Another boring summer morning, another day where Maribelle woke up unsure of what she was going to do to pass the time. She rubbed her eyes to really wake herself up, then she dramatically yawned and stretched, grabbing her phone as she did. By the time she'd been awake for five minutes, she had already checked through the new comments on the collection of selfies she had posted the day before, making a mental note of which of her lovely friends and followers had showered her with love. Seeing all the pleasant messages reminder her that she was a beautiful and nearly-perfect person, and that she didn't need some cheating, woman-using man in her life—and that her affections could be being used on someone so much better: herself.
After completing her go-through of all her social media accounts, leaving comments of her own on what she considered the greatest posts she found (including two different posts about her absolutely adorable godson), she rolled out of bed, setting her phone back down just long enough to dress herself. Then it was back to scouring through the likes and comments of some of her pictures, particularly the ones she had captioned with her new self-love mantra. Usually the first person to make any show of love to the images was her best friend, but that had begun to happen less and less as Lissa was far too distracted by being a good mother to her newborn son to spend too much time online. In her absence, someone else had started to take up that first-responding role, and from what Maribelle could glean from their Instagram profile, they were a guy who seemed to be finding her cute.
Why else would the entirety of this guy's likes be her selfies? He wasn't even liking the pictures she had posted of her godson, just the pictures that were solely herself, and since she genuinely felt that Owain was just the cutest thing alive, there had to be something to this guy not sharing that same opinion. And Maribelle, being the woman so focused on herself and everyone's opinion of her, took this as a sign that she had a potential suitor, coming to her within months of her heart being shattered by her long-time crush.
But how was she going to ever find a way to test this person's interests? Certainly she would have to really think about a way to find out how this guy was really feeling about her. Or maybe she would just go take more selfies and include other people in them, hoping that it would bait the guy into saying something about her while ignoring whoever else was in the picture. And that was how Maribelle figured out how she was going to turn her boring morning into an exciting day spent with her best friend and her godson, all done for the sake of a possible romance.
That reasoning was not something Lissa was ever supposed to find out about. If she knew that Maribelle was using her and her son for this reason, she would have refused to have any part of it, but because she was blissfully ignorant to the true intentions, she was more than happy to pose for friendly pictures. She was less okay with Maribelle trying to get a good picture on her own with baby Owain, but that was more because the way that Owain was being held made it look a lot like Maribelle was his mom. "Oh, Lissa dear, everyone online knows that this cutie belongs to you, not to me," she said, trying to get her phone positioned properly to get the shot she wanted. "He looks nothing like me, and very much like you, and everyone knows that I would never subject myself to having a child, no matter what."
"Yes, but…" Lissa shook he head and gave a defeated sigh. "You know that people might assume things, especially people who don't know that this is my baby you're using for attention." She reached for Maribelle's phone, grabbing it so that there wasn't weird positioning needed to get the picture taken. "And I think it would help a whole bunch if you weren't taking a picture with him laying on your chest like that."
Maribelle looked down at how little Owain was peacefully sleeping on her, his head snuggled in at the base of her neck. "You're probably right, my dear, but I simply cannot wake him to get a better picture. I know how his crying bothers you, and I don't want to knock you into a fit of motherly rage for a simple picture."
"Oh, he won't cry, I don't think. He loves spending time with his godmommy." Getting Maribelle to genuinely smile at the kind words, Lissa took a couple pictures before handing the phone back. "Now let's see what other cute stuff we can get him to do while sleeping. I bet we'll be able to make him do so many great poses!"
"I love the way you think, Lissa. Let's get him off of me like this first, though. I am pretty sure he's drooling on my shirt, and I don't want a wet spot on my shirt whenever we get more pictures with me in them." The two shared a quiet laugh, before Lissa picked up Owain as carefully as she could, hoping that the movement wouldn't wake him up. From the first slight jostle, the baby's eyes opened and he tried to make sense of the world around him; as the first blonde woman he saw wasn't his mother, he began to do what babies do best and wail. Maribelle's face fell at the sound, her smile fading immediately, while Lissa simply sighed and snuggled her son up close to her chest to calm him down.
