”

Leon looks him over with a frown. “Are you sure you’re good for tomorrow?”

Yves doesn’t know. “Let’s hope so,” he says. “I don’t have any contingedcy plans for if I’m not.”

“I’m sure Aimee would understand if you told her.”

“I’m sure she would.” Yves looks over to where Aimee’s standing—she’s in the middle of a conversation with Yves’s parents and some of the adults on Genevieve’s side of the family. He’s too far to make out what she’s talking about, but she looks happy—she’s gesturing animatedly, her eyes bright. Every so often, he sees her flash a smile at Genevieve, as if to make sure Genevieve is following along.

Leon seems to understand that Yves has no intention of telling either of them, because he sighs. Yves changes the subject before he can say anything. “How was ludch with Vincent?”

“I like him,” Leon says, brightening at the question. “He’s surprisingly pretty funny. I hope you guys stay together.”

“Just because he’s funny?”

“That certainly doesn’t hurt,” Leon says, grinning. “But you work with him, right? If he’s a nice person while he’s looking at like, tax forms, or whatever, he’s probably a great person when he’s doing anything else.”

“Yves! Leon!” someone waves them over. When Yves turns, he sees it’s Roy, one of his younger cousins from his dad’s side of the family. “Pictures!”

“Coming,” Leon shouts back.

Yves has no idea why there are pictures happening today when the wedding is tomorrow, but he fixes his tie hastily and heads over to join them both.

—

When dinner rolls around, Yves finds he has no appetite, but he eats what he can and spends the rest of the time making conversation with some of his aunts and uncles. He’s always found this kind of small talk to be more enjoyable than it is tedious. They ask about his job, about his workload, about life in the states, about his parents, about Vincent—all things that he knows intimately, and has no problem speaking on. He thinks that speaking in French makes him a little more deliberate with his answers, partially because he has to spend some time formulating the sentences when they get more complicated, and he likes that, too. It has all the camaraderie of a family gathering—warm and crowded, welcoming, a little chaotic.

He finds Genevieve after dinner, sitting out on the steps.

“Hey,” he says, in French. She looks up, and he motions to the steps beside her. “Do you want some time alone before you get swamped with codgratulations tomorrow, or can I crash your alone time early?”

She smiles up at him. “You can sit here,” she says.

He takes a seat on the steps—a few feet away from her, because he doesn’t want to risk passing whatever he has onto her. He doesn’t know Genevieve very well. He knows her best through Aimee—through the stories Aimee has told about her, through the way Aimee’s entire disposition seems to change around her—but he’s exchanged very few words with her outside of that, all over the summer during their yearly family reunions in France. His extended family is large enough and the family reunions hectic enough that he can probably count the number of conversations he’s had with her in person on one hand.

“So,” he says. “How are you feelidg before the big day?”

“Do you want the good answer, or the honest answer?”

“The honest one,” Yves says. “hit me with it.”

For a moment, Genevieve doesn’t say anything. Yves zips his jacket up a little higher, just to have something to do. Genevieve pulls her legs in towards her chest.

“I’m terrified,” she says.

“You think somethidg might go wrong?” Yves asks, surprised. “You guys have planned this all out so thoroughly.”

“It’s not that,” she says. “It’s more like—this is probably going to be one of the most important things I’ve ever done,” she says. “You know, when something is really important to you, so it’s just that much more crucial that you don’t mess it up?”

“You’re the bride,” Yves says, clearing his throat. “I don’t think you can mess up. Unless you like, hheh-! hHheh… HEH’IIDZschH-YIEEW! snf-! Unless you get cold feet and say no when you’re supposed to be saying your vows. I wod’t forgive you if you do that, by the way.”

She laughs. “God, no. I’d never do that. It’s just—there’s all this perceived… I don’t know. Like, fragility around the moment. Like you’re just waiting for the moment to crystallize, and once it sets, it will be like that forever, so you have to make sure that it crystallizes right.”

“I’m guessing you’re ndot a fan of, like, pottery,” Yves says. He tries thinking about what other kinds of art carry the same lack of tolerance for backwards revision. “Or sculpting.”

“I haven’t tried either of those things,” she says. “Though I would probably be bad at them.”

Yves looks off into the distance, towards the countryside, the rows of verdant green hills which unfurl before them, the white cobblestone paths, the houses lining the winding roads all the way to the horizon.

“I think you don’t have to be so concerned about what it’s supposed to be,” he says. “You can give yourself permission to just—live it. Enjoy it, free of expectations. Who cares what you think about it after, right,” he says. “You’ll have a ring on your left hand. That’s good enough to offset any—well, awkwardness, or clumsiness, or anything, because as the bride, you are sort of incapable of doing anything wrong, by default.”

