Work Text:
"I'm surprised you're still in one piece."
Any other day, Luke would have fired back with a sarcastic reply of his own.
Today, he simply did not have the energy.
Nor the heart.
"Keep walking if you still want to stay in one piece," he growled without bothering to lift his gaze from the flowers in front of him. The thick bitterness in his voice should have been enough to intimidate most people, but the undisguised threat that saturated his words and flavored his tone was enough to make even the bravest, cockiest folks turn tail and run for the hills.
Marius von Hagen, evidently, was the bravest, cockiest, and perhaps dumbest of them all.
"For what it's worth," Marius continued talking as he plopped down next to Luke, either ignoring the latter's threats or simply believing he was above them. "I wasn't trying to eavesdrop. I didn't even know you'd be there."
"If you were a decent man, you would have left."
Marius folded his arms over his chest and pouted in response, a sight that looked almost comical as he towered over Luke even when the two of them were sitting. "Are you saying I'm not decent?" he protested. "I'll have you know, I walked away and put my headphones on until I saw you leave. Then I went in to talk to my attorney about my business' legal matters, as is my right." He was clearly indignant about the attack on his character.
Luke simply rolled his eyes. "She's Pax's attorney, not yours. There's a difference."
"She's both."
"Pretty sure that's a conflict of interest, Mr. President."
Luke didn't expect his malicious sarcasm to be met with an amused chuckle. "Good. You're being a brat again."
The hairs on the back of Luke's neck stood up. "Who are you, of all people, calling a brat?" he snapped, finally turning to glare at Marius for the first time since he'd arrived. "You're such a spoiled, whiny piece of work that actual kids think you're bratty!"
"Are you saying I'm a role model?" Marius purred as the corners of his lips curled into a smirk. "Aww, Luke, I didn't know you thought so highly of me." Suddenly his shoulders loosened up and his eyes softened. "You were so gloomy that it was unnerving. If you're making snide remarks again, then you must be feeling a little better, right?"
Flabbergasted.
Luke was so taken aback that he could almost smell the smoke coming out of his ears as the gears in his brain turned frantically in an effort to think of a way to respond. Normally he was quick to react to just about any situation; his field work as an NSB agent required him to be able to act on the fly in life or death situations.
But in a situation like this, without that adrenaline pumping through him? Not even Raven was immune to getting flustered and floundering.
"How did you know I'd be here?" Not wanting to respond directly, Luke tried to ask as casually as he could.
He winced internally. Being indirect and evading difficult topics was what got Luke into trouble with her in the first place, wasn't it? Wasn't he only proving that despite his promises to the contrary, promises he had made just this morning in his desperation to get her to stop crying, he was already falling back on his old bad habits?
Marius didn't seem to notice or care. "I didn't," he answered bluntly. "I just thought the hydrangeas looked nice."
The hydrangeas?
Luke turned his attention back to the colorful array of flower clusters before him. He reached forward and began to gently rub some baby blue petals between his thumb and forefinger. "I guess they do."
"This time of year," Marius continued, "I find a lot of inspiration by spending time in nature." Was he still talking to Luke, or did he just enjoy hearing the sound of his own voice? "The scenery, the colors, the shapes. It's crucial for a painter to stay inspired, after all."
A half-hearted smirk crept onto Luke's lips. "Why don't you just ask your tutor Dr. Richter to host a study session in his garden?"
Marius let out a loud snort and lifted his chin defiantly. "Please. You think I trust Vyn not to stab me with a pair of garden shears the moment I turn my back to grab my books?"
That brought a genuine snicker out of Luke, and Marius couldn't help but laugh along with him. It was a brief, blissful moment, and then the two fell into silence once again.
"For what it's worth," Marius began, as he plucked a nearby petal off a purple hydrangea, "you totally should have told her earlier."
So he was planning to talk about that. Luke grimaced.
Before he could defend himself, fire back, or coordinate any sort of response at all, Marius continued speaking. "But she's not gonna hate you for it. She'll get over her anger real fast."
The confidence in his tone rubbed Luke the wrong way. "You think you know her better than I do? We grew up together," he pointed out, and he didn't care to hide the acerbic notes underlying his words.
"I never said that, guard dog," Marius huffed. "But I know a thing or two about grief." A despondent chuckle left his lips--it was a sound without an ounce of joy, but rather one that suggested 'I have to laugh, or else I will cry.' A sound of desperation.
"Would it have been better to avoid her and die far away, leaving her only with happy memories from your childhood? Would it have been better if she never got to know the person you are now? Or... would it have been better if she got to know you after being gone for so long, to reconnect with you, to see all the ways you'd changed but also the ways you'd stayed the same?" Marius pulled his knees into his chest, and he gingerly plopped the purple petal on top of them. "Ultimately it boils down to one question: Would she have grieved more if she never knew you, or if she knew you and had the chance to love you?" He cast a quick glance at Luke before rapidly averting his gaze to look back at the flowers.
For now, Luke would pretend he didn't see the tears brimming in the corner of Marius' eyes.
"I never knew my mother." Marius rested his chin on top of his knees, trapping the sole lavender petal there. "I think my father and Giann have suffered more, because they knew her. They miss someone who they loved, because they can see the spectre of her in everyday life in a way that I can't.
"But Giann has told me that he feels more sorry for me, because he wishes I had gotten the chance to know her, make memories with her, and love her. He feels my grief must be worse, because all I have are stories from others without any 'love' to call my own."
Marius paused briefly. Luke could hear the shuddering in his breath as he inhaled deeply, and he could see the way Marius' chest trembled as he slowly let that breath go.
"Maybe we're both right. Maybe we're both wrong. And until you came back from the capital and ran into her again.... You already knew you were dying. You just didn't know whether you should tell her or not."
Marius lifted his head and straightened his back to his full height.
"But she knows now, dammit, so you'd better not run away. She knows you, and she knows what you're going through, so you'd better make sure she has enough happy memories to last an eternity. Until the day she sees you again."
Marius' chest was rising and falling at a rapid pace, and he curled back in on himself once he'd said his piece.
"... because if she cries that she didn't get enough time with you, my first order of business in the afterlife will be to kill you a second time." He sighed. "Unless I hire a medium and pay enough to compensate some spirits for haunting you on that end--"
"I won't let you down."
Luke spoke at last. His voice sounded foreign to him, though, with the conviction and confidence it held. He had never felt so comfortable with his fate, but now... for the first time, he finally felt a burden lift off his shoulders.
Whether telling her or not was the right move was no longer the question. She knew, so Luke had to make the best of the situation.
"You know... you're smarter than I gave you credit for."
"Dude, you suck at compliments."
Another shared laugh, a bit lighter than the first, with a backdrop of powder blue, pale purple, and pastel pink hydrangeas blooming around them.