Work Text:
It probably isn’t the best question to ask, considering the circumstances they find themselves in, but Twilight can’t help himself. He is, afterall, just a man.
He clears his throat, aiming for nonchalance when he says, “So when Camilla said you used to give men massages …”
He can’t see his wife – their arms are tied together behind their backs as they hang above what may either be a prop for a bad movie or an honest-to-god wat of acid because their captor is certainly one for the dramatics – but he knows she must be blushing.
She clears her throat.
“That wasn’t true.” She says, not at all sounding nonchalant. “Those were, well, assignments . Not massages. And certainly nothing else.”
He hums as he considers it.
It’s been less than an hour since he’s had the full truth about exactly who he's been sharing his apartment and his fake marriage with. An hour since both of them have had the truth, really. Thanks to a monologuing villain who decided to expose them to each other before running off to, undoubtedly, be apprehended by the other WISE agents or Garden assassins lurking around.
“I thought it was a bit odd,” he says. His eyes follow the thick popping sound of one of the green bubbles. It smells like sulfur in the room but he still isn’t sure if that is coming from the vat or from the fact that their captor has stored them in a barn with an unkempt chicken coop. Rotten eggs and all. “All things considered.”
“ All things considered… ” There’s a question in her voice. “What? What things?”
Twilight never imagined this was how the reveal between them would go.
He also never imagined that he wouldn’t be the only one revealing anything either. It never even crossed his mind that his pretty little wife who was constantly flustered, fond of backless sweaters, and a wonderful mother was also a legendary assassin.
Emphasis on legendary because up until an hour ago he had been certain that the Garden and Thorn Princess and the Shopkeeper were all just mindless propaganda thought up by the Secret Police to frighten people in the West.
Now he knows better. “Well, I mean…” He isn’t sure what to say. The truth is probably the best option at this point. Especially if the green gunk turns out to actually be corrosive. “You aren’t– I just meant you didn’t seem like…”
“Like what?” Yor huffs, “Like a prostitute?”
It seems sacrilege for a spy to think this but perhaps, in this special circumstance and regardless of the warning in his wife’s tone, honesty is the best policy. Better to get it all out before he dies and all. “Like you would even know what a prostitute was.”
Her silence is sharp like a blade. Whether it’s the acid or the woman will end up killing him is anyone’s guess at this point.
It’s a relief when she speaks again. Although her words aren’t. “I know what a prostitute is.” She sounds offended. Is she offended? Why would that offend her? “I’m a grown woman, Lo– Twilight .”
His codename on her lips…
When he considered how exactly Operation Strix may come to a head Twilight had thought that hearing his codename from his wife would sound cold and harsh. She says his fake name so sweetly – “ Good morning, Loid. ” – and so freely that he just assumed that once she knew the truth her voice would harden around his codename. Flash freezing it until he shattered along with any affection she may have had for him. He thought it would break him. But it doesn’t.
There is annoyance in her voice, yes, but no cold fury. No disgust. She says Twilight like she says Loid. Like she’s been saying it all along. He shouldn’t be surprised. Thorn Princess is Yor Briar. And Yor Briar breathes warmth into everything that she says.
Hell, she breathes fire when she’s angry.
And right now his codename sounds like a blaze in her mouth.
“You are a grown woman. I know you are.” He certainly does. He has since the very beginning and he was reminded of that fact only a few weeks ago when he accidentally walked into their bathroom while she was showering. Smooth skin, plump breasts, and a shape like a tsuzumi. “I only meant…” What had he meant? “You didn’t act like one.”
She stiffens at his back.
“And how does one act?”
“Well…” Why did it feel like he was risking a night on the couch here if he answered her incorrectly? Like they were having a lover's spat above what may or may not be acid corrosive enough to melt the flesh off their bones in seconds? Two years married and this was the most authentic their marriage has ever felt. A fight. The risk of a night on the couch. Which doesn’t even make sense because, to this day, they don’t even share a bed. “I don’t mean anything by it, really. I just mean… Well, I would imagine someone well versed in ‘ happy endings ’ would be more…”
“Promiscuous? Flirty? Wanton?” She huffed. They swayed more with the force of it. “Or sensual? Maybe slutty? Which word is it that escapes you, Twilight?” He doesn’t dare answer. Her tone had been a warning earlier and now it was a flashing alarm. Stop! Stop! Stop! Speak wisely, Twilight, or you’ll meet the business end of my rapiers . “Would you imagine I would be more promiscuous or at least more sensual if what Camilla said was true? Would you have preferred it?”
