WHERE: Vallo: Hopper's Fitz's Cabin WHEN: November 27th, 2023 WHAT: Post What If? the boys catch up and Tyler asks questions that Fitz doesn't want to answer. WARNINGS: Men Bad at Talking STATUS: Complete
They were in Hopper’s cabin, which Tyler found himself at more often than not, to keep away from his own place. His own home was starting to feel like a tomb to him, full of ghosts of his past and family that he was likely never going to see again. So it was just better to not be there for anything more than the necessities. So lucky for his friends because he was bothering them when he wasn’t at work.
After this latest round of weird shit that Vallo had thrown at them, Caroline was spending more time with Lucas and, with Bonnie and the twins gone, it left lucky Fitz at the mercy of a bored Tyler. “I swear to whatever being is puppeting us right now that if you don’t use that loofah, I will throw you in a tub myself!” Tyler called out in the direction of the bathroom from where he sat in the living room with Nighteyes and Motley. He was scrolling through his social media on his phone while Motley squawked out a ‘Stupid Fitz!’
Tyler could only nod at her. She wasn’t wrong. At least, not when it came to Fitz’s bathing habits.
Fitz was…. not really sure how he felt. He didn’t remember anything of the previous week, nor did Nighteyes. He’d heard bits and pieces though. King FitzChivalry Farseer.
He’d always known that there were other paths that could have been taken. The Fool had talked about them. In most futures, Fitz had never existed at all. Those where he did, he died as a child. The Fool had only ever seen one path that involved Fitz surviving. Fitz had always assumed that, in order to save the Six Dutchies, he’d taken the only path that existed. The Fool had always told him…
He didn’t want to think about it. He’d never wanted to be king. He hadn’t. He had never…
Tyler’s voice came through the bathroom door, snapping him back to reality. He wouldn’t think about it. There was nothing to think about. The past couldn’t be changed, and there was no sense in entertaining what ifs.
He didn’t respond to Tyler, though he did take the loofah that his friend had thrown at him in lieu of a greeting that afternoon in hand. He didn’t think that a bath was really necessary, really. He might not have remembered it, but he had clearly bathed during the forgotten week, and it had only been a couple of days. He was still pretty sure that he was relatively clean.
You stink, Nighteyes helpfully supplied from where he was curled at Tyler’s feet.
I do not, Fitz thought back at him.
Perhaps not as much as you normally do. But more than the other humans in this world.
Fitz sighed. With the plumbing, it was much easier to run a bath. No running buckets of water from the nearest stream or river, no needing to light a fire and waiting for it to heat. He dropped his hair under the water, before applying the floral scented shampoo to his hair. It smelled of rosemary and lavender and reminded him of Patience, and it lathered more than he had expected it to. He’d sometimes used soaps in his hair, but never anything like this, and when he rinsed the lather from his hair, he stayed submerged longer than was necessary, letting the water close over his head to block out the world around him.
But he couldn’t stay there, under the water, and he couldn’t stay in the bathroom forever either, no matter how little he wanted to ever hear about this King FitzChivalry. And so, he finished rinsing his hair, gave himself a thorough scrub with the loofah, which was a very strange word for it, dressed in a loose-fitting, blue t-shirt and a pair of sweats, and made his way to the den.
“I used your loofah; I hope you’re happy,” Fitz said, rubbing at his shoulder-length, dripping curls with the towel. Gilly attacked his feet as he walked, and once he sat down in the armchair across from Tyler, the ferret climbed up his leg and curled up in his lap. Nighteyes gave an annoyed snort from where he lay.
It had been a weird week. Full of a Caroline without empathy and a Fitz that was nothing like the Fitz that he had gotten to know in that dark future or the one that was with him now. Scars had been gone, his nose had been unbroken, but more than just the physical stuff, King Fitz had been lighter. Like there had been a heavy weight lifted from his shoulders. And he had held himself so regally, it had been more than a little freaky for Tyler.
It made him realize that he didn’t know as much as he should about the Fitz that was normally around. The one who was finally walking back into the living room, freshly showered.
Tyler wrinkled his nose, a small smirk making its way onto his face as he took an exaggerated sniff of the air. “My nose thanks you, Your Majesty.” He tilted his head in Fitz’s direction, in a mock show of a bow. “Does your life feel changed? It should.”
Fitz fell very still and Nighteyes raised his head. Even Motley fell still. Only Gilly kept batting and biting at Fitz's fingers, offended that he'd stopped stroking him.
"Don't," Fitz said, low, once he was sure he was in control of his voice. "I am no one's majesty. That's not me."
The teasing tone that Tyler's voice had taken on earlier dropped immediately and his previously jovial mood dissipated. "Shit. Sorry, man. I didn't realize it was a sore spot." He knew the other man had traumas - plenty of traumas, really, enough for a dozen people - but there was just so much he didn't know about his history still.