The crying brought someone else's presence into the bedroom, someone that Maribelle had hoped wouldn't appear for very long, if at all, that day. "Aw, what's got my kiddo all worked up?" Vaike asked, trying to take Owain from Lissa's arms, but she glared at him to get him to stop. "I gotcha, you don't want ol' Vaike makin' things worse. You and your crazy momma skills, I guess."
"It's not that you'll make things worse, it's that I'm already handling it, and we don't need him crying any longer than he already is." Her voice was being drowned out by the crying, and once she finished speaking she was shushing and turning her words to calming ones whispered to the child.
"So much for trying to not knock you into your motherly rage," Maribelle muttered, watching just how lovingly her best friend was treating the crying baby. "There go my plans for the afternoon."
As if he hadn't even noticed she was there before, Vaike seemed incredibly shocked to hear Maribelle saying anything. "Well hey there, Maribelle! What brings ya 'round here today? Can't keep your eyes off my kid like usual, huh?"
"While I am here to spend time with my most precious godson, I can assure you that I can actually keep my eyes off of him." Thinking quickly to come up with a preemptive answer to the logical "then why are you getting pictures of him then?" question that could follow at any point, Maribelle continued with, "I simply need to get my fair share of time with him before I go away to school for the semester."
"Oh, that makes a whole lotta sense. Ya gotta get you fill of this l'il guy before he ain't l'il anymore." Laughing, Vaike tried to reach for Owain again, but was still met with a death glare in response. "C'mon, Lissa, lemme hold him for a bit. You've gotten him to kinda stop cryin', now let him spend some time with his dad."
"I'm sorry Vaike, but I just don't want to let go of him until I know he won't just start crying again." Looking down at her son with a small smile on her face, Lissa gave a content sigh. "He's so cute when he's calming down from being fussy. His eyes are just so perfect when they're still shining with his little tears."
Maribelle wasn't sure if this was "proud mom" Lissa or "completely honest" Lissa talking, but she did know that she needed to get a picture of her best friend in this moment of fierce motherhood. There was just one tiny problem with the attempt that followed, and that was that the auto-flash had been turned on, and the room was just dim enough to trigger the flash as she took the picture. The crying didn't start again, but Lissa did end up staring at Maribelle, slightly stunned. "I, er, didn't mean for that to happen." Maribelle sheepishly said, setting her phone down. "I just wanted a forever memory of how great of a mommy you are to your baby."
"Couldn't we have planned that sort of picture? I've gotta look so terrible right now…" Lissa gave a fake sniffle, carefully moving one hand from holding Owain so that she could brush her messy bangs out of her face. "And please tell me you only got from where I'm holding him and up, please."
The sheepishness Maribelle had been feeling moved into her face, an embarrassed blush filling her cheeks. "I could say that, my dear, but it would be a horrible lie. Despite what lies you keep telling yourself, you look stunning from being a month removed from having a child, and—"
"Why is she allowed to get pictures of ya?" Vaike interrupted, completely cutting off Maribelle's explanation of her actions. "That's a bit sketchy, Lissa, lettin' your best friend get pictures but not lettin' the guy you're gonna be marryin' do the same thing!"
"I didn't let her take that. And I'd really appreciate it if she'd delete it or something so that no one could possibly see how terrible I look." There was genuine hurt in Lissa's voice as she spoke, and it would have broken Maribelle's heart if she hadn't been so insistent that there was nothing wrong with her friend's appearance. Like she had been trying to explain, there was not a single visible issue with how Lissa looked so soon after having her baby, and for her to be hard on herself for looking like a real mother wasn't exactly fair.
She wasn't going to dare try explaining that again, though; she knew that if the thought was fully expressed, someone would accuse her of being fake with her opinion, as she would do exactly the same as Lissa if their roles were reversed, and they would have been right. It wasn't a fight worth getting into, but Maribelle still didn't delete the picture, and she even posted it with the rest of the good pictures she had gotten that day. That, expectedly, got her a few angry messages about how "ugly" that picture was, but Maribelle really hoped that all the comments that were praising the natural-looking mom in the picture would make Lissa feel at least a little better about her appearance.
And, in a twist that Maribelle had very much hoped for, that one follower exclusively liked the pictures involving her and only her. They did comment on one of the pictures of her and her godson, but their comment was glowing towards her. With their mention of how she managed to look so beautiful even while holding a child across her chest, she knew that this guy was just trying to get a grasp on her heart. She needed to find a way to really know this guy, and she needed to do it quickly.
