Goro: It Doesn't Have To Be That Hard

"Hansel doesn't want me to take his name when we get married," Goro blurted to Amari one day while helping her in the garden.

They were pulling weeds. Amari's brow furrowed, her lips pursed thoughtfully. "Did he say why?"

"Uh." Goro tried to remember. "Like. Something about how he just got Bell, and I just got Voronin, and we oughta just be satisfied with that."

Amari thought for a moment, still frowning. "That doesn't sound like Hansel."

"Well, he didn't say it *exactly* like that."

"I see."

"But the message was clear."

"I'm not sure it was."

"Well, you can ask him if you don't believe me." Goro yanked too hard on a weed and ripped it clean off its roots. He did that a lot. Amari was always telling him he had to go slow and careful. "Ma, there has *got* to be a way to do this with magic, or something."

Amari ignored that. She was still musing on the name thing. "I think that if I spoke to Hansel, and I asked him, 'Did you tell Goro you don't want him to take your name when he marries you,' he would get very nervous and upset. But I'm sure you know him much better than I do, so maybe I'm wrong."

Oh yeah, that was Amari's super nice way of saying *You're full of shit*. "Look, I'm not suggesting you actually ask him."

"Oh, no, it's fine. I think I will. Make sure the message is clear."

"*Ma*."

"Goro. Tell me what's really on your mind."

Goro dug deep into the earth around the weed he'd just torn, trying to get at the roots. Hah. Symbolic. "Uh," he said after a minute, "I hoped he'd want me to take his name, 'cause—uh. I don't know." Amari didn't say anything. "I don't know. I think… I think he doesn't want people to know we're married."

Saying that made a lump grow in his throat. He paused what he was doing, staring down at his dirt-covered hands, the grit sticking in the plaits of his gold ring. His eyes stung.

"Mmhmm?" Amari said, quietly.

"Like, uh." He cleared his throat. "You know, like he's doing it 'cause it's a nice thing for me. Not the real deal."

Amari made a little interested murmur. Then she sat, quiet and still for a minute, while Goro kept trying not to cry. Finally, she said, "And you thought if he told you to take his name, it would mean it was real."

Goro nodded eagerly, glad she said it so he didn't have to.

"It's hard for me to imagine, though," she said. "Hansel telling you that you had to take his name. Wouldn't he leave it up to you?"

"Yeah." Goro sniffed. He wiped his face on his sleeve.

"So, that's probably not a good way to tell if things are real."

"I guess," he said doubtfully.

Amari watched him for a long time. He kept staring at the dirt.

"You're working so hard to accept that he loves you," she said. "But it doesn't have to be that hard, sweetheart. Go find him now. Ask him for a hug."

"I can't just go ask him for a hug every time I…" He frowned. "Well. Fuck. Why the hell not?" He climbed to his feet, dusting his hands off, and went inside.

He didn't have to look far. Hansel was right in the sun room, reading a book on the couch. He looked up and grinned when Goro stepped inside. "Hey, chatichi."

*My handsome.* Goro wondered when that would ever stop giving him a little thrill. A mental double-take. He swallowed.

Hansel's smile fell away as soon as he got a look at Goro's face. "What's wrong?" He set the book aside and stood up, coming to Goro with his arms out.

Goro didn't hug back properly, since his hands were still dirty. Hansel squeezed him once, then pulled back just far enough to cup his face with one hand. "What happened, ahuv?"

"Nothing happened." Goro pushed in to plant his face against Hansel's chest. "More. Tighter." Hansel obliged, squeezing him so tight his back popped. "Good."

Hansel kissed the top of his head. "You okay, love?"

"Nah. I'm a fucking mess."

Hansel kissed him again, squeezing him a little tighter. "That's alright. I got you."

#

It did occur to Goro that maybe he was doing shit backwards.

They were moving pretty fast. Engaged less than a year after they'd met each other. Something in Goro's head kept clamoring *hurry, hurry, hurry*, thinking he needed the proof; thinking he wouldn't believe that Hansel loved him until they were married.

Maybe it was supposed to go the other way around, though: maybe they should wait to get married until every part of him believed it.

It wasn't surprising he was having a hard time taking it in. It was so fucking new. It amazed him to think about just how new, considering how familiar and *right* it felt now, to let Hansel hold him. To let Hansel kiss him and touch him everywhere, cuddle up and sleep with him every night.

That was fucking weird. If someone had told him a year ago that this was where he'd end up, he'd have freaked. Sounded fucking fake. Unfathomable. A rude joke. Kind of frightening.

But the reality was it felt good, so good, all the time. It felt natural. Sometimes it felt like things had always been this way. Other times he'd wake up in the middle of the night and crawl out of the bed, pinching himself, feeling like he'd skipped some steps. Accidentally tripped and wound up in someone else's life, since this one couldn't possibly be his.

