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 Posted: Sun May 18, 2025 5:16 pm
Backdated to the end of April. The longer Yvoire tried to reconcile his feelings, the more often he swung between reckless bravado and painful awkwardness. He never quite knew how he’d feel from one day to the next, if he would find it easy to reach out to Reims or if he’d chicken out at the last second. Before becoming a knight, he hadn’t had any long term friends. He’d never had to navigate hurt feelings and disintegrating relationships beyond surface level acquaintances.
The day they made plans to go up to their Wonders together, two weeks after the battle against the Calamitous Hollow, Yvoire had shifted away from the nervous tension to something like flinty determination. (Whether or not it was temporary remained to be seen.)
“I haven’t really gotten a good look at my outfit yet,” he said once they arrived at Yvoire.
They were in Ellis’ room—the place Yvoire had chosen for most of his comings and goings, given its increasing familiarity and relative comfort. The room was in a much better state than it had been on Yvoire’s first visit. Most of the furniture had been repaired. The windows were intact. Even the fireplace looked to be in working order, but Yvoire hadn’t wanted to risk it yet. Soon, maybe. The air had gotten progressively more chilly as the trees in the distance gained more color.
Yvoire took off his large hat and tossed it on the bed, grateful at least that it wasn’t the gleaming crown from Ellis’ memories.
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2025 5:17 pm
They were trying. Or at least Yvoire was trying to consider giving Reims the time of day, and Reims was trying not to screw things up more. Okay, maybe that was a bit of a dramatization on Yvoire’s part, but it was difficult for Reims to know where the line was drawn, what lines had already been crossed, and what had been built into an impassable wall.
He wanted things to be like they were before, but he knew that would never happen. There was a part of him that festered with guilt and regret that told him to just let Yvoire cut whatever lingering ties they had left. Maybe Yvoire would be happier for it. It wasn’t what Reims wanted, but he’d given up on expecting to get what he wanted, especially after everything.
“I guess that’s pretty standard,” he suggested with a small shrug. “I mean, coming into more power when you don’t have a chance to see the physical changes.”
He’d been stabbed with Yvoire’s broken parasol handle soon after he’d become a Knight. It wasn’t exactly the same, but it wasn’t like they had mirrors up wherever the Calamitous Hollow had been.
Oh, except that one giant mirror-like scale that anchored it down with some giant arrow and chain, but that was fine and not concerning at all.
Reims smoothed out his expression from the grimace he wore from his thoughts of that night and turned his attention to Yvoire.
“Uh… but you look nice.” He was pretty sure he said that when he first saw him, but the night had been a blur. He’d been more surprised to see him at all than to see his outfit had evolved.
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2025 5:17 pm
“Thanks,” Yvoire said.
He didn’t squirm. He didn’t duck his head. His voice didn’t dip into a mumble. He couldn’t be sure how long this sudden, unexplained burst of confidence would last (probably not very, given his history), but he had every intention of making the most of it while he had the reins on it.
A large, antique mirror—all pristine glass and gilded edges—stood in one corner of the room near a wooden wardrobe. Yvoire stepped toward it to get a better look at the changes more power had brought to his outfit. He could feel some of them—a heaviness around his shoulders; a warmth and a subtle stiffness that spoke of extra layers; cool air against a greater portion of his thighs—but the mirror provided a much different perspective than looking down at himself.
“I think it’s real fur,” Yvoire said of the cape, running his fingers over part of the ermine trim. He cringed and yanked his hand away before he could start fiddling with one of the black tails. “I think Ellis was wearing this in one of the memories I had. The cape.”
Yvoire felt along the beaded chain going from shoulder to shoulder and from shoulder to hip until he figured out how it was fastened. Removing the cape came as something of a relief. He draped it over the back of a nearby chair, admiring the quality of the fabric.
“How do you like my coat?” he asked, turning in front of the mirror to take it in from multiple angles. “Now we’ve both got gloves.”
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2025 5:18 pm
Reims watched as Yvoire walked over to the large mirror, but he was trying not to stare or be weird. He glanced around, taking in what he could of the room that he knew once belonged to Ellis. The Knight who apparently knew whoever Reims had been in the past. He didn’t know what their relationship was, or if it was just acquaintances, but he doubted they were strangers given the proximity of their wonders.
Given the circumstances of their lives.
If Reims was where the royalty were crowned, according to Ganymede, and Yvoire had some kind of memory of him wearing a cape that, at least on Earth, was usually reserved for royalty, well…
“Huh?” he blinked, looking up from somewhere around where the sheer stockings ended around Yvoire’s thighs. His ears burned a little as he shrugged and glanced down at his own gloves before awkwardly crossing his arms over his chest.