The week after Maribelle left for school, her online admirer sent her a private message on a different social media site that they had become friends on, asking if he could get to know her a bit better. "From all of your posts and pictures, I'm seeing that you're not just a beautiful face, but you've got a good head on your shoulders too, and I think I'd love to get to talk to you more," the message read, which she saw as she was walking across her college campus to one of her classes. Her heart picked up to a furious pace when she had seen there was a message in the first place, and by the time she had finished reading it, she was about positive that her heart could have leapt out of her chest. This was just some guy online, he shouldn't have been making her feel this way, she kept telling herself, but the truth of the matter was that he was making her feel so madly in love and she needed to do something about it.
Replying to him was a no-brainer, although in retrospect Maribelle could have done so much better than a simple "I agree! Let's get to know each other a bit!" But she was thinking too fast to really come up with a better reply, and she just wanted to get this guy actually talking to her. His response came after a few days, during which Maribelle was frantically checking every possibly social media outlet she had ever used trying to see what he could possibly know about her to maybe comment on, and she made special care to check the ones where he could reply to her as often as she could. She wasn't too terribly disappointed with the response she ended up getting, as it was a fairly detailed description of the guy's life and backstory, but the one thing it lacked, in her opinion, was an attractive picture of him.
So when she sent her essay-like reply, she made sure to attach a couple of selfies she had taken in front of the mirror hanging on her dorm room wall. It definitely went along well with her explanation of who she really was, because while her vanity was the most important aspect of her personality, her education status and dreams of becoming a future woman of law was a close second. Without her quest for achieving her life's goal, she was nothing more than a pretty face, and she didn't want this guy to see her as only those good looks. Then again, her constantly mentioning that she was currently attending school would have probably given him the idea that education was important, making the selfies in front of the mirror unnecessary.
They continued to exchange messages for weeks, every day growing a bit closer together. By the time her first break from classes long enough to go home was upon her, Maribelle wanted to get to meet this guy—a reasonable request, as she had discovered that he lived somewhere in the same town she hailed from. But when she asked him if that sounded like a good plan, she never got a response. It wasn't until she was back in her dorm after a weekend spent with her parents and her best friend that she got any message in return. The guy, clearly upset that he had missed his deadline to getting to meet her, explained that something had come up and he hadn't been able to get online to tell her anything, something he deeply apologized for. "Had I know you would be in town, I gladly would have made time for you," his explanation read, "and so the next time you're back, I'll try my damn best to meet with you."
If things worked out perfectly, then they would have met over the fall break from classes. But like with the first instance, when Maribelle asked if the guy was available, she didn't get an answer until it was too late. The same thing happened when she was home for the semester break that winter, which she felt was off because if the guy was at the same stage of his life as she was at with hers, he should have been readily available. All her free time that break, which was whenever her parents were both busy with their jobs and Lissa was busy with her family, was then spent sitting idly around town just watching people walk by, hoping that she'd catch her mystery man out in public. When he eventually messaged her back, he explained that his job was keeping him busy, and that he was going to be out of town for the actual holidays.
She didn't act like she was too hurt by the news, but she certainly stopped trying so hard to be with him. If there was one mistake she wasn't going to make again, it was falling too deeply in love with a guy she would never get. And so, for the rest of her break and into the spring semester, she went back to focusing all her love on herself and not even a bit on her devoted online fan. Yet, when he began messaging her once more, attempting to get back in her good graces, she fell right back into the routine of talking to him almost daily. Once he brought up the possibility of them finally meeting in person over her spring break, though, she refused, saying she'd rather spend that time with her godson and best friend.
This came back to bite her a few weeks later, when she came home for the weekend of her twenty-first birthday, expecting to get to celebrate it with this guy. His denial of her invitation at least made sense, him reminding her that their first meeting should be something memorable, not overshadowed by her first legal night of drinking. She ended up spending her birthday getting drunk in the living room at Lissa's house, and even then, her best friend didn't participate in the festivities. The men of the house both came in and spent time with her, but since they had work business the following day they refused drinks, and the only person who was willing to partake in any drinking with her was Robin; even then, she had maybe two glasses of wine before she stopped her alcohol consumption, while Maribelle was drinking anything and everything in sight, spending the rest of the time crying over how unloved she felt.