And he thought hurrying marriage along was gonna help. Hah.

They were up late in bed one night, waiting for Mishka to get home. Hansel was reading a book with Goro tucked against his chest. Goro had his hand in front of his face and was spinning his ring, admiring it.

"When d'you think we should get married?" he asked.

Hansel kissed his head. "Dunno. When do you want to?"

Goro shrugged. "I'm real excited to do it, so sometimes I don't wanna wait. But sometimes I wanna… savor this time, I guess."

"Mm." Hansel kissed him again. He marked his spot in the book with his thumb and held it out of the way, curling his other arm tighter around Goro and kissing down the side of his face and onto his neck. Goro snorted, trying not to giggle at Hansel's lips tickling him.

So new. Thirty-two years of nothing, and then suddenly, *this*. He knew there was no such thing as going back in time, but it made him oddly nervous, anyway—like he had just the tips of his fingers on the edge of a cliff, and if he could pull himself up he'd have a whole life of this ahead of him, but if he slipped he'd go plummeting right back into the nothing, the only place he'd ever known.

He grabbed onto Hansel's shoulder and hid his face against Hansel's chest, suddenly breathing fast.

"Hey," Hansel said, alarmed. "You okay?"

Goro nodded. "Fine," he said, muffled. He swallowed. "Just… get scared of losing you, sometimes."

Hansel wrapped him up tight in both arms. "S'okay. You're not gonna lose me, shemeshi."

"Mm," Goro said, trying to sound like he agreed.

#

He was getting bold. He started trying something different.

He'd find Hansel, doing whatever Hansel was doing, and ask for his time and attention. No lurking in the doorway. No hanging around in grabbing range, waiting to see if he'd be grabbed.

Well, he did still do some of that. But not every time.

He'd edge up to Hansel and stop just *out* of grabbing range. "Hey. Can I have a hug?"

Hansel would always drop whatever he was doing—wipe his hands off on a rag, if necessary—and scoop Goro up in the finest hug ever invented. Wrapping around him, nice and squeezy, with a shower of bonus kisses. All for free. All 'cause Goro asked.

And never, not once, did Hansel say no. Part of Goro knew he wouldn't, but it was still too good to swallow. He felt like he was performing the same experiment over and over, and the results were miraculous every time, and he just couldn't believe his eyes.

He walked in on Hansel making potions one day. "Hey, chatichi," Hansel said. "Whatcha up to?"

"Um." Goro stepped up to the table, grinding his teeth a little and wringing his hands. "Just wanna spend time with you. You mind if I hang out while you're doing this?"

"'Course I don't mind." Hansel sounded fucking delighted. He pushed his mortar and pestle away and grabbed Goro to hug and kiss him.

Goro pulled up a second chair and settled in to watch as Hansel got back to work. He'd seen the process before, but this was the first time he'd invited himself. Interrupted it to ask.

"The yarrow leaf you collected for me the other day is great," Hansel said. "Nice big leaves. Getting a lotta juice out of 'em."

"Yeah?" Goro didn't really know what the fuck yarrow leaves were; he just grabbed plants he recognized from Hansel's kit if he saw them out on a walk.

"Mmhm." Hansel leaned over to give him a quick kiss. "You ever think about getting into herbalism? Bet you'd think it's interesting."

"Eh. Not really, but." Goro rested his head on Hansel's shoulder. "Might learn a thing or two from watching you, anyway."

Hansel murmured in agreement and put an arm around him, squeezing him close.

Goro didn't know how many times he'd need to experiment before the results could be considered trustworthy. A lifetime of mornings told him that the sun would rise every day. Fifteen years of Amari reacting to all his bullshit with calm patience told him she was gonna be there for him no matter what.

Maybe it was okay for him to ease into things. Take his time. Amari had said *it doesn't have to be that hard*.

The next time he walked in on Hansel, planning to ask if he could spend time with him, Hansel was hanging out with Luci and Roddy, playing cards. Goro hadn't expected that. He stopped dead in his tracks.

He froze up a little—caught between wanting to split like usual, and knowing he'd come here with a fuckin' goal. Putting himself out there. Asking.

Other people, though—*they* might not want him there. They might not speak up, even if Hansel said Goro could join them.

Hah. Right. Luci and Roddy, two people known for their white lies. Real likely story, there.

God, this was hard. This was real fucking hard. Just fucking standing there, existing. How the hell could he let it *not* be hard?

"Whatcha up to, ahuv?" Hansel asked, drawing a new card for his hand.

Yeah, nope, fuck. He just—he couldn't. He shook his head and turned to scuttle out of the room.

"Hey," Hansel called after him. "Hey, Goro, wait."

Goro wasn't *running* or anything, so it didn't take long for Hansel to catch up to him, putting his arms around him from behind. He still had the cards flared in his hand. He kissed the side of Goro's head.