“Oh, yeah, it looks nice,” he quickly answered without really thinking about it. Yvoire’s jacket was nice, now that he was looking at it. Now that the cape had been moved out of the way. It had coattails of dark red. Definitely a new addition to the outfit he wore before.
“We must have had the same tailor,” he half grinned, trying to make it less obvious that he might have been staring at something other than the piece of clothing Yvoire was asking about. He gestured vaguely to the sparkly black they both had on their outfits.
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2025 5:18 pm
Yvoire looked at Reims’ reflection and zeroed in on his reddening ears. How much would it take for that color to spread over Reims’ face?
Yvoire took a quiet, settling breath. He kept the suspicion off his own face and made sure there wasn’t a glimmer of interest or skepticism in his eyes. He tugged at his sparkling lapels like he was pulling the jacket into place. The red was new. Each time he gained power, he seemed to gain a new color, too.
“It’s giving I Can Do It With a Broken Heart, but red,” Yvoire said, and sang, “I’m so depressed I act like it’s my birthday~” while doing a little dance in front of the mirror. He eyed Reims again after, ignoring the shy twist his stomach gave. “You probably wouldn’t get that reference.”
He walked a few steps like he needed to get used to the coattails flapping around his thighs, but ultimately ended up right back where he’d started. Yvoire peeled the jacket from his shoulders and down his arms, tossing it onto the chair with less care than he’d shown the cape. He tugged on the vest beneath, altered a bit from his Squire outfit. The bow at his neck was shorter. The shirt beneath looked a little more embellished.
The sparkly fabric around his hips remained, sheer enough to see his figure through it. Yvoire pulled it out of the way anyway and followed the line of the ruffled bottoms with his fingers.
“The bottoms are giving the Midnights bodysuits post Travis,” he said, turning like he was trying to get a look at his own a** in the mirror, except his eyes were locked on Reims’ face. “You probably wouldn’t get that reference either.”
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2025 5:19 pm
Reims frowned a little, feeling like he was missing something. Yvoire was acting strange. Not that there was anything wrong about him singing or dancing around, but he hadn’t expected it from him. He was usually much more reserved. Quiet. Gentle in a way that hid his strength.
While he didn’t fully understand the references, it wasn’t as though he lived under a rock. And he knew more about Yvoire’s interests, so it was easy to piece the context together.
He glanced around a little as Yvoire adjusted and then took off his jacket. He looked at the old paintings on the walls, and the windows that had been repaired. He could see Reims from there, and part of him wondered if that was purposeful.
Every so often, he glanced back at Yvoire, watching how he was inspecting himself in front of the mirror. Testing out the jacket with the coat tails, and now tugging on the sparkly fabric that-- well… there was probably a reason why his outfit came with a full jacket and cape. His thighs were exposed but his shorts -- if he could even call them that -- seemed to be cut a little higher than he would have expected them to be.
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2025 5:19 pm
“It’s not so bad,” Yvoire said, tracking the direction of Reims’ gaze through the mirror. “Still more coverage than a dance belt or a jock strap. Less restrictive than the shorts I used to have. Not that the shorts were bad.”
Yvoire righted himself, allowing Reims a full view. His heart skipped a few times, feeling a little too bold, unable to squash the shyness entirely even if he did a good job of not showing it. As a dancer, Yvoire was used to his body being under scrutiny. He wasn’t used to another boy looking at it the way Reims did—furtive, but intent when he let his gaze land.
A quizzical frown touched the corners of Yvoire’s mouth. He let the sheer fabric drop back into place, but it did little to conceal anything. Gloved hands dropped to his thighs, fiddling with the black garter belts. He paused to adjust one of the sparkling stockings, watching Reims while pretending to watch himself.
Then he bent over and pretended to adjust his boots, tugging at one of them like they weren’t a perfect fit (they were).
“At least I don’t have to get used to new shoes,” he said. “I wonder if red bottoms meant anything on Ganymede. Like if they were a designer thing. Yours have red bottoms, too.”
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2025 5:19 pm
He was content to let Yvoire inspect himself in the mirror. How was he not supposed to look when Yvoire was just… showing everything off? The fluttering of sparkly ruffles was one thing as it fell down around the backs of Yvoire’s thighs, but Reims felt a breath catch in his throat when Yvoire decided to bend over.
Reims almost looked away, but Yvoire was just adjusting his boots. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself. Especially not when he was certain the flush from his ears had already crept onto his cheeks.
Oh, should he say something about his shoes? He hadn’t noticed them being red on the bottoms. Casually, he glanced down, lifting up his foot just enough to see. Ah, Yvoire was right. How he noticed at all was a mystery. Although he supposed he had plenty of time when he was on the ground, bleeding out.
