#jizemishe

Notes: Heya! I will post here a collections of unrelated one-shots I wrote for Gischel Week (if you're curious, it's here on Twitter, and here on Tumblr). I will likely be late for some of them sadly so please be patient as to when I'll complete them lol.

So, this takes place following the short story Happily Ever After from Requiem and Reincarnation’s canon, though you don't need to read either to understand it honestly, there's not really any spoilers.

I’ve actually hesitated to includes Iméon in this, but for some reason I’ve always headcanoned that they gets to meet Michel again only after he got married. Can’t tell you why, that’s just how it is in my head lol, I think I just like the idea (and find it funny) of them meeting again after Michel really got his life together with a pretty wife haha. But there’s still the Bollinger bros at least!

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“It’s too tight. And too dark. It doesn’t fit with the rest.”

The white-haired man in a tuxedo was staring straight back at him in the mirror. He wished he could say he looked ecstatic, fulfilled, delighted — it was, after all, the most important day of his life, technically. But the only true apparent emotion on his face was stress, afflicting his features and shining uncomfortably in his red eyes. He sighed, then grabbed his tie once again to loosen up the knot in an annoyed movement.

“Dude, what the hell are you doing? Leave it! It’s perfect, I’m tellin’ ya!”

Another man flew in Michel’s direction, jumping on him from behind and grabbing his wrist before he could alter else to his outfit. Wavy black hair flew all over his right shoulder, and then dark brown eyes crossed his own.

“It’s not perfect, Georges. I look like an idiot. I need to find another one before—”

“Jesus, you’ll never find the  perfect one. We’ve already set our sights on this one, don’t start to make things more complicated now! The ceremony will start in what, half an hour? We don’t have time for this!”

“But it’s just—”

“For once, I agree with Georges.” A deeper, sterner masculine voice resonated from behind. “It already looks more than fine that way. Leave it be.”

Michel turned around to glance at Didier who was sitting on the couch a bit afar from them, and then towards Georges, who grinned broadly at him.

“Sorry, but I just… It has to be perfect, you know? And right now it’s…”

“It’ll never be perfect the way you hope for, no matter what you do, Michel,” declared the oldest man. “So just focus on enjoying yourself and making Giselle happy.  That  will be more be enough, I promise.”

“Yep! No need to fret over stupid stuff!” Georges added, grabbing and shaking Michel’s shoulders cheerfully. “Let’s just have fun! We have to pop up the bottles, play the music super loud, then gets so wasted we end up dancing on the tables all night!”

“…Right, maybe don’t enjoy yourself to  that  level.”

“Why not?! That’s what weddings are made for, no? Mine certainly was!”

“Didn’t you told us your wedding had been an ‘accident’ at a college party and that you were so drunk at the time you didn’t even realize you’d gotten married?”

“W-Well, yeah, but like, that still counts!”

Michel sighed. He knew that, theoretically, they both were right; Giselle wouldn’t care or even notice if his tie was too tight or too dark or whatever. But he couldn’t prevent himself from being anxious and perfectionist.

It was a day they’d both yearned and waited for so such a long time. He didn’t want to let anything, even the slightest detail, ruin it in any way.

At least he was thankful that his brothers were able to be there for him when he got too stressed. Well, even if they weren’t his  brothers  anymore, technically speaking — at least not by blood.

In this era, all three of them had been born from different parents, grown up in different families and different houses, and lived very different lives until they met again about a year ago now. Michel didn’t know if it was fate or something else that had brought his siblings back to him once more, but whatever it was he was grateful for it. They’d been able to bond and get close very quickly even despite the fact neither Georges or Didier seemed to remember anything of their past lives — there were maybe some residual, lingering feelings left between them, but the only trace of it he’d been able to gather was Georges joking that it felt like they’d known each other their whole lives, and nothing more.

It felt sad, sometimes, that their entire childhood together as brothers had seemingly been erased, and that Michel was the only one who could remember it. But at the same time, there was a part of him who felt it might be better this way; and he decided to just focus on the happiness of being able to spend time with them once more, which already was a miracle in and on itself.

So of course, they had been among the first to be invited to his marriage; especially after Giselle had instantly gotten along with them. Georges had even been able to bring his two young sons with him — what had once been Michel’s nephews, the boys he’d never been able to meet in person and had barely known the existence of in the Middle Ages. He didn’t really had the occasion to know them well yet, but they seemed like nice kids. (Thankfully, the mother wasn’t Aimée this time but a random woman Georges met in college, with whom he quickly got married to  and divorced — he had no idea where Aimée was in this era and if she was even here to start with, and he had no intention to ever find out, either.)

