You Wrote Him PerfectlyThere Is So Much Hidden Inside Him But He Never Overlooks His Duty And He Always Has A Reason For Everything - Tumblr Posts

chevalier and ex-lovers for the angst promt? that seems like it would be really interesting considering his route. thank you for reading this ask

A/N: With some encouragement and brainstorming (thank you @lorei-writes 💜) I finished this!

An addition to my Broken Heartstrings series

Chevalier x Reader

WC: 1.3k

The crowds that have gathered in the streets are humming like a hive full of excited bees. Some small children are pushing their way beneath elbows and through knees, trying to get to the front. Others are being hoisted up onto the shoulders of grown ups who shift their weight from foot to foot, as eager as the children to get a glimpse.

You can see them all from your spot, perched on the wide windowsill of your bedroom. Precarious as it may be, you’ve pushed open the window, leaving nothing between you and the view of the street below. It’s a joyful scene, one of breathless anticipation as the townsfolk wait for their king to ride through on this, the anniversary of his coronation. The king that you chose a year ago. The man who had challenged your spirit and won your heart.

But instead of sitting by his side, proudly looking down at all the beaming faces, you’re alone at your window, stomach in knots at the thought of seeing Chevalier Michel again, even from a distance.

Just thinking his name sends your mind down well-trodden paths of anguish and heartbreak....

What had seemed so solid, so strong, had unraveled in a single moment. You didn’t even have the chance to anticipate something was wrong. He had gone to investigate suspicious activity at the border. He had returned, white clothing running red with blood that was not his. Still, you had run to him, concern an engine that spurred you forward at lightning speed….and he had turned away, turned his shoulder towards you. And then he had told you, in a voice as chilled as winter’s edge, to leave. 

Leave, he repeated at the palace gates, his hand gesturing for you to move away.

Leave, he repeated as you stood in his bedroom, questions shooting from your mouth like wayward fireworks, bright and burning and frantic. 

Leave was all he said, his voice a blade as dangerous and final as his sword.

His betrayal of your trust was a sudden cracking of ice, a fall into freezing water that left you speechless, breathless, and utterly broken. All the possibilities for the future, all the countless daydreams. All the nights spent talking, sharing, weaving a relationship from the threads of your heartstrings snapped in a blink by silver shears, cold as the blue of his eyes when all your wild thoughts boiled down to a single question, your voice trembling like a leaf in a cruel, sudden wind: 

Why?

Leave was his only reply.

And so you fled the palace, the beautiful rose gardens, the confused and concerned questions in the eyes of his brothers. You fled the place that had become home to return to the life you had known before, except it didn’t fit as it once did. Something was missing, something that ached in the night, that chased sleep away from the spinning hurricane of your mind. A longing for someone that you shouldn’t want, someone who was willing to drive a stake into the beating heart of your love without hesitation. Or explanation.

A combined gasp and cheer rises up from the crowd as the royal caravan approaches and tugs you back to the present. The other princes ride upon their horses, smiling and waving. Well, Licht isn’t exactly smiling and something about his somber expression is so familiar, a constant in a world turned upside down, that it actually brings a smile to your lips, a sad, watery thing but a smile nonetheless. Jin and Nokto beam brightly, waving and nodding, especially to the women who meet their gazes with excited hands pressed to their hearts. Leon is every inch the prince, flawlessly dividing his attention between both sides of the street, his smile open and wide. He was always so kind.  A wave of bittersweet emotion washes through you as you remember the time he would take to explain things to you, to help you find your way, to listen,

But he is not the one your heart chose. 

And behind Leon and his black stallion rides the King on his destrier of purest snow white. The sight of him, tall and proud, one gloved hand on the reins, the other casually on the pommel of his sword freezes the breath in your lungs. Your fingers curl into your palm unbidden, nails biting deep into flesh gone numb. Beside him, Clavis is all flashy smiles and waves, golden eyes scanning the crowd to award a nod or tilt of the head to anyone he wants to feel special. His head tilts up as his gaze sweeps across the many open windows and people waving handkerchiefs, some embroidered roses, some embroidered with tigers in honor of the king’s crest.

You, still as a beam of moonlight, stand out amid the riotous cheering.

Of course Clavis notices you. In a heartbeat, your eyes lock with his and something inside you shifts as you are flooded with the memories of the many laughs, the teasing, but most of all, the way he supported you through loving his brother. He knows what a difficult path that is to walk. He has been walking it his whole life.

He offers you something no one else in the crowd gets. His face, always adept at schooling itself into whatever mask it need be, is filled with genuine emotion at the sight of you. He offers you a smile, soft and sad and real.

Somehow, even from a distance, he has still found a way to comfort you.

Your spirit is bolstered, just a little, and you manage a smile in return, raising a hand in greeting.

And then Chevalier notices his brother’s upturned face and his own head moves, his gaze rising to see what has Clavis’s attention.

There you are, up in the window, framed like a beautiful portrait, smiling, but even he can see it doesn’t quite reach your eyes, like a garden dappled in shadows. Your hand is raised, that hand he knows intimately. He knows the motion of your fingers as they delicately turn the page of a book. He knows the strength in them when you grip a horse’s reins. And he knows their softness, the tenderness with which they can touch, the feel of your fingertips as they trace the line of his jaw. The eagerness with which they press into the back of his neck when he kisses you-

Kissed you.

When he kissed you.

Because he will never know their touch again. Nor your kiss. Nor your smile. Even now, as your gaze meets his, that smile fades, your hand slowly lowers, curling against your heart like a wounded animal, seeking shelter.

And he knows he did that. He killed the warmth of you, the joy, the whispering sunshine of your love.

And he would do it again.

Because as pained as you look now, somehow he knows it would never compare to the pain of being in love with someone who could so deeply disappoint you. He learned that lesson the day he rode to the border, when he killed as mechanically as clockwork, without remorse, without regard. How easily his blade drank the blood of young and old. He saw only red, felt only the jolt of sword through flesh and turned to seek it again and again.

You claimed there was good in him, there was mercy and the capacity to love.

And for a brief moment in time, he had believed you. Until that day.

And rather than watch your love for him slowly wither as you learned you were wrong, that he was nothing more than a brutal beast, he made a clean cut. Sharp, painful but without a doubt in his mind the correct thing to do.

He could not watch the light in your eyes go out. Because he loved you.

Loves you.

Because he still loves you.

Chevalier’s pale head turns away from you and the procession continues.

Slowly, breathing against the burning ache in your chest, the broken pieces of your heart slicing into wounds that have never fully healed, you lean forward and pull the window closed. 

There is nothing left to see.

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