Rather Be Happy
Jan. 1st, 2024 07:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shinonCharacters: Lloyd/Colette; minor roles for Raine, Zelos, Sheena with vague Zelos/Sheena implications
Word count: ~4700
Warnings: Canon-typical Emotional Problems and Dark Implications(TM)
Notes: For
The day started, like many days before it, with Colette tripping on a rug. The nightstand came down with her, and an expensive-looking porcelain vase, and a thunderous crash. Traveling with Colette, you got used to tipping housekeeping generously, but that vase probably called for a conversation with management.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, sitting up. “Maybe you can fix it, Lloyd. I think all the pieces are still here.” And she turned her left hand over and ripped a three-inch-long shard of green lacquerware out of the meat of her palm. “The, um, the blood will come off, right? Sorry.”
That was what she said. Lloyd remembered this later. She said all that, but she never once said “ow” or “that hurts,” or flinched, or even looked startled. He squeezed a healing gel into the cut and bound a spare scarf around her hand to soak up the blood, and then – it was like it never happened. She didn’t even look at her hand, the whole rest of the day. He even asked one time, “How’s your hand doing,” and she just said “Huh?” like she’d totally forgotten.
But Lloyd didn’t forget. And he didn’t forget rinsing the blood off of the shards, one by one, before he fit them back together.
By lunchtime he had a weird feeling. And by evening he kinda had a plan.
*
“Tell me something you don’t like,” he said at dinner, at a little sandwich place outside Hima.
Colette blinked at him in confusion. It was one of the cutest things she did, and she did it five or ten times a day. He’d never stopped thinking how lucky he was. Then she frowned a little and said, “Why?”
“Just humor me. C’mon. What’s the first thing that comes to mind?” He’d thought this would be an easy one – they’d had an annoying day in Hima. With the Tower of Salvation long gone, the town had been trying all kinds of other appeals to tourists and pilgrims, even trying to attract Tethe’allans to “the exciting and authentic rugged landscapes of Sylvarant.” A lot of people in these tour groups had Exspheres, or Exsphere chips, carried like religious relics. Lloyd and Colette had been trying to talk them into giving them up, but people were stubborn, and they especially didn’t seem to take Colette seriously. He’d thought that, at least, might bother her.
But she only frowned deeper and looked down at her salad, which was really more of a fruit plate with fruit vinaigrette, with a leaf or two of lettuce somewhere at the bottom to soak up the raspberry juice. “Um… I don’t like steak. I don’t like the texture, and I get sad thinking about the cows.”
Okay, sure, that was an answer. “But if someone served you a steak dinner, would you say anything?”
She shook her head. “If they already went to all the trouble of cooking it…”
He leaned forward across the table. “Okay, what if it’s not cooked yet? What if they’re just saying ‘hey Colette, I’m going to buy some steaks for dinner, is that okay with you?’ Would you say something then?”
“It’s so nice of them to make me anything at all -”
“Would you?”
“And if they’re already making all these plans -”
“So you wouldn’t, huh?”
“Lloyd, what are you talking about? I just want everyone to have a nice time. If it’s not my favorite food, it’s okay.”
“But – if your friends ever find out that they were making you unhappy the whole time, how are they gonna feel?”
“They won’t find out,” she said firmly, and ate a slice of apple. “I don’t know why we’re arguing.”
Lloyd sat back, resigned. “Do you like your salad?”
You could set a watch by the way she brightened and said, “It’s wonderful!” It did help a little, knowing it was probably true. She probably hadn’t been running a long con of pretending to like fruit for seventeen years.
“Colette,” he said, “do you trust me?”
She put her fork down and reached across the table for his hand. She looked hurt. “Lloyd, of course I do.”
“Then… you can tell me when something bothers you. Right? It doesn’t have to be a big secret.”
It didn’t have the effect he’d hoped (like, maybe her throwing herself into his arms and coming clean about everything forever). Behind her eyes something actually seemed to be drawing further away. “You know I don’t like to dwell on things like that.”
