Title: As long as you love me...

Theme: #13 Invincible/Unrivaled

Fandom: Nanatsu no Taizai/Seven Deadly Sins

Pairing: KingxDiane

Note: Spoilers for the Manga! Don't remember which chapters but I'm sure you'll only really get this if you're caught up. Just go read it. It's worth it. Lol.

Disclaimer: I do not own Nanatsu no Taizai. I will be cosplaying as King for a convention this year just because I love my little man so much.

Messing with peoples memories...

...Pot calling the kettle black...

...Unnecessary feelings...

...Engraved deep...

...

I want you to always love me...

I swear I'll always love you.

As long as you love me:

He was consumed by the existence of his own worthlessness. The tears burned at the rims, fighting to escape. He knew it would prove fruitless but he still forced them back with his already fragile will of mind. He refused to give in and knew that in the end he would lose. For all his power he was weak. A child masquerading as a man. Trying to be the Great Fairy King he would never be. Weren't his lack of wings proof enough? He was a sham of what he claimed to be. Always misplacing guilt and refusing to accept the consequences that came his way. His attempts at redemption were laughable. He couldn't even fulfill his full sentence for the incarceration he had placed himself in. He was weak. Worthless. When he looked upon the face of his sister, her eyes shut in death and chest still from lack of breath, it was all he could do not to pierce his own heart with Chastiefol. The idea that it would be a man like Ban to save his sister from her suffering was infuriating. His own failure thrust in his face by a breed of man he hated most. Now his other failures were placed before him where he could neither deny nor hide from them and by a demon no less.

The Grizzly Sin of Sloth glared hatefully at the face of his Captain. The feeling of placing his trust in a member of the demon race completely unsettled him. His mind ran through all the times in the past that he had confided in the Dragon's Sin of Wrath.

Demons had been the ones to destroy the Forest of Fairies. Had killed Elaine. A hot bubbling anger built up in his blood and his fists clenched until the knuckles burned white.

"Why?!" He shouted, tangled fury laced in his cries. "Why?! Why?! Ban and Diane trust you! Elizabeth, Merlin, Gowther, everyone! They trust you so much!" His face crumpled with the weight of his emotions. "They trust you so much. So why can't I?!"

The short form of Meliodas stopped in it's movements. He stood rigid yards away from where King levitated off the ground and seeing his leader pause the way he did made King feel like a spiteful child.

Meliodas had been kind, saying nothing to King. To hear the Fairy voice his frustrations the way he had made him turn his head over his shoulder and level a gaze on his comrade.

"Because you're afraid." He responded tonelessly. There was not a shred of sympathy in his words. King's face twisted with offended pride.

"What, you-"

Meliodas turned fully to thrust the full effect of his green eyes on the Fairy King. There was a coldness there that King didn't remember ever having seen on the face directed at him.

"You see only what you want to see. You dislike the way I answer your questions. It bothers you because you think I have something to hide. That upsets you because you know that being so evasive means secrets, like the ones you're keeping."

White-hot outrage flashed across King's face. "Y-you..!"

"You keep things hidden and whine when someone beside you does the same. But you'll continue making the same mistake if you keep up with that kind of thinking. Look at Diane." A visible flinch from the Sin of Sloth. "How much longer will you keep up the lies?"

Furious splotches bloomed across his cheeks and with a snap like the shot of an arrow Chastiefol sunk it's blade into the ground, exactly where Meliodas had been standing a mere second before. The weapon morphed into form two and appeared at King's side to take the brunt of Meliodas's counter. The blonde warrior landed solidly several feet away while King mentally cursed the man.

He didn't seem to realize. Meliodas wasn't going to make it easy for him. The Captain wasn't interested in Diane romantically but he was very much protective of her in his own way. It would be easy for Meliodas to break her hope, to rebuff her affections with a firm rejection. He could help by swaying her opinion of him. There were many things he could do to shift Diane's attention in King's favor. He didn't though and the reason for that was simple. Meliodas cared about Diane. He wanted King to earn the right to be with her because he was aware of their shared history. He was one of the few privy to their joined past. He was conscious of the fact that it was because of King that Diane had suffered. He also happened to know that in the deepest secreted part of her heart Diane already loved King. Meliodas wanted his two comrades happy but he refused to allow King to make another grave mistake in regard in her regard.

Time stretched for them as neither gave any indication of pulling away from their stand-still. King wanted to be angry and fight through the feelings of humiliation. What Meliodas had said hurt. It hurt in a place where a barb had already impaled him and the Captain was simply hammering it in deeper and deeper. King fought to compose himself. The last person he should ever make his enemy was standing before him. When Meliodas's foot shifted King visibly tensed.

"Earn her love again King." were the surprisingly kind words. "That's the only way you'll get what you want."