Goro was all rigid, feeling like he should pull away, but… shit, maybe that's what Amari meant. She was always yammering about resistance and shit. Goro never got it. So what if he resisted everything? His mind was taut like a bowstring, and he liked it that way.

Getting hugged by Hansel could be easy, though. It happened if he asked for it. It happened if he didn't ask for it. The sun rose, the rain fell, Zarkon barked, and Hansel hugged Goro.

For a second, it was like the fog cleared in his mind. He saw, and knew, and believed it from his head to his toes, in his heart and in his gut. Hansel was gonna hug him.

He went limp and let out all his breath in a rush. Something like relief, or just overwhelm.

"Whoa, there," Hansel said, caught off-guard but still catching him easily. 'Course he did. "Hey, chatichi, you alright?"

"Yeah." Goro's eyes drifted shut. "Can you hug me for the rest of the day?"

"I can sure try." Hansel crouched down so he could hoist Goro up onto his shoulder, and carried him back into the sitting room.

#

"Admission to the museum is by donation," the tired-looking woman at the front desk told him. "You can pay what you are able. A donation of one gold piece or more will get you a map of the exhibits."

"That means I can pay nothing, right?" Goro asked.

The woman's expression turned sour. Her lips tightened and twitched. Her gaze lingered on his ears.

"I can't pay anything," he said. "I'm a poor cleric. Woe."

"Admission is *by donation*," she repeated. "If you can't donate anything, we won't admit you."

He pulled out his coin purse and flicked her a copper piece. It tinged off the desk and bounced to the floor.

He wandered aimlessly for a while until he got impatient and found a security guard. "Hey, you guys got any exhibits on like, fuckin' orcs? And how terrible they are, and shit?"

The guard pointed him in the right direction. The first thing he noticed when he stepped into the room—they were kind of hard to miss—was the skulls. Orc skulls. The ones who had, presumably, killed his grandparents, maybe his uncle, maybe other aunts and uncles, cousins; fuck, he didn't know. Didn't know how many Voronins there'd been, or if there were any left. Wasn't like the exhibit went into detail. Its purpose wasn't to record the details of all the lives that had ended to result in this room. It was to shock and horrify. To create a shallow sense of pity and camaraderie with a group of people the average Alabaster elf wouldn't give the time of day to ordinarily—but for the sake of hating orcs more, they could fucking pretend, when they visited this museum.

Great. He was worked up already, before he even looked at the stuff in the display cases. He hadn't meant to come here alone. He'd figured he would need some support. Larkin, to talk some sense into him, keep him focused. Mishka, to make silly promises about how they'd torture and kill anyone who ever hurt Goro's family, so all would be well. Hansel, to squeeze his hand when he felt like he was gonna float away.

But no. He'd robbed himself of all that, because he was impulsive.

He walked over to the case with the letters, sort of hoping there was a mistake. Like maybe he was in the wrong place, or Morgan had gotten bad intel, or—just that *somewhere* along the chain of events that'd led him here, there'd been a mix up.

But nah. He didn't read them closely yet, just skimmed them enough to see all those familiar names. Luka. Val. Mia. Goro.

He was gritting his teeth so hard, pain lanced up from his jaw to his ear. Well, that probably wasn't a good fucking sign. He forced himself to unclench until he could fit the knuckle of his index finger in his mouth, and he bit down on that until he winced.

"Excuse me," he said sharply to the next guard he saw wander through. "These letters. This stuff." He waved at the display cases. "This belonged to my family. My dad wrote these letters."

The guard stared at him blankly. For a second, Goro wondered if he'd accidentally spoken in Infernal or Orcish or something. That looked like how much sense he was making to this guy.

"Can I… fucking *have* them?" he said.

The guard continued to stare. "Sir, this is a museum exhibit. Visitors aren't permitted to take the artifacts."

"Did you not fucking understand me before? This shit belongs to my family."

The guard looked him up and down. Goro had expected some kind of pushback, but the guy still just seemed fucking baffled, like Goro was a statue come to life. Or, more likely, a bug that had grown to a huge size and started talking.

"Here," Goro said, beckoning. "C'mere. I'll show you." The guard hesitated at first, but finally stepped closer to the case with the letters. "Look at this. I want you to read this one, right here. 'I hope for a son, to name after Grandad Goro.' That's me. I mean, I'm not fuckin' Grandad Goro. I'm the son. My name's Goro Voronin. This letter is *about me*. Look—look at this one." He waved at the next letter over. "'Our baby boy was born today.' That's *me*."

"Sir," the guard said slowly, stepping back from the case, "these artifacts were recovered from a wood elf camp that was raided by orcs. The wood elves are dead, savagely slaughtered by—"

"I fuckin' know. I heard the story. That's my fuckin' family, alright? I wanna get their stuff. You can't just fucking hoard it in here."