“I know.” He sandwiched her hand between his. “But I wanna make you happy, and it’s easier if you’ll tell me when I’m doing it wrong.”
She smiled at him, a little sadly, and put her other hand on top of his, all in a stack. “You make me very happy. Don’t worry.”
“But -”
“I know there’s still sad stuff in the world, and little disappointments and things that don’t go my way. But I only have so much time. I’d rather use that time to… do what I can for people, and not waste it getting upset.”
“What do you mean, ‘only so much time?’”
She shook her head, and took her hands out of his with a little laugh. “You’re right. I guess – I grew up thinking that way, but… I’m not going to die for Sylvarant now, am I?”
“That’s right.” Lloyd leaned forward again. “So it’s time to make some new habits. Learn how to complain. And listen, I have just the idea.”
“An idea?”
“Yeah.” He grinned at her. “I’m gonna take you on a date.”
“You already -”
“Okay, I’m gonna take you on a bunch of dates. But one of them is gonna be really bad. I mean, on purpose. And you have to figure out which one, and tell me what you didn’t like. What do you think? It’ll be good practice. And I’ll make it up to you afterward, I swear.”
She thought a moment, and then smiled. “Okay. Let’s try it.”
He slapped a hand down on the table. “Then it’s official. As your boyfriend, I’m gonna annoy you so bad.”
“Lloyd, you’re so sweet!”
*
SEVERAL MONTHS LATER.
The streets of Sybak were packed with dogs. Big fluffy companion dogs, bigger pointier protection dogs, teacup dogs, hairless dogs, spotted and brindled and yellow and black.
“Lloyd!” Colette clutched Lloyd’s arm to her. “Look at her little eyebrows!” She pointed at a jowly black dog lounging in the shade and drooling all over her owner, a very proper-looking Tethe’allan businessman.
“Look how much work the street sweepers are gonna have,” Lloyd said wryly. A tumbleweed of white dog hair wafted by. A little orange foxy-looking dog knocked over a trash can and four other dogs peeled away from their handlers to squabble over the contents.
Colette squeezed his arm harder. “If I got to pet all these puppies, I would sweep the streets for free.”
“They have a guild, I don’t think you can go around them like that -”
“Oh, hi there!” Colette cooed as a shaggy gray dog the size of a small dragon shoved its nose into her hand. At the other end of the dog’s leash, the owner said the same rushed “don’tworryhe’sfriendly” that they basically all said. Lloyd thought, loyally, I never have to do that with Noishe.
When Colette’s new friend Smitty the sighthound had moved on to smell other people, Lloyd squeezed her hand. “We’re not actually here for the dog show.”
“We’re not?” For a second she looked disappointed. And then excited again, like she had total faith he was about to invent something even better than a dog show.
“We’ll come back and say hi to them later if there’s time, okay? But right now we gotta be somewhere.”
*
EARLIER.
“...But only if it’s not gonna hurt your feelings. The whole idea is, Colette’s gonna be super bored.” Lloyd shrugged sheepishly. “And I’ll… probably be asleep.”
Professor Sage looked up from her planner with narrowed eyes. “’Hurt my feelings?’ Lloyd, honestly. Do you think that was the issue I took with you two zoning out in class?”
“Well, yeah? You always got super upset with me -”
“And you thought it was about my ego? Not, perhaps, about wanting to equip the people in my care to make informed decisions in daily life?”
“I dunno about informed decisions. I made it this far just kinda going with my gut.”
The Professor stared at him a moment, then shook her head, smiling. “Well, that’s no secret.”
Not totally sure how to take that, Lloyd smiled back and said, “But hey, what do you think about my idea?” She looked at her planner again, frowning. “It’s for Colette,” Lloyd wheedled.
Professor Sage flipped a few pages back and forth, and then finally set the planner on her desk and pointed out a block of dates. “This series, here. In Sybak. I absolutely deplore this man’s scholarship. His unchecked assumptions and open contempt for archaic ways of life -”
“Is it hard to get seats?”