It had been decided their wedding would be a small, intimate ceremony. At first, Michel had wanted to do something big, but Giselle was against the idea, so they simply choose to stay on a simple event with a committee of just a few relatives and friends. Asides from his brothers and Georges’ sons, they’d both invited their families, a few of Giselle’s friends from college and high school — four including her best friend; Michel had met all of them about a year ago now, though admittedly he still didn’t know them very well — and then of course Morgana, Maria, and Nellie. Mell did drop by to congratulate them as well but didn’t stay — Michel had become relatively friendly with the Rhodes siblings again, but given Morgana still refused to see Mell in any capacity, he’d quickly left. Maria had also passed on best wishes from Pauline, Yukimasa and even Jacopo, although none of them actually came. Michel thought it was probably better like that anyway. All in all, they were eighteen, which was already a fine number — and more importantly, there was everyone he wanted here for this special day.

Well, there was one person left he hadn’t been able to invite, which he was still sad about — Iméon. The diseased man he’d befriended at the mansion before meeting Giselle. Their relationship had been complicated to say the least, but he’d left a big impact on him and to this day Michel still hoped to be able to meet with him again, no matter how unlikely it would be.

In any case, this and his perfectionist issues asides, everything had actually been going on smoothly. More than anything, Giselle, while a bit anxious here and there during the preparations, had looked absolutely delighted and smiled the brightest of smiles ever since this morning.

So, maybe his brothers were right. Maybe he should just… relax, and enjoy the day, marrying the love of his life and try to make her as happy as possible as he should’ve had done a thousand years ago. He looked at himself once again in the mirror — his long white hair tied in a tighter ponytail than usual, his impeccable black and gray tuxedo — and then finally he nodded to himself, deciding that maybe he didn’t look  all  that bad.

Yes, this was fine. Everything was fine; there was no way this day could turn out wrong.

That is, until the door was burst open by a short blonde woman.

“Shit, Michel! We’ve got a big problem!”

Maria jumped inside the room, her red and white bridesmaid dress almost getting stuck in the door in her panic and her green eyes wide open in a concerned gaze. Right on her heel appeared Nellie, just as or maybe even more upset-looking than the other woman. Michel instinctively felt his stomach turn at the sight, and a dark hand grabbed his heart and squeezed.

“Wh-What’s wrong?”

“It’s Giselle!” Maria kept on, saying the last name he’d wanted to hear in this moment. “She’s… Well, uh, you see, there’s—”

“She’s crying!” Nellie cut in for her, her voice shaking. “She just started crying out of the blue!”

Michel blinked, stunned, as he tried to keep his composure and wrap his mind around this new information. “What? Why?”

Maria shook her head. “We don’t know; that’s the problem! Everything was going fine, we were talking with her sis and bestie and all and suddenly… she started sobbing as if she’d just lost her entire family.”

“Where is she now?” He immediately asked, already about to leave the room.

“Still with Morgana and her sister,” Nellie replied. “They’ve been trying to console her for a while now, but… it doesn’t work, so we thought we should get you as well!”

An exaggerated gasp leaked from behind Michel’s back. “Oh god, is that going to go like in those TV shows? Where the bride run away dramatically right at the last minute?! I’m currently watching one of those and the bride actually fell off a cliff, got kidnapped by aliens and ended up having an affair with one of them!”

Both Didier and Michel shot him a glare, but Nellie actually let out an excited ‘Ohh!’ with sparkling eyes.

“Wait, really? I watched that show too!” She exclaimed. “That’s why I’m worried now!”

“Huh, you did?! I still can’t believe she chooses to end up with Gellando and go back to Mars instead of Alfred, even after he killed her brother! Even the cowboy who was in love with her twin sister would’ve been a better choice!”

“I know, right? That’s was such a bad choice! No way he’ll ever makes her happy! They’re just such an  awful  fit!”

“What kind stupid soap operas are you guys watching…?” Maria commented, narrowing her eyes, and Michel could only feel his brain starting to burn between all the topics changes and his increasing worry for his wife-to-be eating at him — with the hope that she was  still  his wife-to-be.

