Anonymous asked:

Prompt- Rachelle asks Jake why he couldn't have left Rose and Duke alone? And if he loved Rose so much why didn't he come back sooner? Duke universe. BTW, is your fiance ok? What happened?

We're not really sure. He hasn't been quite himself for the past couple of days and then he had a blackout period yesterday which was super scary. He has an appointment with a neurologist but we don't really know anything else. I really appreciate you asking!

I'm going to set this right after this prompt which reads: Anonymous asked: Duke Universe prompt. Rachelle and Duke meet after Duke finds out Rose is cheating.

Warnings for this one: infidelity mentions, mostly written on my phone

Rachelle felt cold all over as she let herself back into Rose's house, her head spinning with things that she didn't know how to express. She hoped that she never understood what kind of pain that Duke was in. She wished that it hadn't been her sister that had hurt him. She wished that this wasn't a situation that her family was in because it was so hard to grasp what had gotten them here in the first place.

"Hello?" Jake's voice came out of the kitchen.

Rachelle shouldn't have been surprised, he practically lived here now, but she had been hoping for a moment to be alone and to breathe. Rose was known as the more emotional twin out of the two of them on a day to day basis but Rachelle's temper was more extreme.

"It's Rachelle," she replied, "Is Rose home from work yet?"

"No, should be soon."

Rachelle walked into the kitchen where Jake was busy starting dinner.

"I decided to make my mom's dumpling recipe," he said. "Is that something you'd eat?"

"Yeah," Rachelle said, because who didn't like dumplings. She stood there for a moment, watching him hum along to a song that was going on inside of his head. She hadn't gotten many moments completely alone with Jake yet and she knew she had to take this chance. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure. Anything," he said casually, staying focused on the task at hand.

"Why did you break up Rose's marriage? Why couldn't you leave them alone? They were happy. They really were. I … If you always knew that you had this great magic love story, why would you have even stayed away from her in the first place? If you had come back and met her before she ever met Duke, you could have spared everyone all of this pain! And you and I both know that even if Rose picked you, she still hurts over that decision and Duke is a wreck and my parents don't know what the hell to do with you. It's a mess."

Jake put down the dumpling he was working on and wiped his hands off on a towel, leaning against the counter top.

"I don't suppose she told you much about what the Huntsclan actually was," Jake said slowly.

Rachelle shook her head. "A magical creature hunting society, right? Dragon slayers?"

"Yes, at its basics, but think about what that really means. In that other life, the Huntsman stole her right out of your mother's arms and raised her in an environment that was kill or be killed. I mean that literally. She was trained in weapons before she could properly hold them. She was raised in a rigid structure of bigotry and hate. It does things to a person. It destroys them from the inside out. She was -" Jake's voice cracked and he hung his head, sniffling for a moment and wrestling his composure back to him. He looked back at Rachelle, changing what he had been going to say. "The first time that we fell in love, we fell in love as classmates. We spent our days being together at school and just having this crush on each other that deepened and deepened. But, at nights, I was a dragon and she was a hunter, and we were out there really trying to kill each other. When we found out who the other was, all of that stuff I told you Rose was raised with? She dropped it. In a split second. She went from this cold-hearted warrior to someone who was willing to do everything she could to protect me. So, when I let her go, let her go to the life that she would have had, I had to do the same thing back. I had to sacrifice myself for her - because I knew we would have been happy together - and not bring her back into this world of magic and to know that person that she didn't want to be. I didn't choose to break up a marriage. I know it seems like that. It might be easier to blame me. She spoke to me first this time and once she did, once we both knew, we couldn't pick anyone but each other."

Jake took a deep breath.

"Oh," Rachelle said, feeling like she was out of her depth. "Oh."

Jake turned back to his dumplings and she could see tears shining on his cheeks.

"Don't tell her I told you any of that, okay?" Jake said. "She didn't want you to know. She didn't like anyone to know what it was like there. But, if you have more questions, I'll answer anything."

"Okay. Thanks, Jake. I'll be down in a minute, if you'd like some help with dinner."

Jake smiled. "Yeah, I think that would be nice."

Rachelle went upstairs to the guest room she was staying in and dropped her purse down on the end of the bed, hanging her head between her legs and trying to breathe. She really didn't understand at all, what was happening here, and she didn't know if she ever would. She didn't know if there were any words that would make her really grasp what that other life and what Jake and Rose knew and what had brought them together. It was hard to understand that there wasn't really a villain here and that everyone was just a victim of circumstance. Duke's expression from earlier that afternoon haunted her but she was glad that he didn't understand because she was sure that would hurt him worse.

Rachelle composed herself and walked back downstairs. And that was how Rose found them when she came home from work: side by side, making dumplings, not saying a word.