Real
I almost want to write a parallel 5-sentence fic from Athos' side for this one, just to counterpoint. What is with me lately and wanting to write a lot more for these prompts? (Bonus: what is with me and not getting anywhere on the longer prompts and therefore hanging out in the short ones? -_- )
Sometimes I look at you and I can't believe you're real and I wonder what you're doing with someone like me.
It's not just what you are (not just that you're a nobleman, wealthy and titled and book-educated and mannered); it's not just that I'm nothing in society's eyes, just a scrap of a girl who would've been swept into the gutter or an early grave if she hadn't been lucky and determined and ruthless when the time and the opportunity came. I never had time for dreams before I met you - dreams are a luxury ill-afforded when all your attention needs to be turned on simply getting through another day - and so I had never imagined that I might not have to worry about what tomorrow would bring, not have to wonder whether I would have food in my belly or shelter from the elements or any one of a number of things your kind take for granted.
It's not about food or shelter or safety or any of that, hard as it is to believe I have them in abundance right now; more than anything else, it's about the fact that you're nothing like what I ever thought a nobleman could be - nothing like any of the ones I encountered before you, whose pockets I picked without hesitation (though I didn't hesitate to dip my fingers into yours at first). If you had been like them, I would have never thought twice about how besotted you were with me, considered it little more than something I could use, some way to use you … but you're the first person who cares about me rather than what they can get from me, and though I've tried and tried and tried, it's changed me - you've changed me.
I'm afraid that one day you'll wake up and realise that you've made a mistake and see me for what I was rather than what you've made me want to be - what you've made me think I can be; more than anything, I'm afraid that the truth will destroy me.