『 R E Q U E S T S , C L O S E D 』AnimeCharacters x Reader

48. Larcade Dragneel x Reader | Do Not Step on the Flowers

》character: Larcade Dragneel | Fairy Tail

》 requested by: TheCalmingTide

》08282017

》Tear apart two hearts, and you will find the words fall like dirt. You want to cut apart the night, until it is the blended clouds and disobeyed bedtimes that you remember from long ago. Larcade still wants his optimism, how would any of you survive without it?

[a/n]: it's been 82 years and it is i guess who's back

xx

Spy into the home of a married couple, only if you are so confident that you will not be caught. It welcomes all animals: the kind that wears fur and the kind that wears the magic of the tailor's choppy nights, so long as they do not bare their teeth.

It smells of seasonal cleaning, and in the dustiest corners, you may find, it smells of the things that keep roaches and mice away. ("If we ever have children and we play hide and seek, here's where they're going to hide.") It spells out laziness under sunny days and how the fireplace lights and extinguishes whenever there is someone lain asleep in front of it. It is not old, yet it is familiar, and the sweet, sweet beckon is what attracts the animals- the wild and the mannered.

The door has seen the worst of the climate since before it was brought to production, shutting into itself when any trails of storm catches itself on their area. The doorbell works when it pleases, which now is not so often.

Look at the walls, look at the furniture, nothing unusual. A lamp to remind you of the sun, tables and chairs arranged in a way that the couple are always facing each other. They have only ever been turned away from each other on the day of their wedding, upholding tradition like the posts that see everything. There is always a glass on the table, a shirt on a chair, a running of water and the racing of thoughts.

Can you hear the sigh? Listen closely; that is the kind that is no longer afraid of discovery. That is the wife, that sings to the flowers every morning and kisses the ones she loves with the same mouth that grow daisies. She will not sing for anybody right now, she is fretting, can you not see? Her lip moves, even if she does not speak; she trembles, even if she has not been swept gallantly and flushed from head to toe.

As she unbuttons her blouse, memorized, and sheds it. Her usual charisma leaks from out of her bare soles and through the grids of the floor. Under his care, he would have never allowed her to frown- but he is not; he is busy being suited, and she is not going to be taken with him.

"I might arrive late," he told her this morning, his low voice an odd thing in the house, "Invel is very particular about these kinds of things."

She had giggled with the knowledge of the harmless facts that slip past him when he just arrives and the laces of his shoes are yet to be undone. "I'm sure he is."

"Give me a kiss, baby," he says, holding his lips out, expecting her to fold into them like paper. She doesn't; amused at his disappointment. "I need the power to get through this day," he continues, reasons.

"Larcade, you eat enough breakfast for four men, do not talk to me about more power."

The smile he gives her is the same smile every morning, confident, with every right to be so. The birdsong surround them, and the more she tells herself it's just another morning. She looks up to meet his eyes, something is unfair about the way his arms squeeze her shoulders, but she can't name it.

"Give me a kiss, baby," he says again, hoping for no disappointment. They are standing between the kitchen and the bedroom they lead themselves into, and she has to stand a little to have her hands on his shoulders. Then, it comes all at once.

Another sigh leaves her more deflated than before. A flower stripped of its petals. Her heart is a stone, not because it is lifeless, but because it is heavy and she wants to drop to the floor and listen to her pain.

She gathers yesterday's leftovers and the crackers Larcade forgets to put back in the pantry, eats her own idea of a meal. She waits, waits for the door to screech at another animal, or to welcome the man of the household with a gentle creak and a radiant grin.

xx

There are the clouds that they cannot see, and the flashes of thunder that remind them of the charging storm. The fire that has been lit in the sky does not terrify them. She itches to hold his hand, remind herself that she is not alone, to feel the warmth that her body is lacking.

Her beloved husband is here with her, a continued pillar of support, a pillar that takes far too long to bend when she is frightened. Larcade sees her looking at the storm give birth to itself, inside the most well-hidden pits of the sky, and he can see the hairs of her skin raise as if she's in the heart of the heartless winds herself.

Of the things in her childhood, this fear is one of the few that has not yet abandoned her. Larcade has never turned a blind eye to this.

The indoor light only falls to her back, where her eyes cannot soften and her chest cannot relax. She misses the security; Larcade is the security. She breathes in loud and long when the fabled "calm before the storm" sweeps over them and dishevels the hair from over her ears.

The sky is thoughtless and enraged, and the tips of her fingers are full of everything else. Larcade freezes. He allows the first rain to fall, and she is pensive waiting for the thunder and lightning that peels her calmness away. These are the times she falls back into Larcade's arms, and Larcade doesn't know what to do but to keep steady and catch her, a continued pillar of support.

Larcade puts his hand on her shoulder, and it relaxes like a spell. Her hands hold his one before anything else, and he almost misses the way she smiles at him; because it was so little, and they've promised that everything had to be grand and exaggerated- the kind of things that made them laugh, the kind of things that would have made their dreams come true when they were children.

The house mutes the rain for the silence of the couple. Larcade rubs her shoulder, takes his other hand and pulls him closer to her. The floor carries their steps, the entire house seems smitten with her, the way it only uses its best lights to make her worthy of a gown when she was only in her favorite clothes.

Her daisies are closed and hiding. She cannot see them in this weather.

"Let's take this somewhere quieter, and perhaps I can tuck you into bed?" Larcade offers.

"Trying to make this a night to remember, Larcade?"

"Of course," and you hear his confidence louder than his voice, "in case. . ." the confidence dwindles, and yours does too, "in case." He repeats, with finality.

"All the time, I wish you would not have to leave for the war," you confess to him as he is already leading you away from the window with his hands and the half-darkness.

"My love, you already know I cannot refuse the demands of the emperor," Larcade replies sorrowfully. One step closer, two steps further away.

"Who do you devote your heart's love to? Your emperor or your wife?" you ask, knowing your own inquiries are childish. Larcade's pause, Larcade's silence all add upon your rapid deconstruction.

"You, my love," he says, "I give it to you a hundred times, and then a hundred more. But there is no time for love of any kind to roam in war."

You sigh again, this argument is taxing you. You are almost there, and Larcade's hands do not ever give up their hold on you. The home feels darker where your words do no light it up, the storm is only a wall's girth away from bringing you apart. The thunder behaves in its god-made playground of the sky; Larcade's breathing frosts the home back into nonliving.

To your uncertainties, Larcade can only say, "I am a fighter, my love, it would not do for me to perish so easily," and to your quaking chest, Larcade can only kiss and undress and mend back into how it rises whenever you smile.

There are no smiles this night. Only storms, clear cuts, downcast affection, and tearful daisies sung tearful songs. Your visit is over, stealthy one, you have seen enough; come back home before another storm begins, know better than to test your luck.