Palpable

Something Like This

Something Like This 
Challenge: Adoration 
» There were many things about Victoria that would make her a great queen. Alas, there was still the small matter of convincing her to marry him... 

ADORATION

There were many things about Victoria that made Adrien think she would be an incredible queen, and none of them were the reasons that he had thought originally.

On the surface, she seemed to be aloof and maybe a little prideful. (She'd turned down his proposal for marriage because she didn't want to rule— so insulting and so true to herself.) She was certainly infuriating at times, when she had smiled at him in the way that made him feel like he could follow her to the ends of this earth without a single regret.

But as he got to know her, she slowly opened his eyes to the world around him. Instead of the shades of gray and black and white of his room, he learned to appreciate blue and green and brown. Rich silks and leather jackets were replaced by cotton and itchy wool. Every laugh he managed to startle out of her felt more genuine than the courier's smiles. An occasional nod from Amelia, her friend the sniper who had hated his guts, made him feel more loved than when hundreds of people had pledged their devotion to him because he'd been named Crown Prince.

And, skies above, she was so much more than he had first thought. Yes, she was still aloof and definitely obnoxious at times, but that smile wasn't half as infuriating as it had been. Her tongue was sharper than the swords Draco occasionally wielded with such precision that it scared him, and her fingers were more often than not greasy from some machine she had found. And her mind—it startled him how she could keep up with his and Draco's arguments about a kingdom's politics and even insert her opinion into them.

But what really convinced him that she would be a good queen was the way she interacted with people that he wouldn't have looked at before. There was something about the way she moved, with effortless power and grace, turning heads wherever she went, that was almost regal.

"Why do you fight?" he asked once, and she looked at him with that curious glint in her eyes. Her head tilted slightly as it always did when she was confused. "You must have a reason."

She did that thing with her right shoulder, sort of like a shrug except it wasn't a shrug. "I don't want to die." And he was surprised; he'd been half expecting something heroic and noble, about how she couldn't watch defenseless people die. She smiled. "Isn't that enough?"

He smiled back at her, and the words slip out of his head without his permission— "My proposal still stands."

She looked confused. "What proposal?"

For a moment, he considered teasing her, but he dismissed it. "I still think you'll make a good queen."

Victoria hesitated, and she shook her head. "I know. But..." She trailed off, as if she didn't know how to finish that, and he sighed.

"It's the truth," he said, and he threw a small smile at her. "If you change your mind..." and he left the rest unsaid. It wasn't like he was going to have marriage proposals thrown at him when he was so entrenched with this mess with Dracónia and Ambrose and Draco and his sisters that the only way out of it was to walk through one step at a time.

She smiled, and he saw a frightened girl who happened to be his closest – maybe his only – friend who was pretending to be brave. She wasn't pretending much anymore. "Thanks," she said simply.

He felt like he had finally done the right thing for once in his life.

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I! Ship! Them! So! Much! It's my OTP. So beautiful, so selfless, so pure. About once a week, I end up screaming into my pillows because of them and how excited I am about writing their relationship. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH, OKAY? LET ME SHIP MY OWN CHARACTERS TOGETHER.