Listen; I write incest on purpose ALL THE TIME. My Silmarillion page will tell you that. But on my first playthrough of Tri Strat I had SUCH a clear vision for how I wanted Roland/Serenoa to work that I broke one of my own rules, which is 'never start writing a fanfiction until you have read the entire book/played the entire game/watched the entire show.' I have this rule for a reason. This reason. Because then I did finish the game, and, well. Honestly, the problem was that I said 'well, I would have written this totally differently if I had KNOWN they were secret half-brothers,' and then my new ideas and old ideas made a jumble and I got confused and I didn't finish anything. Shame, because I used a pretty unique narration style for Roland, but it is what it is.
Serenoa was about fourteen and his stomach was up in knots with anxiety, afraid to make the wrong choice. Roland was here, for one of the many precious golden summers that Roland was allowed to spend his time in the Wolffort demesne, they two of them loosely supervised by Benedict ad Erador and his father’s other friends, whenever they paused their work to ask themselves ‘when was the last time I saw Serenoa and Roland?’ They rode horses in lazy loops around the lush green hills of House Wolffort, they picked apples and peaches and ate them as the moment struck them, they practiced swordplay and shooting arrows and losing and finding arrows, they talked and complained and laughed and lied beside the little quick clear streams that ran down from the hills, and all the way from the icy mountains in the far north, and sometimes they would kiss each other.
That was a thing like all of the other things. Neither of them ever thought to mention it. Neither would have thought about it—if they ever thought about it, being so young—as any different from father (King Regna Glenbrook) or father (Lord Symon Wolffort) receiving a kiss on the back of his hand from a knight or a friend, except that it was equal between them because they were best friends, not master and vassal, not yet. Serenoa had his stomach in knots and knew that it was foolish and wouldn’t bother Roland with his concerns, whatever he was concerned about on a perfect summer day, Roland knew something was wrong and that he wouldn’t be hearing about it without a lot of prodding and that he wasn’t sure he did want to hear about whatever minor concern had Serenoa turned inside out besides, so he chooses quickly to kiss him instead, and Serenoa shuts his head and turns his eyes and they stay connected for a few minutes, maybe three, or five, and Serenoa sighs and shakes his head at him and Roland feels a little dumb warmth in his chest and grabs Serenoa by the shirt and throws him into the stream.
He tries to, at any rate. Serenoa wins the impromptu dunking contest, by a lot. Roland sputters and drips and flails his arms at his friend and he laughs.
—
Come to think of it, no, they never did kiss each other in public before now, age eighteen and parting for a time, because it had seemed to be an unimportant gesture, an expression of their friendship, and not something either of them thought anyone would need to be concerned about besides. Serenoa doesn’t see anything, because he has his eyes closed, he always had his eyes closed, for some reason. Roland, however, is looking behind Serenoa and he sees Benedict who had gone completely gray with time suck in a sudden, shocked breath, and hold it, and compose his face.
He disapproves, sharply. Roland doesn’t know why because he doesn’t yet understand what there might be to disapprove of, he holds it but does not see it, like it had been slipping into his back pocket by a stealthy hand while he was unaware. He feels the disapproval anyway and carefully masks his anxiety and concern as he pulls away from Serenoa, lets go of his hand, and boxes his shoulder instead. Serenoa smiles anyway, smiles and tussles and tells him goodbye.
—
Roland loses his virginity accidentally in a fun and completely unexpected afternoon with a duchess’ daughter who in retrospect had surely put a lot of effort into all of that spontaneity, and he has a wonderful time and begins to treat young women a little different, cautious and a little awkward and a little stupid, and he does not relate it at all to him and Serenoa. He doesn’t relate any of this to Serenoa at all that entire year, not while he writes long letters to him, not while they briefly meet for a holiday, not while laying in bed thinking and wondering freely, not while kissing another girl, not while confiding to Serenoa about girls in his letters, not when Serenoa admits the whole subject discomforts him especially knowing he’s just waiting on his political marriage anyway (but they both are), not when they meet up again at the beginning of another beautiful summer, though bitterer sometimes than it was when they were just boys, full of politics and the grown up’s table and official duties and following Serenoa on his sweet but incredibly real rounds of his city, not as they bid each other to bed, nor the next night, nor the next—
It only occurs to Roland after they kiss again, a good-night kiss, as he feels Serenoa’s strong warm hand around his wrist, the stubble on his chin gently brushing his face—stubble, since when?—hears his lowered voice in his throat as he bids him goodnight and then Roland is re-braiding his hair to keep it out of his way when he sleeps and his chest feels very warm and he asks himself,
Why do Serenoa and I kiss each other? I don’t do that for anyone else. I kiss the hands of foreign ladies and I kiss girls sometimes but I don’t kiss anyone like I kiss Serenoa. And when did we begin? Just as boys, but why? No one told us to do that. We just did it on our own.
