(A/N: So, last night I decided to give myself a little challenge that I would complete today; I posted about it then on my Tumblr, but to recap, I chose three of my fandoms, set my playlist to shuffle, and assigned these fandoms to the first three songs that came up (I could not choose which song went to which fandom; if I picked Sailor Moon first, for example, then the first song has to go to Sailor Moon). The next day, I would write a mini fic no shorter than 300 words yet no longer than 500 words inspired by the song.

This second fic uses "Child" by Elis. Fnar fnar, I won't let up with the drama, will I? :P I guess I could see Ardos and Eldes resulting from some sort of affair, maybe… So, uh. Headcanon accepted, I guess? Bahaha, the content of the song kind of forces me to make a scenario around drunken sex, anyway. There is none in this one-shot itself, though. As an aside, this is supposed to take place fairly early in Greevil's life; he's around twenty here.)

Greevil Verich had to read over the letter, which trembled along with his shaking hands, at least six times before its message could sink in. Once he did, two sentences in particular stuck out at him as if they had been written in bold print:

I'm pregnant. You're the only one who could have been the father.

He was only twenty years into his life. It was just one, drunken mistake they made, and yet their fate for at least their next nineteen years was as good as sealed because of it.

The girl who wrote the letter had been his friend since childhood, after all. He couldn't possibly abandon her; he would have been even less able to live with himself than he already was if he did that. But, either way, the situation was lose-lose. So much for spending a few more years in school. So much for traveling the world as he'd hoped. So much for spending the rest of his youth as he imagined it to be.

Unless you just let her be, a voice in the back of his mind advised him.

Greevil's heart sank the moment that thought crossed his mind. He shook his head and sat himself down on the nearby couch before he could succumb to both the onslaught of dizziness that washed over him and the notion that entered his head. I can't do that, he told himself. I can't just run away from her like that.

Could he?

The thought of abandoning an eighteen-year-old girl to let her raise a child on her own made him feel just as ill as the thought of taking on such heavy responsibilities himself, but the fact was that he wasn't the one carrying this child. If he wished, he could have left her to fend for herself; no one said he even had to speak to her again.

Of course, his conscience would not allow for him to try such a thing.

Sighing, Greevil put the letter aside and held his head in his hands. Not only was this incident going to dictate nearly another quarter of his life, but he was allowing his anxieties to cloud his thoughts with ideas that he would never carry out.

Or could he? With a grim chuckle, he briefly reflected on how desperation was beginning to make him doubt his own moral compass.

All he knew for certain was that he was completely stuck between a rock and a hard place thanks to one night that had gone too far. And, with his moral compass beginning to lose sight of which way was up and which way was down, he wasn't so sure how he could find his way out.