At one point, still in tears and very much inebriated, she stumbled out of the living room and down the hall, knocking on every door she found in the process. The result? A sleeping young girl coming out to see what was going on, a grumpy Chrom having to put an end to the imbibing, and a couple who had been trying to sleep but were woken up by their distraught son who had been startled by the knocks. Not even Lissa was able to instantly forgive Maribelle for what she had done, because although it was her birthday, she hadn't needed to get everyone's attention back on her, and it was decided by the members of the household that Maribelle needed to go home and cause trouble for her parents instead.
"But please," she whined as she resisted going to the car to be driven home, drawing out most of her vowels as she complained, "I'm just celebrating my special day. You all should be a part of it!" Wanting to have to deal with the situation for as short of a time as possible, Chrom decided to just pick her up and carry her out to the car, because he had woken up angry and every additional moment he was having to listen to Maribelle's self-centered whining was just making him angrier.
"Just get in the damn car!" he eventually snapped, shutting her up instantaneously. She climbed into the car as fast as she could after that, and he followed, quickly leaving to take her home. "You are a difficult one normally, but throw some alcohol in your system and you become downright terrible. What gives?"
She gave a loud sob, before breaking out into a rambling explanation of why she was so upset and had most definitely overdone it with her behavior. "Well, Chrom, it all started last fall, with this great guy talking to me, and he lives somewhere around here, but he's always finding excuses for not meeting me! And even on a day as great as my birthday! Which then this only got worse when there was only one person who wanted to celebrate with me and while I really do love your wife, she's just so boring at times and it made me so sad that no one else, not even my best friend, loved me enough to shower me with attention!"
"You, er, do realize that most of us have things we have to do tomorrow, yet we still let you into the house to celebrate how we could. But that's not really important, as you'll realize in the morning." Chrom, loosening his death grip on the steering wheel a bit, glanced over at Maribelle, who was staring back at him with a drunken gaze. "What was that about a guy you haven't met? You're not getting involved with him. As your older brother-type figure, I say you're not."
"You can't tell me what I can and can't do!" she screeched in reply, catching him off guard enough to jerk the steering wheel violently to the side, sending them swerving across lanes of traffic until he was able to correct their direction.
"Don't ever do that again, unless you want to walk yourself home." His voice was too serious for her to question, so she sat meekly and silently as he continued speaking. "But really, don't get involved with some stranger. That'll end worse than the time your best friend, my dearest sister, got involved with a guy she barely knew. We in my family care about you, Maribelle, and we want to see you happy."
That reminder would definitely have been helpful to her, had she not been so drunk that she didn't remember a thing come the next morning. So when she had a late birthday message from her online admirer, she was simply reminded of how much she wanted to meet this guy—and, for once, the reason they ended up not doing that was on her, as she was too hungover to climb out of bed, let alone make herself presentable for her possible man. This led her to curse her decision to celebrate mostly alone, because had she known the guy would be willing the day after her birthday, she would have sacrificed her celebrating. Especially when he told her, in exact words, some of the messages she had sent him the previous evening.
She was appalled at her crude and immature behavior while inebriated, and she felt morally obligated to apologize over and over again for some of the sexually charged things she sent. He didn't seem too bothered by any of it, not even her supposed nude images she had sent him; those, though, were fake and only mentioned as an attempt to get her more riled up. It most certainly worked, and when it was revealed to be a ruse she was extremely relieved that her drunk self wasn't that much of a depraved person.
Meeting this guy simply needed to happen soon, and she wasn't going to let it take any longer than it absolutely had to. She should have figured that their meeting would be completely planned and decided on his terms, as evidenced by the fact that, to that point, the only time that would have worked out for them was one he had suggested. So when, after her semester at school had ended, he invited her to a party with his friends as his date, she knew that this time was going to work out for them.
He sent the address to her the day before the party, along with a message to not tell anyone that she was going there specifically. The address was one she recognized as being in the neighborhood by her old high school, and she felt like she could almost vividly envision the building, but she shrugged it off as simple coincidence. It was just going to be a house party on an unfamiliar street with a guy she'd been talking to for months. There was nothing more to the situation, and worrying with possible things to go wrong wasn't needed.
