Paul Atreides (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
terriblepurpose) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
deercountry2022-12-08 11:40 am
terriblepurpose) wrote in deercountry2022-12-08 11:40 am
terriblepurpose) wrote in deercountry2022-12-08 11:40 am
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"I suppose Paul didn't mention the why when you made your arrangements." Leto measures out the words with a touch more care than before, and Paul has no idea where to put the split halves of feeling that cleave off inside of his chest.
It's excruciating to be introducing his boyfriend to his father like this, under the circumstances he's tried to leave shrouded. It's excruciating to be introducing his boyfriend to a father that only exists as this all too vivid memorial, whose funny look is a thing Paul hasn't seen in a year, will never see again.
"Dad," he says, helplessly.
"No," Leto says, holding his palm face out, "I'm sure you had your reasons."
"It's not like you're making it sound," he insists, and he was going out of his way not to do this, but he can't stand the faint edge of disappointment in his father's voice now like he couldn't stand it then, "This is a coincidence. I'd wanted you to meet him before."
"I'm a bit surprised I haven't already," Leto says, dryly, but they're back on firmer ground as he sits back and returns his attention to Midoriya, "I try to know the faces of the men this close to my family, but I can't place yours. How did the two of you meet, then?"
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Midoriya should have acted like he was meant to be here all along, like he and Paul pulled a harmless little prank on Duke Leto Atreides, or that Midoriya was meant to be a pleasant surprise for him. These are his thoughts as he is directly questioned. The effect from last month has worn off, but he still can't lie. He could never, not to the memory of Paul's father here. It'd be like lying to the picture of his own mother.
"I was helping him, though I didn't expect to." He remembers the intense look Paul had in his eyes, so set he was on reliving the memory of the needle and the box. "Paul-kun... hurt his hand a little, and I had some stuff on me. I met Lady Jessica very briefly too. I'm..."
With wide eyes fixed on Leto's face, he's about to say he's no one, not anyone who matters anyway, but that's not true. He's the ninth wielder of One For All. He's All Might's successor. He's his mother's son. He's friends with his UA crew, who have become like family. He's rivals with Bakugou (and also his friend). He's beloved of Paul and Kaworu, and it takes everything in him not to simply grab Paul's hand and interlock their fingers as if someone were trying to pry them apart.
"He wasn't in danger or anything, I just... He seemed like he needed help, more than what he asked of me, and... that is what I do," he finishes awkwardly.
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Unlike his son's version of it, Leto's full attention is tempered by the understanding that not everyone appreciates being so attentively focused on. His gaze flits from him to Paul and back again lightly whenever it approaches the boundary of being too much all at once, something so natural it can only be the result of careful thought and practice. There is never a trace of judgment or disapproval in it, even when he raises his eyebrows slightly at the mention of his Lady.
"That's a noble calling," the Duke says, picking up a stick from the forest fire and leaning forward to stir the embers in the fire, sending up a rising shower of sparks, "My son tends to underestimate the amount of help he needs. Independent streak. No idea where he gets it from."
Next to Midoriya, there's a sound he might not expect: the muted sound of someone biting back a laugh. Paul coughs into his fist, his throat and eyes stung by the smoke (only the smoke), and spins his fish on their spit.
"What was that?" Leto asks, and there's a rhythm here, a back and forth, in the shape of how they speak to each other.
"Nothing," Paul says, and despite himself, despite everything, his voice lilts upward, because it's easy, so easy, to find his way back to it, "We must have left Halleck behind on the docks by mistake."
"Another fine example of an independent spirit," Leto says, satisfied, a light twinkle to his eyes despite the faux gravity of his brows briefly coming together, "But we're getting away from ourselves. I have another question. How did you know he needed more help than he asked for?"
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He opens his mouth, perhaps to tease Paul about how it's mean to leave someone behind. Lulled into a sense of security, Midoriya forestalls himself and goes rigid again when he's questioned.
"I..."
He could recite the signs of distress he's learned by rote and experience. An aspiring Pro Hero has to learn when it's time to intervene and when it's better to wait and see. He had a great many thoughts as he calibrated himself to Paul's memory and Paul himself and the incomplete explanation he gave him before leaving the facsimile of his bedroom. Midoriya has always been the sum of his learned experiences and more, his analytical mind unable to quit--except when it does.
It's often translated as help or save depending on context, but it's the same word in Japanese. Midoriya is similarly imprecise and non-discriminating. There were any number of reasons he has overstepped his bounds and the roles asked of him many times--admiring the dream of saving others, being told he can't do anything, being (or feeling) responsible for another--but in the moment,
"I didn't really think about it."
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Leto takes in Midoriya's answer without releasing him from his gaze, the dark smoke of his eyes shifted towards opacity. Paul shifts closer to Midoriya on the log, his hand set on the rough bark between them, close enough to almost touch.