Oh, yes. This is definitely a setup. “Well…” He wracked his brain for a conversational pattern or some snippet of information passed along to him during his communications lessons that could save him here. He found nothing. Nothing . None of his training had prepared him for this. Dealing with an angry wife. Angry assassin wife, no less. “No?”
“You clearly know nothing about prostitutes.”
It was his turn to frown.
“And you do?”
“I do.” She says.“I lived on the street with my brother for three weeks until some promiscuous prostitutes took us in.” Her words were dripping with venom. “They fed us and clothed us. When they weren’t working they watched Yuri while I looked for work in town. And even before the Garden found me they were giving me pocket money so I could save up for a room for me and Yuri.” They swung even harder as she went, swaying and swaying above the bubbling vat. Twilight wasn’t sure Yor even cared if it was acidic at this point. “They had a hard time and not all of them were proud of what they had to do to survive but they were kind. They were decent. They never lied to me.”
And there it is.
The crux of the matter.
She’s upset. Upset that they’ve been caught, upset that they’ve been exposed. Upset that he lied to her for so long. And this certainly isn’t the correct thing to say or maybe even the correct way to feel but Twilight can’t help but feel betrayed and, yes, hurt by what he’s learned too. She lied to him too. And he says as much.
“Sure,” she accepted. There’s a long pause before she speaks again. Five thick bubbles pop below them at that time. “But I never said I wouldn’t lie to you.”
That was semantics but he really wasn’t in the position to nitpick.
It was the truth, after all.
They had taken vows but they had never made promises. They had vowed, ‘ to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. ’
They had never spoken of honesty.
Never vowed honesty.
“Sure.” He couldn’t exactly fault her logic. He probably would have used it himself if he wasn’t so concerned with the green goop below them or the woman tied to his back. But… “Neither did I.”
Silence. And then, “Sure.”
“Exactly.”
They swung harder. “I know.”
Silence punctuated the air even louder than the whooshing sound of them swinging over the vat again and again. At the peak of their swing Twilight’s feet hovered over the chicken coop.
“So…” She didn’t respond. He continued, “We never promised each other anything really. Did we?”
Silence passes between them again.
Something sour settles in his stomach. Rancid and nauseating like hurt he certainly doesn’t deserve to feel. “We didn’t.” He watches his feet swing past the vat. She’s not wrong. “We didn’t.”
She doesn’t reply.
He continues, “We didn’t promise each other much at all.” He wiggles his hands. The rope cuts into his wrists. He’ll probably have bruises there later. “You could have been a prostitute. Or a gold digger. Or whatever.”
Silence.
“I wouldn’t have cared.” He wouldn’t. Not one bit. “We didn’t promise each other the truth. So I certainly wouldn’t have held it against you.” A tug at their joint restraints. “We didn’t owe each other the truth.”
The rope was tight at his back. Thick and well-tied. Pain spread through raw wrists as Yor pulled at their restraints. He didn’t mind though. The pain was good. It kept him alert, kept his mind awake. “And I could have been a crook or a menace. A spy. Or whatever . And that shouldn’t have bothered you either.”
The rope loosened ever so slightly on a particularly harsh pull. Just enough for him to spread his wrists apart by an inch. “You’re an assassin. And I’m a spy.” The arch of their swing has increased with their shared movements. His feet were well positioned past the vat now, pointed at the wooden chicken coop.“As far as I’m concerned, neither of us is to blame.”
All movement stops.
“I…” He can tell she’s frowning again. “I suppose?”
“You suppose?”
“I mean…” Yor lets out an exasperated sigh. “It’s all rather new to me, Twilight!”