It’s in that quiet night as the calm peace of House Wolfford dims down around him to sleep that he first holds up how he treats kisses and hold Serenoa and holds up how he kisses and holds girls and compares them to each other, and he thinks, huh. That’s. Odd. What does that mean?
—
No one ever accused him of improper conduct, but even if they had, he hadn’t done anything worth being ashamed of. At age twenty he can talk about love and affection in the terms of politics and power, in fact he must know how to, because he must know the difference between ethical and unethical courtship, he must be sensitive to how he wields his power and influence, he must be able to use words like ‘power imbalance’ and ‘extramarital’ and ‘meaningful consent.’ The lesson he had to learn was that, since his Father owned the Kingdom, he could accidentally—accidentally—strip someone of their rights and autonomy, and he learned that when a noble’s son was accused of rape and they had to convene a whole court to decide if what he had done was rape, because no one knew. Father made him and Frani watch the whole thing, because it was a freely available hard lesson. They couldn’t tell if he had actually hurt the girl or not because the force of his power made her will irrelevant.
He knows plenty about improper conduct, and he knows he has never done anything to be ashamed of. He also knows it might come across that way, perhaps, if the wrong person—a person more wrong than Benedict Pascal—saw him kissing Serenoa Wolffort.
Not that—it was—the same—or it couldn’t possibly be.
—
You know, they had been working on some good, proper potential engagements for him when the world ended. Everyone he knew died and beautiful lazy green gold and swiftly clear running Wolffort demesne burned to the ground and Serenoa was on the brink of losing everything, every day. In theory, Prince Roland died, and Roland, a deserter, was technically a man without a past, but he knew how often he had held and comforted and kissed Serenoa Wolffort. They had begun to lie down together at night, back to back, which was exactly how they fought on the battlefield, with blood ringed around them. Serenoa had been at his back, literally at his back, when they fled his own Palace with Aesfrosti guards raining arrows on them. Serenoa had been literally at his back as they burned Wolffort demesne, as they defended it against the Telliores. At night they lay like they fought, at each other’s back, and Serenoa’s back would tense and shiver with fear and anger and confusion as dreams gripped him or worries kept him up. Roland would sometimes feel his warm hand squeeze his shoulder or side in the night if he had started tossing or grumbling with a bad dream himself. Fighting, really. Fighting.
Serenoa should have been in his marriage bed by now. But, if they even wanted to still be married in this time of betrayal and strife between their families, it sure wasn’t the right time to wed right now, not when their wedding would take place in such destruction and grief. So, to be proper and good and polite to his bride, Serenoa had quietly arranged it so that they were both supervised, so that Geela slept with and protected the duchess at night and Roland and Serenoa in an unspoken way played boys again, best friends at each other’s side.
Serenoa did really like his bride-to-be. Roland liked her also, she was friendly and considerate, truthful and genuine, brave as well as compassionate, and she could crack a soldier’s bones inside of his armor from the intense heat of arcane fire from a hundred feet away. She was the softest little dumping with forbidden pink hair and powerful deadly hot magic, and he figured they had three months maximum before Serenoa was at her beck and call. He was manufacturing obedience if he did not feel it yet; he would structure decisions around keeping Frederica from her abusive family, giving her time and space to mourn, enforcing acceptance of her innocence around his subjects. That was well enough, because she generally had the right of it herself anyway.
Roland did like her. He felt a little odd about it all. He was watching Serenoa fall in love, he thought.
But what was odd was that he also watched, he also had the fortune-misfortune to watch Serenoa realize that it was odd, wasn’t it, that they kissed each other like this. Roland hadn’t stopped, even though more and more kissing Serenoa, brief and close with their fingers laced, made him feel hot inside. Serenoa had gone on it just like he always had, clutching the back of Roland’s head and quickly kissing him on the lips, but then the fear and anxiety mastered him for a moment and his fingers tightened slightly on Roland’s scalp and he promised him, like he already had said, that he was never giving up Roland to the enemy, no matter how many people died, no matter what Benedict or Erador argued, no matter how thorny it made their path, he was never going to give him up. And he leaned in the opposite way from the first time and kissed him again, slowly, firmly, grounding his devotion with the press of his jaw. They—moved—moved around each other, like the sort of kiss he gives everyone but Serenoa, so that he felt how his lips pressed him and opened a little when he pulled back, and then he got to see Serenoa realize that something about that was strange. It was in his eyes, which he hadn’t fully shut, which drew back with a confused, dark murkiness in them, pulling in Roland’s face.
Roland, who had never, ever thought this sort of thing about Serenoa in his life, suddenly thought to himself, we should make love, just once, before someone kills him or me or both of us, though probably me, because then it’ll be too late and won’t that be a shame.
And then he wondered what that even meant, because he had never even heard of the concept of such a thing, and couldn’t picture it in his head, yet there it was, all the same, like a stealthy hand had slipped it into is back pocket while his front half was all distracted.