"You felt it," Leto says, at last, in the instant before Paul flicks his bloodletting needle back into his hand to avert whatever catastrophe he has unwittingly wrought, and his father's smile is like spring sunlight breaking through the winter storms. "I see."
Paul exhales in a rush. Leto spins his fish above the fire, finally freeing Midoriya from the weight of his judgment, and looks thoughtful with only the slightest bit of exaggeration to the expression.
"Your mother will be pleased. You should still let me tell her first. You know how she can be."
"Dad." A pale flush touches Paul's face, across his cheekbones and all the way to the tips of his ears. "I haven't even -"
"Am I wrong?" Leto's eyebrows shoot upward. "Do you think you're the first person to ever have been young, Paul? If you do, remind me to dismiss some of your tutors when we get back."
"No, but -"
"Do you want me to disapprove?"
"No -" That one more emphatic.
"Then let's not torment this poor boy any further." Leto looks at Midoriya and shakes his head, all other expressiveness abandoned in favour of sincere sympathy. "I trust my son's judgment. If there's a test to pass, you've passed it. That's all I need to know."
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"My mentor is an 'entertainer' too..." he sighs. Entertainer is in English. All Might uses it to reference waiting to reveal exciting things in a conversation, sometimes to the detriment of Midoriya's poor nerves. "Except instead of a story, it's something I really needed to know..."
Do you trust me? Paul asked him on a beach by a campfire much more forlorn than this one, and that was the only time Midoriya felt like Paul put him to the test on purpose.
Midoriya's eyes finally travel upward from the ground, and they catch a small glint of light. He stares at Leto's hands cooking his fish and at the House Atreides signet ring that isn't real. This small piece of insubstantial memory will dissolve into nothing as the physical one did when it was destroyed by Paul's fire.
Not having witnessed it, the Atreides's role in colony and dominion is more distant and abstract to Midoriya than the concept of family memory. It's important. It's my father's. At the moment, Paul's words are the only things Midoriya thinks of when he looks at it reflecting the firelight.
"I... haven't seen him for a while, so I forgot to look out for that..." A bittersweet sort of wistfulness and self-consciousness steal into his voice.
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Paul, for his part, sees all of it. He only doesn't slump with Midoriya because he wants to be steady enough to bear him up, leaning into him in unwavering support. If his father knows, there's no reason to conceal anything. There's no reason to be unsettled.
He doesn't know if this reaction could have been real. There never had been anyone like Midoriya or Kaworu for Paul to meet, to know as he knows them, to want to bring forward to his father's attention. Paul had always indifferently assumed that one day, the introductions would go the other way around: his father and mother would present him with the girl or woman he'd marry, and that would be that. They would have chosen well for him, and he would have been satisfied with their choice.
But that wasn't how his father and mother came to be together. This memory of his father is a memory that loved his mother to the point of foolishness. Paul would have trusted Leto to have understood, if he'd ever imagined anything like this, and so - he does.
That isn't why it aches. He knows it isn't. But if he pretends himself stuck on a philosophical contemplation, it's easier to bear.
"My father can be a very unserious man," Paul says, the presence of his heart in his throat a familiar one, "It's one of the darkest secrets of House Atreides."
"Ha!" Leto scoffs, softly. "Don't believe a word of it. I take my 'entertaining' very seriously." He flashes a smile brighter than his ring, with a light tinge of sympathy still playing at the corners of his eyes. "Forgive me. It's a father's right to embarrass his son, and Paul here gives me so few opportunities to do so. I have to take the chances I get."
A plain statement, but one full of fond pride. Paul ducks his head, feeling his cheek burn once more.
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His head is buzzing too much to think about memories and choices and reality. If Paul is sad or strained, Midoriya puts it down to simply missing his father. It's how he'd feel if he saw All Might here. Since coming to know Paul, he feels the edges of where Paul talks--or doesn't talk--about his father.
"Paul-kun doesn't leave many openings. He has a good teacher." The wry slant of his lips suggests how many times Paul has "tormented" Midoriya. The tightness in his hand comes from a different place very similar to the tightness in Paul's throat.
Midoriya remembers the untimely flushes, unschooled absences of words, and little slips Paul has made in the privacy of Midoriya's bewilderingly earnest sphere. It's easy to forget that under other circumstances, Paul is a near-master at socialization. And back when his father was alive, he would have spent the last years of growing up not tormented with thoughts of lonely grief with his heart beats in his throat instead of his chest.
Midoriya returns his eyes to his fish lest he overcook them. "So, each time he does is a precious memory."
The fish smells amazing, and Midoriya judges his own to be done. He feels out for a good pause, declares, "Itadakimasu," and tries a bite from the underside of the tender kama.