“I guess,” Genevieve says.

“It’d be a disservice to Aimee if you spent the wedding worrying about how to get things right idstead of like, just living,” Yves says, turning to face her. “What’s the worst that could happen? Like, you spill your drink during the wedding toast, or your mascara smears a little, or you trip on your wedding gown and you have to be helped up by the woman you love most? I think that almost makes it more romantic,” he says. “Because however the moment crystallizes, it’ll be you.”

“Did you learn all of this through pottery and sculpting?” Genevieve asks, wiping at her eyes. She looks a little better than before—she’s sitting up straighter, and the tension in her shoulders is less pronounced.

Yves grins at her. “I have a younger brother and a younger sister,” he says. He clears his throat again, though it doesn’t really do a good job at making his voice sound less hoarse. “It’s exactly as bad as you think it is. I have to be the one to talk them out of their stage fright like, all the time.”

Genevieve laughs. “It must be lively,” she says. “Your whole family is very accommodating.”

“They’re certaidly a handful,” Yves says, with a laugh that tapers off into a short cough. “I love them to death. And I’ll be happy to have you as part of them.”

She smiles at him. The evening light strikes the windblown strands of her hair gold. “Thanks for this.”

“Yeah,” he says. “No problem.”

They sit for awhile in silence. Yves crosses his arms in an attempt to conserve warmth and tries his best not to shiver too visibly.

“How did you kdow it was her?” he asks—a sudden, impulsive question.

As soon as he says it, he feels the urge to take it back. Genevieve is already stressed out enough about the wedding without him asking her difficult, abstract questions the day before the ceremony. He opens his mouth to apologize.

“There was never any doubt,” she says.

When he looks over at her, her expression looks a little wistful.

“Like, one day I woke up and I realized that whatever future I imagined for myself—in Marseille, or elsewhere; as a copywriter, or a journalist, or a director, or something entirely different—she would always be there.” Yves understands that—back when he’d been dating Erika, he’d felt like that too. That she was going to be the last person he’d ever date. That there was no conceivable future for him that didn’t involve her.

“Those kinds of revelations would come at the most insignificant of times,” Genevieve says. “I’d look over her halfway through morning coffee, or I’d watch her pick groceries from the aisle, or I’d watch her fiddle with the radio as she drove, and then it would strike me.”

“That you wanted to be with her?”

“That I was happy.” Genevieve tilts her head back to face the setting sun. “I’m really happy. It sounds like such a simple thing, and it is, but even a few years ago I’m not sure if I could’ve told you that that was true. And I think that finding someone who makes you feel that way—like they’d guard your happiness under any circumstance—is really something special.”

“You were the one who proposed to her,” he says. He remembers Aimee texting him about it, the night after it’d happened, remembers how he’d excused himself from dinner somewhere or other, ducked out of the room to get on call with her. She’d sobbed recounting it, the engagement ring on her finger.

“I was,” Genevieve says. She smiles. “I knew that if I gave up this chance I’d be kicking myself for it for the rest of my life.”

—

When he gets back from dinner at last, it’s late.

The cold/flu medicine he took from earlier is starting to wear off. His whole body aches—spending the evening outside in the cold probably didn’t help with that—and even in the relative warmth of the hotel room, he finds that he can’t stop himself from shivering.

He takes a hot shower, which feels pleasantly indulgent in the moment, but not long after he shuts off the water, he finds himself shivering again. The absence of the hot water makes him a little dizzy—he finds himself gripping the tiled wall, pausing for a moment behind the shower curtain to catch his balance.

His head really hurts. It’s the kind of sharp, throbbing pain that makes him all too aware of his heartbeat. He gets changed, towels his hair dry, and steps out of the bathroom.

Vincent is sitting on the bed, reading something. He must’ve gotten back at some point while Yves was showering. At the sound of the door, he puts the book down and looks up.

“How was the wedding rehearsal?” he asks.

“Great,” Yves says. He clears his throat, but clearing his throat irritates his throat enough that he has to muffle a few coughs into his elbow. “How was dinner with Genevieve’s friends?”

“They were very nice,” Vincent says.

“Ndicer than my friends in New York?”

“I felt less like I was being evaluated,” Vincent says, with a smile. “But if they were to express their disapproval of me in French, I would be none the wiser.”

Yves laughs. “I’mb sure that even if you learned the ladguage in full, you wouldn’t hear any disapproval from them.” He takes a seat on the couch, if only because he can’t quite trust his legs to keep him upright for the entire course of the conversation. “What did you guys talk about?”