Sometimes it felt like pulling teeth, so he had always mostly just stayed in the present with Fitz. It was easier to leave the past in the past, but he was starting to see maybe that wasn't the best idea. "Do you want to talk about it?"
“No.”
That was short, and Fitz knew it was. He got up abruptly, but only to grab a bottle of cheap blackberry brandy and a couple of glasses. Whatever relaxation he’d found in the warm water of the bathtub had left him.
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
And there wasn’t. Not really. Fitz spent hours writing in the dead of night on the evenings when he couldn’t sleep – which was most of them – about those years. About the Fool. About his childhood and the night King Shrewd died and all that occurred afterward. And then in the morning, he gathered up whatever papers he wrote, and took them outside, and he burned them. But to talk about those things, to say them aloud, to have someone else know them… well, that wasn’t necessary.
The whole tall, dark, and brooding thing was something that Fitz clearly excelled in. Tyler watched silently as the man retrieved his brandy and was barely able to keep quiet while he sat back down.
There really wasn't a lot that Tyler could follow up with because by this point in his own personal growth journey, he knew no meant no and that if someone was putting up boundaries, it wasn't his place to push. So he exchanged looks with Nighteyes - who was somehow the better communicator despite the fact that he couldn't talk in any way that Tyler could understand - and sighed to himself. "If you change your mind, I'm around. But one of those glasses had better be for me."
One of the glasses was for Tyler. Fitz poured brandy in both glasses, and slid one of the cups across the coffee table to Tyler.
"Even if I did change my mind, why in El's name would I tell you anything?" Fitz sneered. "None of it has anything to do with you at all."
Tyler had dealt with enough petulant people in his life - namely, vampires - that he wasn't annoyed so easily by people being ill-tempered around him. So he brushed off the attitude and lifted the glass to his lips, drinking the brandy and ignoring the burn that came from cheap liquor.
"Because I'm your friend, dumbass, and friends are here to listen to you as a sounding board when you need it and without judgment," Ty explained patiently. He swirled the brandy in his glass, watching the liquid swish back and forth. "Keeping shit in only lets it fester and I know that from experience." He chugged the rest of the brandy, making the slightest of faces, before standing. "I'm headed out to get you better booze and give you a proper chance to brood in peace. I'll be back soon."
He called to Motley, offering a shoulder if she wanted to go for a quick stroll with him.
“We are not –”
Nighteyes growled, teeth bared, and climbed to his feet. Brother, stop. Do not do this.
At the first growl, Gilly rolled to his feet and scamped off of Fitz lap, running for the bedroom, but Fitz didn’t react. He just stared at Nighteyes for a long moment, and then waved a hand.
“Go,” he said, suddenly exhausted.
Motley flew up from where she’d been sitting on the table, and settled onto Tyler’s shoulder, shooting Fitz a reproachful look.
Tyler had half hoped that Fitz would reconsider the brooding, but knew that it would be a long game, wearing the other man down. Future Fitz had warned him of it, so he shouldn’t be surprised.
It still kind of sucked though, when Fitz was one of his only friends left in this world, but whatever. He had let worse roll of his shoulders before. He could handle this much.
Tyler didn’t look back as he raised a hand in farewell for now. “Later.” And then he and Motley were gone, silence reigning in the cabin after him.
Fitz didn’t watch Tyler leave, but instead glowered at the wall opposite. Hopper’s cabin heated itself through some means that Fitz didn’t entirely understand, but he regretted now the lack of a fireplace. His gaze didn’t shift until he heard the click of the latch, not even when he heard the gentle tap of Nighteye’s nails on the floor, until Nighteye’s heavy, broad-skulled head came to rest on his knee.
He looked at his wolf them, scratching absent-mindedly behind his ears.
Why would you treat him like that? Nighteyes asked.
Fitz didn’t know, but he answered, None of it is any of his business. The thought was harsh, but Nighteyes didn’t flinch.
He is pack.
Fitz started, and pulled his hand away.
“He is not pack,” he said aloud. And then, We have no pack here.
We do. Nighteyes nudged his hand. There is Speki and Svanna and the Shifter. Grudgingly, he added, There is the ferret and the crow. And there is the Blood Eater.
Fitz couldn’t stand it anymore. It felt like the the walls were closing in on him. He had to get out. He knocked back the rest of his brandy, and carelessly put it on the table, not noticing when it teetered on the edge and fell to the floor.
“If you want a new pack, then you’re free to it,” Fitz snarled, standing. He tried not to notice how Nighteyes’ ears pinned back.
And then Fitz was out of the door, closing it firmly behind him, and he was running into the woods, running until he couldn’t run anymore.
When Tyler returned to the cabin, he would find only the wolf there.