He’d always thought that Yvoire was cute. Pretty. Attractive. He just hadn’t understood what his feelings were. Not that they mattered. And not that he particularly understood them now. And he definitely wasn’t thinking about the differences between a dance belt and jock strap, the former of which he had no experience with, but the latter he did, and how they compared to Yvoire’s new outfit.
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2025 5:20 pm
Reims probably thought he was being surreptitious. Or maybe he didn’t notice his own staring. He looked a little out of it while lifting his own shoe, like he was going through the motions—interested but not fully invested. Distracted. Reims hadn’t said anything for the last couple of minutes. He stood and he watched, gaze falling then lifting then falling again, face acquiring more color by the second.
The silence was what proved to Yvoire that his developing suspicions weren’t completely without merit. If Reims had something scathing to say, he would have said it.
Yvoire straightened again. The frown hadn’t left his face, but his eyes sparked triumphantly, like he’d proved something—like he’d meant to prove something and was pleased to be right.
“I knew it,” he said.
Part of him wanted to stalk over to Reims and shove it in his face. Yvoire remained at the mirror instead, still watching him through it. He kept his voice neutral when he wanted to be accusatory, careful not to scare Reims off or put him on the defensive.
“I knew it as soon as I saw that picture with Julian on your phone. You made fun of him, too, didn’t you? And you made fun of Atticus. And you made fun of me. Because you were trying to be cool for your brother and not get outed, but you liked us, so you were a jerk like a stupid kid pulling pigtails on the playground.”
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2025 5:20 pm
Reims’ eyes snapped up to Yvoire’s face, startled by the sparkle in them.
I knew it--
He had no idea what Yvoire was talking about. Not at first at least. But the more Yvoire spoke, the more he pointed things out, the darker Reims’ face flushed.
“What?” he squeaked in alarm, immediately taking a step back and-- oh right there was a wall behind him.
How could Yvoire suddenly decide all that? Had he-- oh… had he caught Reims staring while he wasn’t paying attention?
“That’s--”
How could he deny it? He could. He should. His heart felt like it was going to break out of his chest but he’d promised so many people that he would try to be honest about things.
“I--... it’s--...” Oh, he should have just kept his mouth shut instead of trying to explain. He knew how guilty he sounded. Maybe he could just escape back to Earth. Like that wouldn’t have worse consequences.
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2025 5:21 pm
Maybe Yvoire should have been more sympathetic. Maybe he should have felt bad. Reims might be sorry for being an a*****e, but he was obviously still uncomfortable admitting anything. Yvoire could see the instinct to deny it on Reims’ face even if Reims couldn’t get the words out.
“You said it the night you told me who you are,” Yvoire reminded him. “You told me your stomach gets all twisty and your heart feels like it’s trying to escape when you’re around me. You said you felt like you could breathe as Reims. You said you didn’t have to listen to other people or worry about what your family wanted. What they’d accept. I heard you. I remember, but I didn’t get it until now because I was angry.”
He still wanted to be angry. He wanted to tell Reims how stupid he was for not being honest, for thinking he could hide who he was from Yvoire, for not telling him sooner. He wanted to tell Reims that none of it was right or fair, whatever Reims’ reasoning had been.
Looking at him now, Yvoire didn’t feel angry.
He felt sad, but hopeful, too.
“Now you keep staring at my a**,” Yvoire said—stronger than he felt; less breathless with nerves than he thought he should be. He was still facing the mirror, watching for every dart and shift of Reims’ gaze. “And your face is red. So… you still feel that way, don’t you?”
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2025 5:21 pm
Oh… If his face wasn’t flushed before, it certainly was now. Yvoire had a stupidly good memory. How did he remember all of that? Reims would have guessed that he completely wiped it from his thoughts after he found out he was also Riker.
He didn’t realize he was holding his breath, but when he did he let it out quickly so he could suck in another. His eyes were darting frantically around the room, like he was looking for a way to escape without making things even worse.
“Yes,” he blurted, because it would have made no sense to deny it when Yvoire was calling him out so thoroughly like that. “I wasn’t sure what it meant before,” he confessed, feeling stupid for not realizing it sooner. “You were the first person I really noticed feeling that way around, so I-- I mean, I thought the other stuff was normal. Like…”
He stopped, because he wasn’t sure what he was trying to say. He kept glancing from around the room, to the back of Yvoire’s thighs, maybe up a little too, and then at anything else. It was obvious that Yvoire had seen him looking (had called him out on it, even!), but-- he couldn’t help it!
“I’d always thought you were pretty--”
Oh, wait, was that a bad thing to say? He couldn’t remember. “Uh-- I thought you were nice to look at. Wait, that sounds weird. You have nice legs-- I mean, obviously. You’re a dancer--”
He really should just stop talking.
