Fiori shook his head. "No. I know you're smart. You are… a plotter, when it serves you, so I know you understand this plot of Leviticus'. They will not be yours after today, because nothing will be yours." He wanted to reach over and set his hands on top of Johan's and hold him still for a little while. Let him calm down. Johan always seemed so keyed up. Fi would like to help, though he felt bad for it. "Nothing but what I give you, and I cannot give you knives, no matter how much you would like them."
“If Leviticus is plotting to give everything what is mine to you then I will plot as well to get it all back. My freedom and rooms included. But they are still mine as of now and I can use them as I wish,” he hissed, slamming his hand down on the table. The strain in his words sent him into a brief coughing fit, and he closed his hand around the empty space on the table where a napkin might have been during a normal dinner.
FI was up on his feet in an instant, rushing to Johan's side. Coughing probably hurt, what with the state of his ribs. Fiori didn't want him to hurt. He set a hand on Johan's chest, one on his back, steadying him while he shook. "I know." His voice was soft. Sympathetic, though he knew it would only make Johan push him away. "You do not have to scheme with me, I would give you whatever you wanted. Anything you need, Johan. All you have to do is ask."
Johan allowed it while he coughed, mostly because the pain outweighed his pride for a few moments. He groaned after sputtering for the final time, catching his breath and weakly pushing Fiori’s hands away. His gaze lowered towards the rest of his soup. He was hungry, but he wasn’t sure if he felt like eating the rest. “And what’s the catch?” He rasped. “What would make you my master, then, other than the title?”
Fi barely moved, just shifted enough that he could hold Johan in the crook of his arm and keep him from jostling himself too much. He should've wrapped Johan's ribs. He should've carried him. He was so tired of seeing broken things all the time: Cadmus and his kingdom and all the fractured twisted ways he couldn't fit in here. All he wanted was to fix something. Just one tiny thing, to keep his world from fragmenting apart. "I would be responsible for you." He pressed the soup spoon back into Johan's hands, urging him to start eating again. "I would keep you healthy, safe. Taken care of."
Johan eventually relented and brought another spoonful of soup into his mouth, and then a few more bites after. In the silence he mulled over Fiori’s words with a pensive, rigid expression. The arrangement he described didn’t sound cruel, but it still didn’t sit well with him. “In other words…” he finally said, “I would be a pet.” A well cared for pet, not unlike Leviticus’ Boris and Alexei, but a pet nonetheless. “No way.”
Pet. That was what people called the slaves back home sometimes, when they didn't want to really address it. It never sat well with him. "No. I… I would not do that to you." Johan would be his, that was the thing. Slavery meant ownership, and there was no way to get around that no matter how badly he wanted to. "I would not do that to anyone. But… it would be like that. There is no other way for me to be good to you, and for that I am sorry."
“Of course.” Johan let out another sigh through his nose. So Johan was right about it, and Fiori admitted it, though he was reluctant about all of this. Leviticus was behind it, so he resolved to blame him. There was nothing more humiliating than for his social worth to be that of a dog’s. He scraped the bottom of the bowl for the last few bites of soup. “Leviticus is more sly than you think. He is not my opposite, he rather hides it better than I do.”
"I know what Leviticus is and is not, thank you." Fiori gave him a soft frown. "He's my friend. And he is only doing what he can to deal with you, gods know it's difficult." He pushed the bowl away when Johan finished, slinging the prince's arm across his shoulder so they could begin the walk to the ballroom. "Can you honestly say that this isn't a punishment fitting the crime?"
Johan managed to stand up with Fiori’s help and a few ragged breaths. “I’ll admit that much. But the only thing I’m sorry about is that my original plans fell through.” He set his jaw again to weather the exertion walking took. “Are we going back to my rooms?” He assumed, having not known what time it was.
Levi, clothed in a traditional Widonian coat with silver embroidering and für cuffs, and black gloves, glanced nervously up at the clock in the ballroom, and then the room entrance. It was nearly seven, and everything was in order. Almost. The chair where Johan would sit, the table beside it bearing a golden cup and shears, and the prince regent’s crown on another table off to the side. A religious official was scheduled to arrive closer to seven, who could crown Leviticus as the regent. That ceremony would take place after Johan was stripped of his own rank and given officially to Fiori.
Fiori took one look at Johan and decided he was going to convince him to carry him to the ballroom, stubborn or not. "We can work on that later, but… for now… I think your physical condition is more important." If he couldn't even stand without clenching his jaw so hard it seemed about to snap, how in the world could he expect to walk without collapsing? "We will be making our way to the ballroom, and I do not think you weak by any measure but… I am uncertain of your ability to make the trek. You are hurting even now."
“The ballroom?” Johan blinked. It couldn’t be seven already, could it be? “If— If you’re implying that we don’t walk as far as the ballroom because of my physical condition then I agree. But if you intend to carry me like a child again, absolutely not. I’m perfectly fine.”