He almost smiles. “It’s new to me too.”
“Yes, but you’re a spy. You’re used to people lying.”
“You’re an assassin.” The truth is surprisingly easy to say. His wife is an assassin. Yes, sure. Fine. “I suspect your victims would tell you anything you’d like to hear to save their own lives.”
“Doesn’t matter because my marks are traitors.”
He asks almost uncontrollably, “And me?”
“What?”
“What am I?” Twilight asks his not-quite wife, “To you?”
“You’re…” She pauses just long enough for Twilight to start panicking. Not a second longer. “You’re my husband.” Another beat of silence. “And I am not a prostitute.”
He does smile then. “No, you aren’t.”
He can’t see her but he imagines she smiles too. “But I could have been.”
“You could have been.” She could have been anything. But as long as she was Yor Briar than Loid Forger and Twilight both would have still been every bit as lost for her as he was now. Completely, utterly gone . Tied up and trapped with her. Swinging above a mysterious vat and deliriously happy about it if only because she was close.“And I would not have minded.”
Another tug loosens their restraints another inch.
Then another.
“Are we even really married then?”
Her words shock him out of his planning. “What?”
“Are we even married?” She asks again. “Legally?”
He doesn’t answer.
“Think about it,” she continues. “I married Dr. Loid Forger and you aren’t Dr. Loid Forger.” Another tug. “And you…”
One more harsh tug pulls their hands free. He watches the rope fall between the two of them, still held up by a knot around their abdomens, and land in the vat with a rather concerning hiss.
Real acid, then.
His wife doesn’t seem to notice. “There were some important things about me you didn’t know before we got married. So…” Her fingers brush against his. “I guess we were both duped, right?”
Her touch is lightning.
“I suppose we were.”
She pulls her hand away. “Then we’d be able to get our marriage annulled.”
And her words are like thunder.
Deafening.
Because, almost embarrassingly, Twilight hadn’t considered that as an ending for them.
Divorce, yes.
Annulment?
“I don’t see why we wouldn’t.” Something about that makes him feel sick. An annulment . “It’s pretty solid ground for an annulment.”
“And that would mean…”
He feels something sharp in his chest. “It would be like this never even happened.”
“Twilight—“ She stops. “Or, I guess, Loid? Sorry, I’m not sure how to differentiate.”
“You don’t have to. Call me whatever you like, Yor.”
She already knows Loid isn’t real.
And Twilight?
Well, he’s all but dead at this point, isn’t he?
Afterall, what is a spy without his secrets?
They swing. “Oh, alright then.” She exhales, “I don’t want to get an annulment, Loid. I don’t want it to be like this never happened.”
It never could be, he almost tells her. There is no universe where this doesn’t happen. There is no longer a Dr. Loid Forger or a Twilight but there will always be this. Her and him and everything in between.
He truly believes that. And he doesn’t believe in much.
“It did. It happened. And…” And? “Well, there is no one I’d rather be with. I’m glad it did.”
Relief floods him so thick and suddenly that he almost chokes on it. “You are?”
He knows she’s smiling this time because he can hear it in her voice. “Well, I mean, I would rather be home than above this vat.” She says. “ But only if that home is with my family. Anya and you.” She finds his hand again, tracing the length of his palm with her index finger. He can feel the cold of the ring he bought her. “So overall, yes.”
He slips his fingers between hers.
And this is probably the worst place to finally realise it but he really does love his wife.
“Are you?” She asks, “Glad, I mean? Overall?”
And then, before he can even answer, she asks, “Do you want an annulment?”
“I don’t think I’m allowed to want anything.”
“You are.” She says the words with such a simple sort of finality that he believes her even though he shouldn’t. “Of course, you are, Twilight.”
“Then I am.” His answer is strong, confident, and immediate. The most honest he has ever been probably in his entire life. “I’m glad.”
“And what do you want?”
No.
This —“You.”
This is the most honest he has ever been in his life.
“Me?”
He laughs. “Of course.”
“Oh.” She giggles, too. Light as air and filled with song. “Oh, well, alright then.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”