The guard still acted like Goro was speaking another language. He spread his hands to indicate the rest of the exhibit. "These artifacts serve a crucial purpose. The displays provide a glimpse into the daily lives of these wood elves, before they were cruelly massacred. Although it may be hard to look upon, it's important that the public be aware of and vigilant toward the savage brutality of the orc race."

"Aw, fuck the fuck off." Goro gave him both middle fingers. "Can I put up a sign here letting people know that the baby boy in these letters grew up and married a fucking orc? How's that fit your fucking narrative?" He kicked the display case.

Finally, the guard had the decency to look taken aback. "I'm sorry, *who* married an orc?"

"Me! Well, not fuckin' yet, but I'm fuckin' gonna."

The guard had gone pale. With a hand on the hilt of his sword, he strode into one of the adjoining rooms, talking to whoever was in there. "Dimitri, summon backup for me, please."

Goro looked back to the case with the letters. Looked like the glass top could be lifted right off, so that was exactly what he did.

#

Took him a while to get around to actually reading them in their entirety. He was so fucking tired from being arrested, and having the shit beat out of him, his magic wrung dry in attempts to defend himself. And they'd fucking spelled him, and all—he was trying not to think too hard about that. It made him feel sick, and he couldn't remember it too well anyway. He detested when his mind turned fuzzy.

His family was giving him a hard time, too, for trying to steal the letters on his own. Just what he fucking needed to hear. As soon as they were back at Raef's house, he wandered the bedrooms until he found a big empty trunk, and he climbed inside it to hide. Curled up and fell asleep there, amazingly. Was just that exhausted.

He woke up later when the lid opened, because some-fucking-how, Hansel had found him. Goro didn't know if that was an indicator of Hansel having an eerily good read on him—*Where's my fiance hiding tonight? Probably an empty chest*—or if Hansel was just scouring the whole place until he got lucky.

Goro didn't object when Hansel pulled him out and carried him to bed. Just closed his eyes and covered his ears to make it clear he wasn't in a talking mood, but Hansel didn't try to talk to him, anyway.

Goro read the letters the next morning, when everyone else was downstairs sharing a big breakfast.

*I never knew that I could feel so whole,* Luka wrote.

Goro didn't know why it was making him cry. It was a good thing Luka got to feel that way before he died.

He muffled his face in a pillow so no one downstairs would hear him. They might not have, anyway; they were making plenty of noise on their own, talking and banging dishes and whatnot. Having a good time. For once, he didn't feel bitter about it. It felt… good, knowing things were carrying on like normal. He was oddly sure of the fact that if he went down there and wanted to join them, they'd welcome him as a regular member of the group. The family.

He didn't want that, though, this time. Not right now. He wanted Hansel to come up here and be with him, hold him while he got a grip. But he didn't want to take Hansel away from the good time he was having. Didn't want to rob everyone else of Hansel being there.

Because Goro was a fucking dumbass, he kept rereading the letters. Hoping that maybe he could wrap his head around them in a different way, one that wouldn't hurt so bad. 'Course it wasn't fucking working. He kept making himself tear up, over and over.

God. So fucking dumb.

This one thought did occur to him, which was—if their positions were reversed, if Hansel was off by himself, feeling sad, and not wanting to bother anyone for a hug, Goro would be fucking horrified to find that out later. Wouldn't have mattered if he was enjoying himself elsewhere, it would matter that Hansel was alone and crying.

God. Damn. Shit. Stood to reason, then, he guessed.

Goro stumbled out of the room and to the top of the stairs. "*Hansel*," he called. Hurriedly mopped the tears off his face with the front of his shirt, in case anyone else came and saw.

Was just Hansel, though, appearing at the foot of the stairs, looking up at him questioningly.

"I, um, I need—I just need—someone—" Goro pulled his shirt up again, this time to hide his face completely.

Hansel's footsteps were urgent coming up the stairs. He hugged Goro without Goro needing to finish—of course he did.

"Shh, shh, it's okay," he said softly, and Goro melted into him. That part was easy.

It seemed weak, and that seemed backwards. He shouldn't be getting weaker as time went on. A year ago, he wouldn't have needed someone to hold him.

Or—well. Fuck. Maybe he would have. Maybe he always did.

'Cause it wasn't like he'd ever made himself feel better on his own. He'd kept himself together alright, sure, but he never felt okay. He just suffered more. And more. And more.

That wasn't what was happening now. He sure as fuck didn't feel any weaker, with Hansel holding him. He was calming down. Feeling okay.

After a few minutes of Hansel swaying him gently side to side, kissing his head occasionally, Goro pulled away. He wiped what was left of his tears off on his sleeve.

"I wanna come down and get some breakfast." He sniffed. "Just gotta go wash my face."

There.

That wasn't hard. Not today.