She snorted. “In a just world, it shouldn’t be.” Then she thought of something else. “Actually. If you two would do me a favor and sit somewhere very visible… Front and center, if that’s available…”
“And hurt this guy’s feelings?”
“I was thinking more of the reputational damage, but – ha! – I’ll take that too.”
*
As they left the lecture hall, Colette elbowed him gently. “Did you have a nice nap?”
He had, actually. He had no idea what that guy with the sideburns had been talking about for a whole hour and a half or why Professor Sage wanted to conduct psychological warfare on him, but he hoped she’d be happy. “I did, yeah. Did you learn anything interesting?”
“Um…” Colette scanned the street for distractions. Many of the dogs and their owners had gone inside for the show now, but there were still a few taking walks, and dog-themed merchandise in the bazaar. “Look! Don’t you think Noishe would love one of these toys?”
*
EARLIER.
Genis said, “She still has super sensitive hearing, right? Take her someplace with bad acoustics.”
Lloyd nodded sagely. “Good idea. What’s a coustic?”
*
“If you wanna do some shopping, this is just the place,” said Lloyd. And steered her toward the auction hall.
After an hour and a half under the high bare roof of the hall, hearing the auctioneer’s voice bounce around endlessly, “do I hear five thousand gald, five thousand gald, anybody anybody, five thousand from the lady in the pink hat, do I hear six thousand,” Colette leaned over to him and said, “Lloyd? I think I’ve seen enough.”
Was this it? Had she figured it out? He said, “You sure? We haven’t even won anything -”
“I don’t need anything.” (“GONE!” said the auctioneer, and began introducing the next lot. Colette had to lean even harder into Lloyd’s shoulder to make herself heard). “It’s kind of fun to think about what kind of person would own all this stuff, but -”
“But?”
She sat back a little, frowning. “Well, when I put it that way – oh! Look at that coffee table. It’s like they just took a slice of a tree. You could imagine Presea having something like that, right?”
“I don’t think Presea drinks coffee,” said Lloyd, his hopes beginning to dim. If Colette could talk herself into having fun even here, he’d have to keep making it worse. Not that he hadn’t planned for that, but – man, this was so boring. He wondered if he might be the one to tap out first.
Colette held out for another hour (“I hear nineteen thousand gald, nineteen thousand, will anybody bid twenty thousand gald, twenty thousand for this beautiful armoire”) and never complained about the noise at all. When they emerged back into the bazaar, the sun was sinking orange behind the school buildings and there were even fewer dogs out and about than last time.
“What’s next?” she said, clearly hoping the answer was “Quality Puppy Time.”
“I wanna go check on our dinner reservation real quick. When that’s good to go, we can visit with some dogs.”
*
EARLIER.
When he went to visit Sheena, Zelos was visiting too. At first Lloyd thought this was convenient – they were the two people from outside Iselia that Colette was closest to, and now he could ask for ideas from both of them without making extra stops.
But Zelos wasn’t in a helpful mood. He just pretended to be. “Bud,” he said, slinging an arm around Lloyd’s shoulders, “you’re in the right place. I’m, like, an expert in making girls feel bad. Try this:”
Everything he said in the next thirty seconds was horrifying. He only stopped when Sheena kicked one of his legs out from under him, yelling, “This is Colette we’re talking about!”
“Oh,” Zelos said, wincing and rubbing at his knee, “but it’d be fine if it was someone we didn’t know, right?”
“Absolutely not, you monster!”
“Okay, ‘monster’ is harsh. I haven’t even done half of those things, we’re just brainstorming.”
Sheena got right up in Zelos’s face, looking murderous. “Which half have you done?”
You sorta had to wonder why Zelos came to Mizuho at all, if he was just gonna piss Sheena off and start a bunch of arguments he deserved to lose. Lloyd coughed. “I’ll, uh, catch you guys later.”