But, as things were apt to do, everything went completely wrong. The beauty of the situation was, they had already been wrong from the very beginning, starting from when the guy had begun showering Maribelle with attention. Following his explicit directions, she showed up in front of the addressed house wearing one of her finest outfits, dolled up to the nines, and when she got there she immediately realized that things were amiss. She knew the address felt familiar to her, and seeing the two-story house before he let it sink in: this place, at least at one point, had belonged to the family of the man she had once loved. She'd spent time there as a young girl, back when Chrom and Lissa and their older sister had lived there, and to come back to such a place for a completely different reason seemed simply odd to her.
At least, hopefully, the reason she was there this time had nothing at all to do with that man. And when she saw a fiery red head of hair she'd spent so long desiring to meet in person, she stopped worrying so much about what could be, and instead focused on what was about to be. But then the head turned to face her and the face she was staring at was too female, too lacking the chiseled grit that she'd seen in pictures. Maribelle's eyes widened and her heart dropped at the sight, especially when this woman grinned at her and shot her a thumbs-up.
Once it fully hit her that this woman had been posing as at least the physical incarnation of the guy she had been talking to, Maribelle noticed that, sitting next to her, were three men, two of whom she knew very well. They were all laughing at this point, their laughter obviously at the expense of the poor girl who had been tricked into falling deeply in love with someone who definitely wasn't who they said they were. She felt shame and ridicule, seeing them laughing at her, but what could she do? She'd been invited to this party, although under false pretenses, and she was still going to celebrate.
Little did she know that the four people sitting out front were the extent of the party. This became painfully obvious when she went inside and the house was empty, both floors a virtual ghost town. "What kind of party even this this?" she asked out loud, her voice hitting high tones of being upset. "You can't tell me that—"
"There was no party to begin with? There is one, but it's a lot more intimate than you'd believe." The group had come in behind her, and that was Chrom talking, setting his hand on her shoulder as he spoke. "When all this started, we figured this would be how it ended, but hopefully you can see past those lies and enjoy the evening with us."
"There is no way I can enjoy an evening after having my heart broken yet again!" She pushed his hand off and stormed away, leaving him to sigh and mutter something about how he had tried warning her about this situation.
"Chrom, y'know this was the only way she was gonna learn not to trust guys online. 's why we did it, before someone actually took advantage 'a her." Vaike looked at Chrom, who gave a small nod of understanding, and then he looked at the other two group members. "And at least it won't exactly us doin' the dirty work. We had Stahl and Sully here on the job, and who knew that girl was so desperate off her 'breakup' that she'd wanna date Sully in lots of manly makeup?"
"Oh, you better be meaning that as a damn compliment, you hear?" Sully replied, threatening to kick Vaike for what he said. "I thought that Lissa and Robin did a great job of making me look like a man. Sure, it took lot more makeup than I'd ever wish to wear, but…"
He dodged her foot as she decided to make good on her threatened kick and laughed. "'Course that was a compliment! Means they made ya convincin' enough to get'cha to trick a very man-crazy woman into thinkin' you were the real deal."
"She had me to help too, you know!" Chiming in where he could, Stahl earned the attention of the other three and he froze for a moment, before proceeding with his thought. "She wouldn't have been able to type like a friendly guy if I hadn't been there helping. Even if, well, I didn't have to do too much in terms of pretending and I did a whole lot more about making food for everyone."
"Which is a noble task to take on. But enough about the past. Shouldn't there have been some food made for this, er, party?" Chrom's smile to Stahl made it incredibly clear that he was more interested in having a meal than anything else that could possibly be happening. "You were entrusted with providing food tonight, weren't you?"
Stahl took a moment to think back on if he had been told to bring food, before slapping himself on the forehead. "I was! But I spent all my extra money on the alcohol for tonight, because I didn't even think about needing to make a feast!" While the other three, most especially Chrom, groaned at that information, Stahl tried to come up with some resolution to the problem he had caused, but when he had no answer he dashed out of the entry area of the house where they had congregated and into the kitchen—where he found all his liquor bottles spread out and Maribelle mixing herself a drink. "Oh, you're still here? Does this mean you're expecting food from me too?"
