Meddie walked through the halls with Tristan at his side. They were back at school, and Meddie was not walking in a straight line. The two of them had drank a lot of mulled wine, and Meddie was slightly concerned they were about to develop an alcohol problem. At least they had tomorrow off from classes, because Meddie was anticipating an impressive hangover. He walked carefully towards the dorm room and stopped at the door, staring down at his key in his hand. He didn’t remember if the teeth went up or down.

“Meduso,” Tristan said, and Meddie looked over at him with a questioning tilt to his head. The alcohol was still on his tongue, and he felt hazy, drifting, more fucked up than he intended.

“Mm?” Meddie replied, and Tristan stared at his lips. Oh. Oh, no, no, absolutely not, Meddie thought, and he turned his head aside.

“Why do you hate me so much?” Tristan asked, and Meddie blinked.

“I don’t hate you,” he replied, and Tristan took the key from his hand and unlocked the door. Oh. So, it was teeth down. Duh.

“Really? Then why do you try so hard to avoid me?” Tristan asked, and Meddie thought about it real, real hard. There was a response here that wasn’t ‘you’re the male lead’, but he didn’t know what it was.

“I… My whole life, I’ve learned not to trust people,” Meddie said out loud. “And you want me to trust you. I can’t do that.”

“So, this is the fault of your brothers,” Tristan said, and there was something dangerous in his tone.

“No. Yes. Maybe?” Meddie replied. “I never trusted them to begin with, but my dad… He never…”

Did anything to stop it, Meddie thought to himself, and he stared down at the floor as he swayed from left to right.

Tristan was silent, and Meddie pushed the door open and stumbled into his bedroom, kicking off his boots as he went and collapsing facedown on the covers. He struggled to pull off his jacket, getting tangled up in it, and gentle hands landed on his and pulled it off. Oh. Tristan followed him in, he thought as he crawled under the covers.

Tristan was staring down at him with an unreadable expression on his face. Meddie just rolled over and pulled the duvet over his shoulders.

“Good night,” he said with a yawn, and Tristan sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Meduso,” he said, and Meddie turned and blinked at him. “I like you better this way.”

“Drunk?” Meddie asked, and Tristan reached forward to smooth his finger between Meddie’s brows.

“Soft,” he said softly, and Meddie stared at him blankly. Was he soft right now? “When I met you…”

“I was hideous,” Meddie said with a yawn. “I was bleeding out of my eyes and coughing up blood.”

“You were real,” Tristan said quietly, and Meddie blinked again. “No one… Everyone had stopped being real.”

Meddie thought about it. Really, he should have considered the fact that Tristan was the first person to really reach out his hand and try to help. He had tried to help, and Meddie couldn’t take that at face value. He couldn’t. Everyone had ulterior motives, even if those ulterior motives were trying to get into Meddie’s pants.

Tristan leaned forward and pressed his dry, warm lips to Meddie’s forehead, and then he stood. Meddie laid there, processing that, and failing to do so, and Tristan pulled the blanket more over his shoulders.

“Good night,” Tristan said softly, and then he walked out the door. It closed with a click, and Meddie stared blankly at the ceiling.

Yes… Yes, he was going to sleep. He would forget about that in the morning.

….

Meddie awoke with a pounding headache, a dry mouth, and a full bladder. With a groan, he rolled to his feet and stumbled to the bathroom, barely managing to make it in in time to go, and when he finished washing his hands, he stared at himself in the mirror in silence.

He had not forgotten last night.

Tristan had never been soft like that in the otome.

That was the first thing on his mind. Tristan had never once been soft like that in the otome. He had never kissed Tatiana on the head like that, spoke to her gently, and his words were ringing through Meddie’s head. You were real. What did that even mean? Of course he was real. Everyone else was real, too. But, at the same time, he got it. There was only one way to cope with killing people like that. They became numbers on a report, statistics, words on a piece of paper. When you were in charge of thousands of people, you had to cope with it in whatever way you could. They had to stop being people that were dying because of you. You had to divorce yourself from your reality.

Even so, he didn’t understand why Tristan had latched onto him as a real person. It made no sense. Meddie was simply an enemy prince, and Tristan had never cared for Medusa in the otome. He didn’t even spare her a glance. She was nothing to him, so how had this changed? Should Meddie have refused to go to war?

Objectively, he knew there was no future waiting for him in the Demonias Empire. His brother would kill him to spite him as soon as he became Emperor. There would be no duchy waiting for him. No means of escape. He would die, and not much would be said for him. His father had taken it too far in saying he should have made Meddie Crown Prince. He had taken it way too far. Trivas would never forgive that.

Meddie’s hands tightened on the lip of the sink, and he realized his only option would be to become Tristan’s mistress so he could stay here. That was all he would go down as in history. Tristan’s mistress. His military strategies, his story, none of that would matter. All that would matter was that he was another man’s fuck toy.