Levi endlessly twirled the silver ring around his finger, watching a handful of nobles filter into the room. He hadn’t specified what kind of ceremony this evening would be, nor did he specify that he was the one who was hosting it. Not everyone knew that he had returned, or that he was even alive. He assumed his funeral must have been a popular topic throughout the country if Fiori had heard about it in Usige.
Fi sighed softly, but made no move to scoop Johan up the way he had before. They had a little time. It was a little past half-past six, and the walk took about fifteen minutes. "I am afraid, prince, that I must insist. I do not intend to treat you like a child, believe me, it is only that you are hurting and you need to be treated with care. What kind of person would I be if I let you continue to run yourself ragged?"
“So what if I’m hurting? You said I could ask you for anything, and I’m asking you for the last bit of dignity I have.” He pursed his lips tighter to keep them from wavering. This ceremony was an execution of sorts, despite not actually dying. And the men outcasted from the country weren’t carried into the woods, they walked themselves. If demanding wasn’t going to work, he would try negotiating. “I’ll see a physician afterwards. You can carry me all you want when you’re my ‘master’, but I’m still my own man now.”
Fi bit his lip, but he had promised. He wouldn't break it, not when that would mean breaking whatever fragile trust Johan had decided to put in him. "I wish you would take better care of yourself," he said, instead of pleading, because he'd been face to face with Johan for about half a day and he was worried he'd be coughing up blood by the end of it. Even so, he would let him walk. "I wish you would let me help you. Could I wrap your ribs when we are back in your quarters, if you will not permit me to carry you?"
“Yes, yes, that’s fine. If there’s no chance a physician can see me first.” He straightened his back ever so slightly in hopes that it might make it more comfortable to walk. He knew he should be treated sooner than later, but Leviticus was the one who insisted on having this ceremony tonight.
Fiori confirmed the thought with a shake of his head. "I will ask him about it tomorrow, but… for now there is no chance." He knew Levi had, to say the least, mixed feelings about his brother, but he wasn't cruel. He wouldn't force him to suffer out of a grudge, Fiori was certain he was better than that.
“As long as you know what you’re doing.” Johan normally wouldn’t let himself be taken care of, and he still didn’t like it, but he knew there was no way he could wrap his own ribs. If those guards hadn’t turned on him, he would be way ahead of Leviticus and his new friend. He was certain about that. The ceremony wouldn’t be happening, or he could at least find a way to get out of it.
"I do." Fiori had grown up fighting, but that meant he'd grown up learning how to be healed. He could splint a broken bone with ease, soothe burns and stab wounds and angry inflamed bruises. He wondered if Johan had gotten the same informal education as he had, from the warm hands of battlefield nurses and the cold ones of his mother. He wondered if Johan even had a mother. He'd never heard of a queen. "I would not offer if I could not treat you well."
“Alright, then. I’ll allow it,” Johan relented. He was familiar with the pains of injuries, both from fighting in battle and sparring to keep up his skills. But he may not have been so attentive to what the physicians were actually doing to heal him. He remembered his mother healing his minor cuts and scrapes when he was younger, but he didn’t like reminiscing very often. After Mikhail was born he was always closer to his father. But now that they were both gone, there was no use spending time with a memory he couldn’t relive.
Fiori nodded and got his arm wrapped firmly around Johan's nack, supporting him while they started their walk. He'd always been closer to his mother than his father, though he'd never spent as much time with her as he'd have liked to. Father had always wanted him on the battlefield, always had him sparring or sharpening or training or something similar. His fingers were littered with the reminders of those times, a thousand silvery cuts eternally carved into his skin. "Good. Will I be allowed to carry you back to your rooms afterward?"
“Yes, I’ll allow that,” he replied. He reasoned that, even just the slightest, it would be less strange to be seen carried by Fiori after he became his ‘master.’ He wouldn’t like it any better, but he knew he wouldn’t to walk at least for the rest of the night after this. “I wish not many people would attend this ceremony. The less people who see the better.” Surely if Leviticus knew Johan’s wishes, he would have the entire kingdom witness his demise.
Fi smiled when Johan said he'd let himself be carried, relieved. "Good. As for the ceremony… he said it would be the guards, but he is smart. Not many people know he is back, I believe he will strip you of your rank and reannounce his presence at the same time." It would be a good move, one he probably hadn't considered until he had a few hours alone with his advisor to really think.
“Apparently you know him better than I do,” Johan huffed, “So do you think he’ll tell everyone what actually happened?” He doubted Fiori was telling the truth about how Leviticus returned. It wasn’t like the Usige he knew to so generously and quickly return someone so important. And he knew the slavers he’d hired weren’t so dumb to tell anyone who Leviticus was.
"I approached him in friendship with open arms. From what I have seen, the only reason you would open your arms for him would be to more easily stab a knife into his back." He was sure Johan was suspicious of Levi's return, but he doubted the prince would guess what had happened. Now while his uncle as still constrained in his position as regent and the knowledge that Fiori hadn't died. "And he will likely explain the basics of the truth. His enslavement, his return… the dramatics parts. The ones that play well with an audience."