"I was expecting a cute boy to sleep with tonight, but food sounds lovely too." Her words slurred a bit in her reply, Maribelle poured something else into her already mostly-full glass. When she looked up and saw Stahl's shoulders slump in defeat, she smirked. "Let me guess, that's another thing you're holding in front of my face that I can't have, huh?"
"Only kinda-sorta…" Still thinking of how to fix the problem at hand, Stahl felt like there was some sort of miracle happening when his phone went off in his pocket, and when he checked it there was a message that consisted solely of an emote of a pizza. "Oh! I've got it! I'll just have—"
"Stahl, you idiot, the problem's already been solved." Walking into the kitchen and leaning against one of the counters, Sully gave a small laugh. "Sent you that message to give you that clue. The second you ran in here, Chrom called a friend of ours and convinced him to bring us a couple of damn pizzas since you dropped the ball on food. Shoulda made sure you were told that before you thought too much about what to do, but instead you got the message I sent and got excited for the wrong reason."
"Yeah, I guess I did mess this one up a bit. Oh well, as long as someone's getting food, I guess I can't complain." He chuckled, before looking to Maribelle, who was in the middle of a long drink of whatever beverage she'd created. "Wait, she's here, and Chrom asked him to bring something? That's not going to end well."
Also looking to see Maribelle mid-drink, Sully nodded. "We all thought it'd be fine. Besides, it's Chrom's idea above all and he knows the girl better than any of the rest of us. If he was okay with having Frederick show up, then it's not a bad idea at all." Thankfully, Maribelle didn't seem to be paying attention to the woman who had skillfully duped her into thinking she was a guy, so she didn't hear the name that had been used. But that sort of good fortune could only last so long, and once the front door to the house was opened again and in walked the man in question with pizzas in his arms, there was no way she was still going to be able to ignore him.
By the time that Frederick had come into the kitchen with those pizzas, everyone who had gathered had started to drink, and so his appearance was greeted with four cheerful voices exclaiming joy at the sight of food. The fifth person, realizing just who this man was that she was now staring at, excused herself from the kitchen and quickly found herself locked in the bathroom, trying to explain the situation to her reflection. "I've been tricked," she slowly said, trying to minimize the slur to her words, "and I can't escape. If I leave I'll be caught! If I ask for a ride, I'll be shamed! But I can't stay here, not with that disgusting man around…"
"Hey, yo, Maribelle? You okay in there?" Based on the informal tone he had taken on, it was clear that Chrom was very much inebriated, and he was trying to show drunken concern for his sister's best friend. "If you need to talk about something, I'm here for you." This was coupled with a never-ending knocking on the door, and from how aggressive he seemed to be (unknowingly) getting, she was honestly a bit scared he'd break through the door if she didn't say anything.
"I just don't think I can do this tonight," she eventually replied, gripping the locked door handle tightly. "Do you know what it's like to be somewhere with someone you once loved so passionately?"
He laughed loudly, ceasing his knocking to make the laughter seem even louder. "There's a reason that I told him he had to come to this alone tonight. I'd probably end up feeling the same way if he had brought his lady friend with him." Although she couldn't see him, she knew that Chrom was probably cringing over on his side of the door. She could vividly remember the fallout from the only relationship he had been in before he had gotten married, and how there had been many nights after that breakup that involved him being inconsolable and hanging around her and Lissa for support. Then she remembered her own experience with this woman, when she went to her to tell her she was with an unfaithful man (although, in retrospect, he had only been being friendly with her). Getting so lost in her own thoughts, Maribelle had a rude awakening when she heard Chrom almost scream in the middle of one of his sentences. "It's so stupid that we just can't get along, all of us! Come on out, please, before what you let happen between you and Frederick gets as bad as what's happened to me and Sumia."
"Are you saying you still love her? Or are you just trying to connect with me and my issues?" Unlocking and opening the door, Maribelle saw Chrom awkwardly shrugging in response to her deep questions. "Oh, no matter I guess. Just promise me that you'll let this be a night of fun and drinking and you won't harp too much on my terrible romance nonsense."