*
“I’m afraid we don’t have a reservation under that name, sir,” said the hostess.
“Damn. You sure?” said Lloyd, who had not made a reservation. They’d already waited in line for twenty minutes just to ask this question, and now they would probably have to camp out in line for an hour or more for a table to come free. He hoped Colette would find this annoying, because he already kinda hated it himself.
“Check my name too,” said Colette, swinging her and Lloyd’s joined hands back and forth.
After a moment the hostess said, “And your name was…?”
Unsurprisingly – because Colette hadn’t been involved in picking the restaurant, and hadn’t even heard of it until they got here – the names Colette, Brunel, and Colette Brunel weren’t on the list either. But it was sweet of her to try.
“Do you want to go somewhere else?” Lloyd asked her. “I’m sorry I screwed this one up.”
“It’s okay!” she said, because of course she did. “I’ll wait however long it takes.”
It took an hour and a half. Lloyd spent that time chatting with other people in line, and pointedly not with Colette – that should definitely tip her off that this was the bad date, right? If it was a good date, he’d be apologizing and giving her his undivided attention. Maybe playing some games with her to kill time. Instead he was finding out – and he wasn’t sure if this made him more or less of a jerk – that the couple waiting behind them in line was actually really fun to talk to. They were big hikers, and they’d both taken time off work to go explore new routes in the new world –
Left out, Colette just smiled faintly and looked around. Especially at dogs.
*
EARLIER.
Lloyd scuffed uneasily at the workroom floor with the toe of his boot. “Hey, Dad. Do you, uh… Do you remember how I screwed up Colette’s sixteenth birthday present?”
*
Once they were actually seated, in a quiet dim-lit table in the back, it was fine. The food was good, it showed up when it was supposed to… He wondered if maybe he should’ve gotten the wait staff in on this somehow. But no, if someone spilled something or fumbled their whole dinner onto the floor or the food came back burnt – that wouldn’t bother Colette at all. She would sympathize, because she did stuff like that all the time, and she’d be so kind about it to whoever had screwed it up that they’d be instantly smitten and they’d get great service the rest of the night. So, nah. Probably better if everything was just “fine” and no better.
“...And after this,” she was saying, “dogs! Did you see that one with the spots and the long tail? I hope I can find her again, she was so sweet…”
Lloyd cleared his throat and looked down and away. “Um. Yeah, about that.”
“What is it?” she said, giving him that adorable confused look again.
Oh, nothing, this is just the make-or-break moment for my whole little scheme here. “We’re not… gonna see any dogs today. I’m sorry, Colette. By the time we get out of here tonight, the show’s gonna be over.”
Her hand tightened around her spoon. She put it down, picked it back up, put it down again, started to push out her chair – “You know what, I’m not that hungry, why don’t we -”
Quickly he said, “I lied, it ended at seven.”
She scooted her chair back in, looking crushed. “That’s okay. It’s okay. That’s…” And she fell silent, looking down at her plate.
Lloyd started counting down in his head. He’d have to tell her, if she didn’t figure it out fast. Otherwise she’d go on thinking that he’d been jerking her around all day by pure accident. He’d underestimated her; she wasn’t supposed to hold out this long. Ten, nine, eight, seven -
“Oh!” Her head snapped up and she looked him in the face again. She was smiling. “This is the bad date, isn’t it?”
Lloyd sighed hugely and slumped back in his chair. “Oh thank goodness.”
Her eyes had gotten large and unfocused while she sifted through her memories of the day. “You kept steering me away from playing with puppies… and taking me boring places… and you ignored me in line for the restaurant. That was all on purpose?”
“Yep, that was the idea. Did you really not think anything was off until now?”
She shook her head. “I don’t really mind going boring places if it’s with you.”
“The auctioneer…?”
“It was really loud and echoey in there, but I can just decide not to pay attention to things that bother me. So that’s what I did. I just said to myself, ‘I don’t really hear that’ and put it in a little box.” She mimed closing a box and putting it away. “Isn’t that what everyone does?”