—
Serenoa was falling steadily in love with dear Frederica, and Roland doesn’t blame him. She’s not for him—she’s not FOR him and she’s not really a match for him either. She’s so incredibly good, and Roland is so incredibly careless. He’d drop her like a precious family heirloom if she were his responsibility.
That said, he likes her. He wasn’t sure at first, but she proved quickly that she had the spine to stand up for herself, she had a good brain, she has the passion and drive to fight, and all of that without sacrificing that goodness. She’s just excellent for Serenoa, goddess-picked, the sort of excellent leading woman he isn’t afraid to leave the best man he knows with. Normal men he thinks, would shrink from the comparison, from how very good they both are.
He clings up to and rests beside and rides beside Serenoa because he sees how he glows and how he strives and thrives and struggles, handling so much more chaos and hurt and glory than he should have to and Roland doesn’t think about removing himself or tempering himself or giving Serenoa space, he snaps right in next to him like his next-door puzzle piece. He doesn’t say, I need to let Serenoa be seen alone at the head of things, I need to give Serenoa space, I need to let Serenoa have some time alone. He just goes right up to him and Serenoa will smile and let him debate at the table and kiss him sometimes, with their hands holding the smalls of each other’s backs, with the tips of Serenoa’s fingers pressing hot under his mask.
He never thinks he’s getting into Serenoa’s way, he doesn’t until very much later. He feels so good around Serenoa and it’s the only time now and the only person now who makes him feel so good. So faintly that the ear can barely hear it and the skin can barely sense, Serenoa’s proximity still makes him hear the quiet babbling brook and the warm sunlight of summer. It’s not something he thinks about, it’s something he feels.
Something he feels, he feels.
—
He had been dozing in the dark of night and Serenoa had been awake, thinking, Roland knows he’s thinking because he lies and breathes differently when he’s sleeping, and right now, he sits awake and he thinks, though Roland is too half-asleep to ask him about what.
Then Frederica had quietly asked to enter; Serenoa sat up and gave her leave and she walked in and balked at the sight of the two of them in bed, because she did not know that they laid down together at night, and why would she?
“Prince Roland—” she said, gentle softness. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I would be interrupting.”
Roland is tired and he tried to reassure her, but Serenoa’s voice more quickly overtakes him. “No, Frederica; not at all. Roland and I have always rested together, even as children. Though, then, we did so simply because we were friends, and not because we wanted us both there in case of an attack.”
“Luckily, not been attacked in bed yet,” Roland mumbled, and yawned. He was forced to stretch a little when he felt how badly he had been clenching his body in his sleep.
“Luckily,” Serenoa echoes with fondness in his voice. Fondness for Roland’s stupidity; he knew that part of what made Serenoa so fond of him in return was the very brashness and impulsiveness and thick-headedness that his father and brother and mentors so hated. They smile at each other. “Please, come in,” he said to his fiancée and stood up.
Roland laid back down and began to doze. Serenoa and Frederica spoke; her mother, her family, the abuse of her siblings. Roland half-listened, knowing that Frederica hadn’t expected him to be privy to this conversation. She had wanted comfort and advice from Serenoa, a lazing, dozing Prince-outcast hadn’t been part of the plan. Still, after a minute it’s like he isn’t there to her, like she’s let him become part of the furniture of Serenoa’s bedroom, a thought that should not please him like it does. He does not fully listen until, now on the brink of sleep, he hears his name in a tone of voice that must be teasing:
“And how fortunate that His Highness is here, or else I may have accidentally visited you without a chaperone,” Frederica jokes.
Roland’s first response is an impatient, tired grunt. They both laughed lightly at him.
Roland cleared his voice and tried again. “Chaperone, you’re talking to MY chaperone. It’s the chaperone you’re marrying. Hope you’re ready to be—safe, and taken care of, and reassured the whole time.”
He meant for that to be more of a mocking than a compliment, but it came out like his exhaustion. Stripped down, even beneath their decade-old friendly repartee, at his most basic he is so fucking fond of Serenoa, he just thinks so highly of him and feels like somehow he’s going to make all of this okay. Without their fathers, their kingdom, support from their people, without food or money or resources he’ll still make this okay. Roland pulls every ounce of his weight in the daylight hours supporting him but so late he accidentally depends on him.
“…I think I can handle that,” said Frederica quietly.
Roland is aware that his clashing with his family was rough but not the worst hand he could have been given—Frederica is a woman who was abused by her wicked family her entire life. A better person couldn’t go to Serenoa. Serenoa couldn’t be a better person for her.
Oddly, ferociously content, Roland curls on his side without thinking, inexcusably comfortable around his friend’s wife in the dark. “You think so now. Just wait until you’re in my position. Always cared for. Never left out in the cold. Relentless. Little bastard.”
“Thank you, Roland,” said sweet and exhausted Serenoa.