"I promise you that, Maribelle," Chrom told her, offering her his hand. "Now let's rejoin everyone before we miss them all drinking each other under the table." She laughed, taking hold of what he had offered, and together they went back into the kitchen, the sight of empty liquor bottles and several drunk individuals greeting them. "What have we here? You all decided to have the fun without us, it seems. Please say you've all kept at least a little something for us."
The general consensus was that something had indeed been saved for when Chrom and Maribelle came back, in the form of several unopened bottles, and so the drinking continued deep into the night. As the hours passed, it became clear that some of the people present had either a high tolerance for alcohol or no limit when it came to packing it away, something that Maribelle couldn't help but think about in her muddled mind when she stared at the man sitting across from her, taking every drink offered to him and not changing his stance or sitting position after every one. She was completely and utterly drunk by the time it was midnight, but rather than being her obnoxious drunk self, she was simply sitting there, staring at that man, hoping that he'd eventually stare back at her.
"Y'know what needs t'be said right now?" Vaike loudly slurred, pointing a finger in Maribelle's direction. She didn't move a muscle, her eyes focused on the same target as always, until he reached out and grabbed her shoulder, shaking it a bit. The movement was enough to snap her into looking at him, seeing the drunken grin lighting up his face. "You've gotta be one of the loveliest ladies ever, and—"
"Don't say it, Vaike. You know you've got someone at home, that being my sister, to keep you company at night." Chrom, trying to sound as stern as he possibly could despite the fact that he'd been drinking, shook his head at what he'd heard. "You don't have to tell us all that you'd be interested in sleeping with Maribelle."
She gasped at hearing her name being used in that sentence, looking at the hand that was touching her shoulder with almost-disgust, before shrugging it off. In her drunken mind, what was the problem with someone wanting to sleep with her, even if they were currently engaged to her best friend in the whole world? "Honestly, Chrom, we could have a show a' hands right now and everyone'd raise 'em up for bangin' her." He hadn't actually made the call to do so, but the hands raised anyway: his off of her shoulder, Chrom's reluctant one with an eyeroll, quick-to-raise hands from both Stahl and Sully (whom looked at each other and laughed when they saw what they did), and finally, after a few seconds of everyone else having a hand up, Frederick looked straight at Maribelle and lifted his hand inches from the countertop. She caught his gaze and felt herself melting on the inside, never expecting to see him do anything like that in regards to her.
"I see your point, but this is all irrelevant. How much of this will matter in the morning?" Putting his hand down, Chrom waited for everyone else to do the same, which they all did, Frederick once again being the last to act. "Now let's forget this happened and move on."
Despite the group as a whole heeding his words, Maribelle couldn't move on from what had happened. Having everyone drunkenly admit that they'd sleep with her was one thing, but for the guy she had loved so desperately and wanted so badly to be one of that general "everyone" was another. She was once again staring hopelessly at him, waiting for him to do anything but look stoic and as if he wanted to be anywhere but there, but he wasn't budging.
A loud slamming sound broke her from this bout of staring, as she and everyone else looked to Vaike once more, him having just knocked his hand against the counter hard. "Thought of somethin' else that needs sayin'," he began, once again pointing towards Maribelle. "And no, this ain't about wantin' to bang ya. At least, not about me wantin' to."
Without even beginning to think about what she was going to say, she blurted out, "That's okay, if it's not about Frederick then I don't care." But the moment the words spilled out of her lips, she regretted even speaking then. Her eyes went wide and she found herself unable to look away from the man across from her, who was now looking at her with the most curious of expressions upon his face. "I-I mean, what did you want to say?"
"Sounds like someone's still got a bit of a crush she hasn't shaken off." His voice was steady, as if he actually hadn't been drinking at all, but the way Frederick smiled and looked like he was amused by what he had heard, it was clear that he wasn't completely sober. "What a shame that I can't help you on this desire here tonight. After all," he raised his hand once more, this time showing off the simple wedding band he wore on his finger, "Sumia would be very displeased if I went against our union."
At the name of that woman, Chrom's eye began twitching, and while he thought about what to say in regards to that, he left the conversation wide open for Vaike to finish saying what he had started before, although he ultimately chose to direct some thoughts towards Frederick instead. "Whenever ya wanna stop actin' like some noble guy for wantin' to stay true t'your woman, go right on ahead. Everyone knows she's nothin' but crazy and that y'could do so much better. Like…" It seemed like he had lost his train of thought, which wasn't entirely impossible, but then Vaike motioned towards Maribelle with both hands. "Her, for example. She's not that bad."