“I. Uh. No. No, I don’t think it is. I mean – I’ve never done it.”
“What, never? You just imagine a box, and then you can put all kinds of things inside -”
Lloyd interrupted, “But you shouldn’t have to. That’s kinda the whole point of today.” And maybe it would help make his point if… He started rummaging around in his pockets. “I actually had one last thing ready for you today.”
She raised her eyebrows. “One last bad thing?”
“That’s right. Gimme just a sec here…” He glanced up at her. “Don’t look so excited, it’s supposed to be a bad surprise.”
“Sorry,” she said, with a half laugh. “I just like seeing how you think.”
He finally found the necklace in his pocket, and underneath the table, snapped the pendant in half. “Okay. Hold out your hands.”
She did, obviously trying hard to stop smiling. He handed it over.
She looked down into her cupped palms, the pale golden chain spilling out between her fingers. What she would be seeing was a varnished wooden pendant shaped like a leaf of the Great Tree, broken in two pieces along its central vein. “Oh! Lloyd, it’s…”
“It’s okay. You can tell me what you really think.”
“It’s so pretty! This is your best yet – it’s so delicate. Did Dirk help you?”
“Um, ouch. I can do ‘delicate’ without Dad’s help.”
“Sorry.”
“Yeah, he did.”
Colette stuck her tongue out at him.
Lloyd said, “C’mon, do you notice anything else about it?”
“Well -” Her hand closed protectively around the pendant. “Even if it’s broken, I still love it. Because you made it for me.”
“What if I told you it’s your birthday present?”
“But my birthday isn’t for -”
“Your last birthday.”
“Oh? But you already gave me a present then. And we got shortcake. And then -”
(One of Zelos’s Bad Date Suggestions had been, “be her first time, and then leave without saying anything.” Lloyd hadn’t bothered telling him it was definitely too late for that.)
“Look,” said Lloyd, bracing his hands on the table to lean forward, “doesn’t this remind you of anything?”
“Mm-hm,” said Colette, looking vague.
“Not that,” he said, and felt himself blush a little. “I mean – when you left on the Journey of Regeneration. And I had promised you a necklace.”
She blinked, coming back into the present. “You gave it to me eventually. And it saved my life.”
“Yeah, but – you didn’t know that was gonna happen. You thought you would never see me again, right? And all I gave you was -”
“It didn’t bother me.”
“Didn’t it?”
She shook her head. “I was happy you were thinking about me. And… I was happy that you didn’t know what was going to happen. You were still you, and you were still living like everything would always be okay. I really treasured that.”
“But… wouldn’t you rather I didn’t let you down, too?”
She fidgeted with the necklace and didn’t meet his eyes. “I’d rather be happy, I think.”
He thought sometimes about the journey Colette had expected to have. Just her and the Professor and… Kratos. And to not even have a keepsake from home – to have Lloyd promise her something and fall through – that must’ve hurt, right? It had to.
He swallowed. “Can I have that back for a second? I need to show you – there’s a secret about it.”
She hesitated a moment, but handed it over.
“Okay. This is the part Dad helped me with.” He held it so that the pendant faced her, and very carefully pulled on one of the chains where it emerged from the back of the leaf. The broken halves snapped back together.
Colette gasped and clapped her hands to her mouth. “Lloyd!”
“I’m never gonna let you down again,” he said. He took her hand and lowered it to the table, pressing the pendant back into it. “You never have to go off and face everything alone again.” He took a breath, and looked straight into her eyes. “That’s why I want you to tell me what’s going on.”
*
EARLIER.
Lloyd looked down at the cloth he’d been using to wipe the blood off the broken vase. It felt gritty. In the spreading red stain, there was a sparkle of tiny blue crystals.
*
She said, “It doesn’t hurt or anything.”