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2025 5:22 pm
Yvoire had spent a lot of time playing their conversations back in his head. Even before he’d known who Reims was, he would come back from their trips to their Wonders and think of all they’d said, and all they’d done, and imagine what might have changed if he’d said or done something different—if he’d been braver. He frequently looked back on the conversation they’d had the night Reims had revealed himself as Riker, struggling to come to terms with feelings he could never quite untangle.
He never knew the right things to say. Yvoire wondered if he ever would.
“You could’ve just said that,” Yvoire said, though he knew how hypocritical it was. “Instead of making fun of me. You could’ve just told me the truth. Hey, I think you’re cute but my family can’t know ‘cause they’re assholes. Okay. I wouldn’t’ve told anyone.”
He turned away from the mirror to face Reims—which probably didn’t offer much relief, given the reflection, but now they could be face to face and eye to eye. With gloves hiding his nails, Yvoire was deprived of his usual nervous habits. He fiddled with the buttons on the cuffs of his sleeves instead.
“Not that—I mean, I guess if you didn’t really get it… Or you weren’t being honest with yourself, then—But it doesn’t really excuse…”
With a great effort, Yvoire stopped himself from stammering. It probably didn’t matter anymore—what Riker had been thinking at the time; the hows and whys of his cruelty. Neither of them could change it. Riker had apologized. Yvoire believed him when he said he was sorry for it. Forgiveness was a complicated thing; he would never forget how Riker used to be, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t start over.
“Sorry, I know it’s complicated,” Yvoire said. “I just wish things hadn’t happened this way.”
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2025 5:23 pm
Reims deflated. More than he’d already been.
You could’ve just said that.
Like it was that simple. Like he wouldn’t have been risking everything.
Yvoire had turned to face him, and Reims couldn’t meet his eyes. He lowered his gaze to the ground, staring at the decorative corner of the carpet that covered the floor.
He didn’t know what was worth trying to explain, or if he would just sound like he was coming up with more excuses. Yvoire already expressed that it wasn’t an excuse that he wasn’t being honest with himself. And it didn’t make things right to be mean to him and make fun of him.
“I didn’t know you,” he shrugged helplessly. “For all I knew, you would have immediately told everyone, and I would have been kicked out of my home -- or worse. I was desperate for a place to fit in. I tried the baseball team and they were fine, but I could never really get to know anyone because that woman would always show up to ‘support’ me, and if I was friendly with anyone--”
He sighed, feeling stupid and defeated.
“I couldn’t let her know where I was, if I could help it. Or that I had friends. She’d call the cops and accuse my friends’ parents of kidnapping me, so they’d stop inviting me over and would avoid me. I stopped telling her about my friends in, like… elementary school. By middle school there was no point in trying to make friends. So I tried harder to be liked by Beckett but he was an a*****e who made me do all kinds of mean, stupid s**t--”
Reims paused. He could feel himself getting riled up and he didn’t want that to poison the emotions that already surrounded them.
“I know I was wrong. I wish things hadn’t happened this way, too. I would have done things differently if I knew then what I knew now. Maybe if I’d become a Knight sooner-- I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2025 5:23 pm
“I know you’re sorry,” Yvoire said as gently as he could. “You don’t have to keep apologizing.”
The rest of it… Yvoire didn’t know how to respond. Apologies felt useless. Any reassurance he tried to offer would likely seem empty. His only experience with being treated poorly came from other people. He didn’t know what it was like to be mistreated by family. He’d had loving parents. His dads had always been protective of him, and each other. They’d cut people out of their lives when it was necessary.
Riker couldn’t have done the same. The people who were supposed to care for him were the ones hurting him.
That knowledge didn’t make it any easier to excuse how he’d treated people—to accept it as okay. It wasn’t okay, but Reims knew that already. He wouldn’t be sorry if he didn’t.
“Thank you for trying,” Yvoire said, still fiddling with his buttons. “Now. Thank you for… you know… making an effort to do better. It probably hasn’t been easy, and—I mean, I’m still all messed up… but I know you are, too, so…”
He glanced off to the side with a frown, frustrated that his newfound confidence would seep away now. It was easier to tease than it was to sort through his feelings.
“Thank you for being patient and letting me figure things out,” Yvoire continued. Maybe it still wasn’t enough, but it was all he felt sure enough to say. “And… for putting up with the locker. And this. I’m sorry I couldn’t have come around sooner. I was… really disappointed. And scared. And angry. I’d told you about losing Daddy. After that—When you told me who you were it felt like I was losing something else, but… you’re still here, even when I didn’t give you any reason to be. So… I’d really like it if we could both keep trying.”
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