“Lots of things. Life in France,” he says. “Life in the states. Individual freedom and the formal institution of marriage.”

“Do you believe in mbarriage?”

Vincent looks at him. “I think I believe in it just as much as everyone else does,” he says. Then, after a moment: “It worked out for my parents.”

“The busidess competition proved to be a good edough reason?”

Vincent traces a finger down the spine of the book, over the gold lettering. His shoulders settle. “They weren’t in love when they got married,” he says. Hearing him state it so plainly comes as a surprise to Yves. “Strictly speaking, I’m not sure if they ever were in love. But I think they came to love each other eventually.”

“What about you?” Yves asks. “Do you think you’ll fall in love someday?”

“Is that really something I’d choose?” Vincent says. “It either happens or it doesn’t.”

“Sure, but there are plenty of ways you can seek out love actively.”

“If I found something worth pursuing, I’d go after it,” Vincent says.

Yves laughs. “That’s very like you.” he wonders what kind of person Vincent might be drawn to enough to see as worth pursuing. Wonders if, after all of this is over, he’ll even be in Vincent’s life for long enough to know.

His head hurts. The slight prickle of irritation in his sinuses is already tiringly familiar.

“hHEh… HeHh’IIDZSCH-yyiEW!” The sneeze snaps him forward at the waist, messy and spraying. He reaches for the tissue box Vincent left him this morning, still nestled into the crook of the couch, and grabs a generous handful of tissues. “Hh… hehh-HEh-HhehHh’IIzSSCH-iEEw! Hh…. HEHh’DJSCCHh-IEew!”

The sneezes leave him coughing, afterwards. His throat feels raw and tender—he raises the tissues back up to his face to blow his nose.

“You sound worse than you did last night,” Vincent says, with a frown.

Yves opens his mouth to speak, but he finds himself coughing again. He can feel Vincent’s eyes on him. It’s embarrassing, he thinks, to be seen when he’s like this by someone who’s usually so well put together. “I’b a little prone to losidg my voice when I’m sick,” he admits. “It’s pretty incodvedient.”

“I’m probably not making it any better by talking to you,” Vincent says. That might be true—Yves is half sure that any time he does lose his voice, it’s because he typically makes no effort to converse any less than usual—but Yves likes talking to Vincent. Besides, they haven’t talked all day.

He opens his mouth to say as much, but then Vincent asks: “How are you feeling?”

“Good as new,” Yves says. When Vincent raises an eyebrow, at that, he amends: “Good enough for tomorrow, at least. The ceremony doesn’t start until three, but I’ll probably be up earlier to see if there’s anything else Aimee and Genevieve ndeed help with.”

Vincent’s eyebrows furrow. “If anything comes up, I can help.”

“It’s fine,” Yves says. “I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

“You don’t have to ask. I’m offering.”

“I can handle it on my own. Even if it doesn’t seem like it, I— hHHEh’IDJZSCHh-yyEW! snf-! I’mb really fine. I swear.”

“Yves—”

“I’ve done this before,” he insists, which is true, too—he’s certainly been through worse. It would be wrong to put himself first, to take things easy when he might be needed still. “It doesn’t have to be your problem.”

For a moment, there’s something there, to Vincent’s expression—a flash of something that looks suspiciously close to hurt. Then it’s gone. When he blinks, Vincent’s expression is carefully neutral, as usual. He wonders if he’d imagined it.

“Okay,” he says. He sets the book gingerly on the bedside counter, and pulls the cord on the lamp. Darkness engulfs the bedroom. “You should sleep soon, if you’re able to.” A pause. The rustling of sheets. “Goodnight.” Yves wants to say something. He has a feeling that he’s messed things up, somehow, though he’s not entirely sure how.

But what can he say? He just—he just wants, desperately, for all of this to be okay. He wants the wedding to go just as planned, wants to be as present and as reliable as Aimee deserves for him to be. All of that responsibility falls on him and him alone, doesn’t it?

“Goodnight,” Yves says, instead.

[ Part 4 ]

#sneeze fic #snz fic #sneeze kink #snz kink #snzfic #this chapter turned out to be kind of personal to me in some ways?#i am so sorry if it feels uneventful 😭#i have done so much googling on so many things that did not make it in (and a few that made it in only peripherally)#work is killing me and i am stressed out of my mind so i am posting this before i get swept away and am unable to edit for a week #next chapter will be the wedding for real!#and i will be mean for real when i get to writing it 🙇‍♀️#yvverse #my fic #thank you to anyone who has left nice tags/comments on previous parts :') it's hard to express the full extent of my gratitude but #thank you for making my life a little happier

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