With his advice hanging in the air between them Meliodas spun on his heel and left, granting King the time he needed for himself. Amber burned into the man's back almost wishing he would return and throw a punch. King didn't like feeling as if he had done something wrong. Suddenly he ducked his head. Who was he kidding? Of course he had done something wrong. It seemed as if his very nature demanded mistakes, feeding off his ability to completely ruin everything. The familiar touch of shame washed over him.

Everyone trusted Meliodas. He himself had placed his own life in the Captain's hands in the past on multiple occasions and Meliodas had pulled through in each and every instance. Perhaps what bothered him now were his own emotions. King thought on what bar-owner had said and he agreed miserably. His reasons for holding so much anger were more than likely a projection of his own self-hate and jealousy. King buried his face into Chastiefol's softness, frustrated with himself. There was no end to his shortcomings.

Dismally he flew to the spot where everyone had gathered. The Fairy King kept his thoughts to himself, his mouth firmly shut, silently brooding as everyone pulled out kegs from the Boar's Hat Bar and proceeded to have an impromptu party.

Escanor was there in his feeble form, flitting to and fro like a nervous tick. Elaine smiled as she watched Ban and Meliodas tease an indignant Hawk and she and Elizabeth struck up a friendly conversation which Gil soon joined in. Gowther followed after Escanor, questioning him over the mundane while the flustered older man stuttered in confusion. Griamore and Hendrickson mock-sparred with Arthur cheering from the side as he fed the cat atop his head bit's of dried food rations. An image that gripped King's stomach and made him feel ill was seeing Howzer engage Diane in a friendly chat that she seemed more than happy to have.

Feeling excluded and sick with embarrassment King settled at a point in the air, lounging on Chastiefol with his back to the ground and his attention on the stars. Halfway through the evening Diane appeared below him, all smiles with a large tankard of ale in hand. "King!" She called out cheerfully, waving him down from his perch. He had never been one to hide his emotions well but he managed a weak grin for her as he descended to her eye level.

"Diane..."

Her skin was rosy from the alcohol she had consumed, her lavender eyes crinkled in contentment. "Try this new brew!" She sang. "Master Pig says it's the best!" King attempted to refuse but Diane insisted and the minute he saw her face fall he quickly managed to take a sip. Her answering smile paralyzed him with it's radiance and he blushed when she proceeded to down a gulp from the same mug. "Mmm! It's so good!"

She was clearly in a good mood and despite his own musings, he was glad to see her so happy. It touched him that she had made it a point of pulling him from his solitude so that she could share something with him. It made him feel even more as if he didn't deserve her.

Watching her interact with the people around her, so lively and spirited always melted his heart. She had been so young when they met, full of childish delight with unrivaled energy. When he had almost lost her in Liones against Helbram, he found his mind wandering back to the simpler times when she and he had spent their days together in companionable bliss. If he hadn't charged Chastiefol in it's eighth configuration to heal her then, the wound from Helbram's ice magic would have slowly killed her. When he thought of her hurt, dying, suddenly everything else in the world always managed to fall away and the only thing that mattered, that would ever matter, was protecting her.

Yet...Such single-minded thinking was the reason for why he had made so many mistakes. His own folly, never thinking of the possibilities outside his own want. When he had erased Diane's memories, it had been for her own good, to keep her from waiting for someone who wouldn't return. A mistake. Diane had the right to make her own decisions. If she had wanted to wait for him, she should have been free to do so. He took that choice from her, unable to bear the idea of her watching the horizon for him. Selfishness...

Despite loving her with his whole heart and soul, he had been terribly unfair to her. As he began to realize, Meliodas wasn't intending to be cruel. He wanted King to face the past, to make amends for his wrongdoing, and to learn to give Diane the freedom to be who she truly was without any interference. He needed to be stronger in his love. The same way Ban was for Elaine. As strong as the Captain was for Elizabeth.

Diane laughed with the others over something Meliodas said and King watched the way Diane's face lit with undiluted joy, the unmasked pleasure in Elaine's smile.

And he realized, for Elaine and Diane, he was worth nothing in comparison to Ban and Meliodas.

"Harlequin!"

So he would have to work hard to be the man Diane deserved.

-OWARI-

It was supposed to end on the line that said King was nothing in comparison to Ban and Mel but jeez, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I have a bad habit of pointing out King's mistakes and flaws often. I hope everyone remembers that each chapter is meant to stand alone. None of these are connected. Also, I'm going to quit setting an update period. I will not stop until this challenge is finished and it won't take me forever to do it but I do have a lot of projects right now that demand my attention so no set schedule for updates. Keep an eye out for me. I've got a ton of fics I'm about to start posting.

Seventeen more to go! Whoooooo!