“Now, when you say it ‘doesn’t hurt,’” Lloyd said flatly. He hated doing it, but at times like these you had to push her. It might mean it didn’t hurt, or it only didn’t hurt so much she couldn’t ignore it, or, like when she was becoming an angel, she didn’t feel anything at all. With Colette you could never tell.
She shook her head, so hard her hair spun out around her. “I mean, I’ve turned into a crystal before, and that hurt. I felt all cold and stiff and tired all the time. This time, there’s none of that. So I think it’s fine.”
“You think it’s fine?”
“Yeah! Like, maybe I won’t turn into a crystal. Maybe I just – have glitter in my blood.” She did that fake little laugh she did when she was lying. “It could be a present from Martel, don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t think that,” said Lloyd, stabbing his fork into the remains of the cake. He hadn’t even wanted dessert, but Colette had gotten cake and insisted on pushing half of it onto his plate. “I think you’re sick and you need to get looked at before it gets worse. Were you ever gonna tell anyone?”
- And as soon as he said it, he knew. Of course not. She wouldn’t have told anyone. Maybe in a few months or years it would spread enough to be visible and he’d notice it one night when she got undressed – or maybe not even then. Maybe she’d stop undressing in front of him, stop letting him touch her, never say why -
In a small voice she said, “I was always… getting rescued. I was supposed to save the world, but I kept making you – and the Professor, and everyone – save me. You shouldn’t have to do it again. I’ve already had more time than I’m supposed to.” She fidgeted with her own dessert fork, taking apart the whipped-cream decorations on her own cake. And then she started talking very fast: “And what if it’s too bad to fix this time! I don’t want you to suffer. I don’t want to make you give your all to save me and then fail. That would be selfish of me. I don’t really need -”
“You don’t get it. I’m trying and failing right now.”
Her eyes got very big, and her shoulders slumped. “I…”
“You say you’d rather be happy. I get that. Who wouldn’t?” His eyes were stinging. “But I’m never gonna be happy in a world that doesn’t have you. Okay? So please…”
“I’m sorry. Do you – want me to talk to Professor Sage, or -”
“I want you to look out for yourself for once! But, yeah, that’s a good place to start. Will you promise to tell her everything?” She didn’t answer. He took her hands across the table again. “She won’t mind. Nobody minds. I had so many of our friends help me plan this awful date, because they care about you. They’re always gonna care about you. So stop thinking you’re a burden. And anyway – I love you, you dork, doesn’t that count for anything?”
She was crying now. They both were. “I love you, too, Lloyd. I’m so sorry.”
“If there isn’t an easy fix, that’s okay. We’ll go on a quest. We’ll find answers. And we don’t have to abandon the Exsphere search either, so don’t even say it – we’ll go wherever we have to go to find you a cure, and we’ll collect any we find on the way. It’s gonna be okay. But you have to promise.”
“You’re amazing,” she said. “I don’t deserve -”
“Nuh-uh. I never wanna hear that from you again. You deserve to have a full life in this world. Colette, promise me.”
“Okay.” She squeezed his hands and took a shaky breath. “I promise. I’ll tell you how I’m feeling, and I’ll let people help me.”
“That’s all I ask for.”
The waiter came over to check on them, looked from Lloyd to Colette and back, and hurriedly backed off, to return at some less emotionally fraught moment.
That broke the tension. Colette burst out laughing, drying her eyes. “Honestly, Lloyd? You did a really good job. Today has been awful.”
“I’m so glad to hear it. I felt like a total ass doing all that to you, I’d hate if it went to waste.”
“I was so excited you brought me here to see dogs, but then it was everything but! That was so smart of you. And kind of evil.”
“Well, just so you know…” He looked up and away, all casual. “The dog show is still going on tomorrow. I don’t have any plans – I mean, for real this time. So if you wanted to maybe go to that...”
She pushed her chair back, moved around the table to him, and hugged him, in a move that swept a rain of silverware onto the floor and almost knocked his chair over.
The day ended with apologizing to the restaurant staff and paying a little extra to replace a plate. There would be more days that ended like that. Many, if they were lucky.