Tears stung at his eyes. He couldn’t help it. He realized in that moment how truly abandoned he really was, and how little power he actually had. Ada and Gladys twisted around his shoulders, crawling up to lick at the tears streaming down his cheeks, and he numbly started to draw a bath to get the stench of alcohol off of him.

It would be worth it if he loved Tristan, but did he really love Tristan? He had never fallen in love easily. It took him months, years, even, and he didn’t…

He wouldn’t do that to himself. He couldn’t force himself to love someone. And the thought of loving Tristan made his gut twist. For the rest of his life, he would be sharing the man he loved with an Empire that had started this whole war. He would be alone, waiting for Tristan to finish his long hours, love his wife, and then come back to him. He would always be less important, an afterthought, and he…

A sob bubbled up, and he fell to his knees, clinging to the counter as he sobbed and sobbed at his realization.

This was not a happy ending.

He wasn’t going to get his happy ending.

His shoulders shook, and he sobbed on air, tears spilling out and splashing on the floor. He wasn’t going to get a happy ending, was he?

He wanted… He wanted more than this, and he wasn’t going to get it.

Maybe if he was still Medusa, but he wasn’t Medusa. Not anymore. He still technically had his ovaries and uterus, but he didn’t have a means of getting any semen into them. Not unless he gave up his dick. And he didn’t want to give up his dick, but what else could he do? In any case, they would never accept him as Empress, even if it was to heal the rift between Demonias and the Holy Empire. He was cursed. They may accept him as a mistress, but not as a cursed demon that wanted to become the Empress.

He had nothing.

He had nothing.

He wondered if Medusa wanted Tristan so desperately so she could exact revenge. So she could be important again. He wondered if she longed for him so she could have power, something she had been denied her whole life.

He wondered if it was worth it when she was finally killed.

A wretched sob bubbled up, and he laid down in the fetal position on the floor. He didn’t get a happy ending. There was no happy ending for the villainess. He had nothing. No power, no means of protecting himself. His only option would be to cling to Tristan. And he didn’t want to cling to Tristan. He wanted power on his own. He wanted to keep himself safe on his own terms. He wanted agency.

He had never once had agency.

He just had to survive, but now… Now, he didn’t have a choice.

He didn’t want to fall in love with Tristan, because he didn’t want to doom himself to that fate. Hiding behind Tristan and expecting him to protect him for the rest of his life. He wanted to protect himself. But, there was nothing he could do. He was a hostage in an enemy empire, and Tristan very obviously did not want to let him go.

He was Tristan’s hostage, he realized. He was Tristan’s hostage, and Tristan could do whatever he liked. It didn’t matter. He had no power here. It was all Tristan’s power, and he couldn’t…

What it really boiled down to was he knew people got tired of people. Without a marriage, he had to rely on Tristan’s love for him, and that was not a fact. It was not something that was set in stone. People could fall out of love. People could stop loving people. The idea that someone could be in love for the rest of their life was not something that was realistic. He didn’t trust Tristan that much. Marriage was one thing. Marriage was one thing, but when you just had to rely on how much someone loved you?

He couldn’t do that.

He could not do that.

The bath was full, and he shut off the water. Still crying softly, he stripped his clothes off, leaving them on the floor, and climbed into the tub. He sank down in the water and curled up, sobbing harshly as he tried and failed to gather himself. He needed to get it together. He couldn’t be crying over this. He didn’t…

This was his life, he realized.

He couldn’t pretend to love Tristan. He couldn’t do that. He just… he couldn’t.

So, what was he supposed to do?

He didn’t know what to do. He wished the war had lasted longer. He wished he had just died in the war, and he didn’t…

He started scrubbing his body down, because he wanted to get out of this bath, and the second he was done, he pulled the plug. He stumbled out of the tub and scrubbed himself dry, and then he walked into his bedroom and started pulling on a new set of clothes, though he had absolutely no intentions of going out today.

He collapsed on his bed, and then he stared up at the ceiling. Tears were still streaming down his cheeks, but he had stopped sobbing.

He needed to get it together. He had survived the war, and now he was crying over an unhappy ending? Seriously? He didn’t feel like he was going to get over it anytime soon. He couldn’t be crying like this. He just…

He didn’t see himself falling in love with Tristan. He would always have that hammer hanging over his head. Tristan falling out of love. He didn’t…

He had to resist. He had to figure out another option. There was no other choice. He had to.

Meddie wiped his eyes and sat up. He had to get up and figure out what he was doing. He couldn’t wallow in bed all day.

He would go to the library and study today. Get his mind off of things. He just… He just needed to keep it together. He had survived a war, and he was crying over a boy? That was ridiculous. Except… it wasn’t crying over a boy. He was crying about his future. Tristan was obviously in love with him, and he had never understood why people fell in love with him. He could never grasp it, could never understand it, and he was…

Another hiccup. He wiped his eyes, got his bag, and slung it over his shoulder.

It was time to go to the library.

 

A/N: sorry for typos, i wrote this while i was on voice call and we were debating on whether or not the magic systems in the Mummy and Narnia were compatible. the answer is yes.