"I could never, and would never, leave who I chose to marry for someone that has nothing more than a crush on me. Nothing against you, Maribelle, of course." He smiled at her and she nearly fell out of her chair. Sure, he had just told her that he wouldn't be with her, but she was too drunk to let that process properly and was instead reveling in the fact that he was smiling at her. "Perhaps I should call for my wife now and leave before things get worse than they already have."
"That will not be necessary." His eye still twitching, Chrom grabbed his phone and typed something into it, before casting it aside. "If she comes anywhere near here, I will make sure that she knows she's cost you your job. I know it's not rational to fire someone based on who they're with, but she was my girlfriend first, and a guy doesn't date his best friend's ex-girlfriend, ever."
Frederick's smile faded and he lowered the hand he had still been using to show off his ring. "I didn't know you still felt that way about that, Chrom. If I had known…"
"Hey, you can't threaten him with losing his job over that!" Speaking up for what felt like the first time all night (although, in reality, he'd been talking quite frequently), Stahl shook his head fiercely at Chrom's words. "That's like, uh, threatening any of the rest of us for doing something similar! It's not right!"
"Calm down. It's Chrom talking, we're all drunk, and no one's going to remember this in the morning. Let him make the damn threats. They're fun and fun to watch." Sully playfully smacked Stahl's arm and he silently agreed with her, although he did rub at where he'd been hit for a few minutes due to the sheer strength behind her smack.
"It wasn't a mere threat," Chrom clarified, grabbing his phone again. "I wrote down what I said, and if that woman does show up around here, I will mark it down and make good on my word. I'm all for having fun while drinking, but her coming is where I draw the line."
Frederick sighed, slowly nodding as he did. "Understood, Chrom. I won't call her to come get me. However, this also means that I am having no part of anything that could jeopardize my relationship with her. I do hope you understand this."
"That's funny, because I think you're going to have to." Once again typing away on his phone, Chrom laughed. "How about this: you get to keep your job if, and only if, you break the rules a little. If you break her heart a bit."
"If I…? How could you suggest such a thing? I could never!" Despite his protests, it became very clear that a drunk Frederick was an easily-manipulated Frederick, especially when it came to Chrom making mostly empty threats. This was only made worse with Vaike constantly interjecting himself into the conversation, oddly fixated on the topic of someone, anyone, sleeping with Maribelle.
The night was getting into the late hours when the two ended up being locked in a room together, both still drunk and still easily influenced. Maribelle knew, deep down, that what was being expected to happen was incredibly wrong and that she should be refusing to take part in it, but at the same time, she never had expected to get so close to being able to actually sleep with the man of her dreams. Frederick wasn't necessarily willing, but he was under the impression that if he didn't do as he was told, he would be losing his job and his best friend, and neither of those were things easily replaced. Had he been less drunk, he would have realized that replacing trust with his wife wouldn't be easy either, but there was no time for that sort of thinking.
Chrom had been right—how much of this would matter in the morning? It was a one-time drunken sexual escapade brought on by insistent people. It may have been morally wrong to be a part of, but beyond waking up together the next morning and not being entirely sure if there was any sexual behavior between them, did it matter? They could have simply collapsed into bed together, dead drunk, and woken up that way. There was no need for proof of anything happening, and that was that.
Except things didn't work that way, a fact they both were well-aware of. The people who did remember the night's events made it a point to not tell a single soul, to act like nothing at all had happened. The problem there was, one of the people who did remember was Vaike, who had, in great detail, told Lissa every single detail of that night, so that she could hold it over her best friend's head that she knew what had gone on. Rather than being something that she could forget about, Maribelle was forced to live with the guilt that she had drunkenly slept with the married man of her dreams. But as long as it was just Lissa occasionally teasing her about it, it was fine. Guilt was something that could be moved past from.
The sinking feeling of something that wasn't going to be so easily ignored, not so much.
A/N: I think I did a decent job of setting the scene without doing too much in the way of recapping the entire plot of Plucky and Prideful, which is fine by me. c: