Chapter Five
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Sarelia
“Married? Like… married married?”
“Yes,” Archie confirms. “Like married married. It’s rather convenient, I hear.”
Um. Is it, though? Is it really? “You want to get married? To me? Sarelia?”
“Correct,” he affirms. “Sarelia Elowen Prim: my future wife, if you please.”
Oh. My. Gosh.
“You don’t even know me,” I wheeze, fanning myself with my hands. “Why would you want to marry me?”
His nose scrunches. “Of course I know you. I know how you take your tea and your favorite foods and the places you like to shop. I know what time you go to bed and what time you wake up. I know about your parents and your brother. I know how much time you used to spend on your job but now spend writing recreationally, though I haven’t been able to figure out what you’re concocting since you’ve stopped publishing.
I also know how much time you spend on your fan video edits and on watching me—or wishing you were watching me.
” He smiles, a dreadfully heart-stealing thing.
“Sometimes when you were feeling especially down about not having new content from me to watch, I’d even do a special livestream just to make you smile. ”
“You do not,” I breathe. “You do not know all of that about me.”
He straightens in his seat, chest puffing as he recites, “Sugar and milk in your tea, but not too much of either. Ramen, cereal, and roasted broccoli are your favored foods. Bed by midnight, wake by nine. Your parents are Scott and Andi Prim. Your brother is Fred. You lived with them in Pepero, Kentucky. Your parents love you, but they’re overprotective.
You love them a great deal anyway. You spent seven hours a day on your job every day except Saturday, and that time bumped to eight hours a few months ago, after you stopped putting books out to the public.
Your edits and watchings depend on the day, but steal anywhere from three to five hours from you.
” His eyes sparkle. “And, to mention, you loved those livestreams I did. They always cheered you right up.”
“Oh,” I whisper. “I guess you do know all of that about me.”
“And you know lots about me, too,” he says.
“Not everything, like I nearly do you, but quite a lot more than anyone else knows, I would bargain. At the very least, you know everything there is to know about the me that is online, and every little habit you’ve deduced by watching me in person and in my faced videos. ”
Shock rocks me, followed swiftly by anxiety. “I’m not insane,” I assure him. “I promise. I’m not like, scary. I just…” Love you—uncontrollably and unconditionally in whatever the least creepy way is. “I just really like you.”
He hums, then taps my nose with a long, calloused finger. “That’s okay, love. We can take care of that.”
My eyes widen. “Take care of… me liking you?”
“Yes, that too, but I was talking about you being neither insane nor scary. When I’m through with you, I hope that you will be both, as well as irrevocably in love with me.”
Uh. “You want me to be crazy and scary?” I ask. Irrevocably in love with him I can do. I’m already doing it. Insane and scary, though…
“Yes,” he confirms. “And obsessive, if you don’t mind. Codependency is the goal here for me.”
“Um,” I mumble. Obsessive, also, I have down. “How scary are you wanting?” I could probably muster up a jump scare or two. “And how insane?”
“Ideally, you’d be willing to help me torture men in my basement,” he answers breezily. “We can work up to that, though. How do you feel about mailing severed phalanges?”
I recoil. “Like severed fingers?” I ask. “As in actively rotting flesh?” There is a lot I would do for Archie. Dealing with actively rotting flesh has not made that list.
He hums. “Maybe we start smaller. Locks of hair?”
“Starting me off with not mailing rotting flesh sounds good, yes,” I agree. “May I ask why you’re torturing people in your basement?”
“They’re bad people, and it’s fun to watch them suffer,” he answers, oh-so-casual.
I stare at the man sitting next to me at his beautiful, chicken-covered table, and I wonder if this is what they mean when they say that everyone has flaws.
Not that I view wanting bad things to happen to bad people as a flaw, exactly, but I am also not imagining doing such things to the bad people myself in my basement, then mailing their severed bits when I’m finished.
Is this something I am willing to live with? As mentioned, when it comes to Archie I’d do a lot of things—embarrassing, humiliating, awkward, terrifying things. Is one of those things ignoring his fantasies of torture?
His sweet, if manic, brown eyes stare back at me above an equally sweet, if manic, smile, and I think… yeah. One of those things is definitely ignoring his fantasies of torture.
“I suppose I could mail a lock or two of hair,” I concede.
His eyes go glassy. “My Sarelia, so willing to please,” he murmurs. “But, alas, we’ve gone off track. Marriage, yea or nay?”
Truly, nothing could have convinced me more that this is real than that lackluster proposal. A fanfiction would never, and my wildest dreams would not dare to insult me in such a way.
Marriage of convenience or not, I have more romance in my left thumb than what the man before me has exhibited in either of his proposals to me.
I should not, I know, be disappointed. Because it is a marriage of convenience, even if the only convenient thing about it is that we can more easily stalk one another.
He did claim he wants codependency and love, though…
No. No, Sarelia, no. He said it outright, “marriage of convenience.” He did not say “a marriage arranged by us for the purpose of falling in love” like the character based on him did in my eighteenth century royalty alternate universe fanfic, also known as fanfic journal number sixteen.
I chew on my cheek and consider how low I am willing to place myself just to be in proximity of Archibald Pine. The answer is, of course, Hades.
“Yes,” I say, a blush washing over my face. “A marriage of convenience.”
He sucks in a ragged breath, and goosebumps rise on the skin of his forearms. “A marriage of convenience,” he echoes.
“Can I ask…” I hesitate, wringing my hands together in my lap.
“Yes, love?” he prompts. His calloused fingertips brush my ear as he tucks a strand of hair behind it.
I clear my throat. “It’s just… you didn’t really answer me. Before.”
“Hm?”
“Why me? You know all this stuff about me, and you say you’ve been watching me, and I’m… well, I’m just messed up in the head enough to like that, but… why have you been watching me? Why am I here? Just… why?”
His head tilts, and his finger traces across the slope of my cheek and down to my jaw.
“Because, my dear Sarelia, you caught my eye.” He drops his hand, sighing as he leans back in his chair.
“You were at a convention in Louisville, once, to see me, but you didn’t come to talk to me.
I saw you sitting not even twenty feet away from me, but you never stood.
Never approached. You watched. You took pictures.
You took videos. You wrote in your journal.
But you didn’t come up to me, and that made me curious.
Then, the more I dug up about you, the curiouser and curiouser I got until, eventually, I ran out of research I could do.
There were no more records to scour or books of yours to read, there was only you left.
So I hired Stone, and together we went about satiating my curiosity.
Except, it never was satiated. Every day I discover something new about you, or something old but that hits me in a new way.
I came to realize that I would never, ever, stop being curious about you.
The plan was always to bring you here—bring you home.
I can’t say the plan was to marry you, but…
the plan was not ever to live without you.
What’s the line… ‘You have bewitched me, body and soul?’ I have been bewitched by you since the moment I laid eyes on you.
” He caresses my face, his thumb sweeping over my chin, then back.
“And that is why, my love. Because it being anyone else but you would never have crossed my mind.”
I gulp.
I suppose I should not have complained about the lack of romance in my proposal. He was, apparently, storing it up so that he could sucker punch me with it all at once.
“Oh,” I whisper.
“Yes. Oh.” He chuckles. “Is that answer satisfactory enough for you, my angel?”
His angel?
My goodness, the man wants me dead.
“Yes,” I squeak. “Much good. Very satisfactory.”
“Perfect!” he exclaims, startling me as he lurches to standing. “Those are my vows, then. I’ll expect yours by sunset, if you don’t mind.”
My eyes widen. “Sunset?” I wince, peering out the kitchen window at a rapidly setting sun. “Isn’t that kind of right now?”
His eyes follow mine, and he inspects the sunset with me. “So it is,” he muses. “Well, after the ceremony, then. Unless you would like to share them during? You seem more like a private vows kind of woman, but you can do as you wish. I will cherish them at either time.”
I cannot keep up. “Ceremony?” I ask. “Today? Didn’t we, uh, just get engaged?”
“Yes,” he confirms. “And now, we’re going to get married.”
He pulls me out of my seat, spinning me under his arm and into an anxiety-inducing dip before settling me safely on my feet. “Do you wish to change first, my love, or are you happy in your current attire?”
My current attire being a pale pink dress with princess puff sleeves and a corseted waist that hits me mid-calf, making it the perfect length for feeling like a princess but still allowing me to move.
Of all the things I own, it is undoubtedly the most beautiful.
I’d begged Stone to pull over before we got here so that I could change into it and be wearing something pretty when Archie first laid eyes on me.
I hadn’t thought he’d noticed it, but now that he’s mentioned it, I find myself worried that he did notice it and didn’t say anything on account of how he abhors it.
My teeth worry my cheek as I pluck at the soft fabric, working through my suitcase in my head.
“To be clear,” Archie interrupts my mental recounting of my wardrobe, “I think this dress is absolutely enchanting, and I would be honored to marry you as you wear it. I simply asked as a courtesy to you, because I know the appeal of an outfit often directly correlates to its discomfort levels, and I do not wish for you to be uncomfortable on our wedding day. I myself plan to change before we go.”
Oh. “I don’t need to change,” I answer, then eye his outfit.
“Will you change into something red?” I ask, hope springing.
“The blue looks nice on you, but…” But red is the color his character in CubeCraft wears, and it’s the color Archie wears to cons.
It’s the color I always think of him in, and while his blue sweater looks nice, it’s no red.
Archie smiles, pokes my nose, then lets his hand slide over to my cheek, where he runs a fingertip along my skin. “I’ll wear red if it means you’ll stay this pretty pink for me.”
I think I can manage that. “I’m not in a fanfic, right?
” I ask, just to be sure. “This is real life? We’re real-life getting married for real-life…
uh… convenience? Because you want to? And I am apparently actually definitely an insane fangirl who thinks that makes sense, because my brain runs on insane fangirl logic and not, say, actual-real-life logic?
” My heart gallops in my chest, and my skin vibrates with excess energy.
“Correct,” Archie confirms with a heart-stalling grin. “And, please, for my sake, do not let any real-life logic trickle in. It’s so…” He shudders. “Icky.”
“Icky,” I echo weakly.
“Icky.” He nods, scrunching his nose under his caramel brown eyes. “Fangirl logic only. And fangirls, my love, do not get cold feet. So let’s get you some slippers and be on our way, yes?”
Then, for the second time in as many days, a Pine man wraps his arm around my shoulders, spins me, and marches me toward a pretty, shiny, brand-new life.