i know that the sun is here with me | december catch-all

[terriblepurpose]

Who: Paul Atreides, Ortus Nigenad, and you
What: December catch-all, open and closed prompts
When: December
Where: Various
Content warnings: Grief over loss of a parent, eugenics, psychological horror, child abuse, child death

Comments

[terriblepurpose]

The lure and the spear are a paired move in Leto's diplomatic arsenal that Paul should have anticipated being deployed. It shouldn't be possible for him to be caught off-guard by his own memory, his own father, but there he is, nearly as still as Midoriya is at the casually lobbed, unerringly aimed question.

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."

[wannasmash]

He knows what adults mean when they say being young, and Midoriya's face blots bright as a ripe strawberry, eclipsing the fainter peach clinging to Paul's cheeks. Midoriya realizes his scarred fingers have encircled Paul's in highly embarrassed solidarity only when Leto relents. When he lets the breath in his lungs rush out, he actually hangs his head in relief and releases the coil of his body to curve limply.

"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.

[terriblepurpose]

Leto also has a talent for obliviousness when required. He notices nothing of Midoriya's flush or his hand entwining with Paul's (to be squeezed firmly back), his attention firmly on his nearly finished fish.

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.

[wannasmash]

His shoulder brushes against Paul's even as he rights himself back to being ramrod straight. He wants to be seen as upstanding and reliable. Around Pro Heroes and other adults in authority, he wants to prove himself. Sometimes the more nervous he is, the braver he tries to act. All Might told him this is the reason he smiles too.

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.