“All of you, calm down,” Didier finally intervened, making Michel infinitely grateful for having at least  one  sane person present in the room. “Explain more properly, please. What happened exactly? What do you think Michel should do?”

“Well, if a gal’s crying the day of her wedding then good chances it’s related to the dude she’s going to marry, so it’d be cool if he could come with us to have a chat.”

“It’s against the tradition and disrespectful for the groom to see the bride before the wedding,” Didier warned, but Maria rolled her eyes.

“Man, what time period is it? The Middle Ages? Pretty sure God doesn’t give a shit about whether he goes to see her before or not. They’re likely going to do some much more  disrespectful  and unchristian things later on anyway.”

Nellie shot her a confused look and Georges let out a falsely offended gasp, but Michel simply shook his head and decided to focus on the problem at hand.

“All right, I’ll go. Sorry, I’ll try to make it quick,” he added to his brothers, before the got out of the room with the two women.

“You’re sure it’s not just one of her usual mood swings?” He asked to Maria afterwards as they trotted down the corridor. “She’s been very emotional about the wedding lately, so it wouldn’t be odd.”

As Maria and Giselle worked together and as such saw each other almost every day, he knew that she was very acquainted with Giselle’s burst of emotional tears that she had for the past few months now, and he had hopped that was still all this was about; but to this dismay, Maria shook her head.

“No, it’s something else. I feel it’s more… I don’t know, more  intense .”

“She was  very  upset,” Nellie confirmed.

Well,  that  certainly wasn’t helping to ease the anxiety he’d had since this morning.

As they walked past the chapel where he was supposed to get married in a few dozens of minutes, Michel’s eyes got drawn to the lustrous bits of blue, purple and red, shimmering like crystal in the back of the room — a stained-glass depicting the archangel who shared his name.

It had been Giselle’s idea. She’d hadn’t asked for anything for this wedding, but she  had  been insistent on exchanging their vows in a chapel, in front of Michael.

Michel still had mixed feelings regarding this angel, God and Christianity to this day — and this despite having been raised by fairly pious parents. Even before he got back his past life’s memories, the uneasy emotions regarding his faith would always sat at the bottom of his stomach, and he’d never been able to stand any depiction of the Christ and crucifixion ever since he was a toddler — triggering actual panic attacks in the worst cases. As a result, he’d hesitated to hold a Christian marriage at all in the first place — but his parents really wanted them to, and Morgana had openly treated him of ‘blasphemer’ for considering not to. Giselle and her family, who weren’t particularly religious, didn’t mind either way, so in the end they decided to settle it by following his parents’ wishes.

Still, for as much as he used to dislike the archangel and being named after him back then, it was undeniable that he had a meaningful importance to their past — and he knew he specifically was very significant to Giselle and to her life as the Maid, so he could understand her desire to have it present for this occasion.

This particular stained-glass of Michael was much less sophisticated and beautiful than the one that had been in the mansion; and this church, situated in a rural little town an hour away from Paris, was much smaller, but it was enough for them.

“They’re here!” Maria’s voice suddenly got him out of his thoughts, and he realized they had indeed reached the room Giselle had been prepared in.

When he stepped in, the first thing he noticed was his fiancée sat down in front of a mirror, all dressed up in her white gown and her long black hair tied up in an intricate, braided bun with a rose decorating the top. Michel would’ve paused to contemplate just how beautiful she was — his heart did miss a beat for an instant, and even if he kept gently making fun of her for her burst of emotional tears over their wedding, he was certain he would end up crying on the altar too — but her red, sore eyes and her make up spread all over her cheeks stopped him. She did, indeed, look very upset , and his heart deflated instantly upon the sight. Kneeled next to her was her older sister Clémence, wearing a bridesmaid dress similar to Nellie and Maria’s and holding her sibling’s hands. Clémence was gently whispering consoling words he couldn’t hear from where he was, but it didn’t seem to work as Giselle’s tears still continued to roll down her face without any indication of stopping.

“At this point you might as well cancel the wedding. I mean, do you really intend to show up at the altar looking like  this ?”

It was an acerbic, arrogant voice that had spoken; one deceptively as sweet as honey, that Michel could recognize anywhere. Turning around, he saw Morgana slumped on the couch and scrolling through her phone with a look of complete disinterest in the events currently occurring in front of her, probably looking either at Twitter or playing one of her gacha games.

Her sentence only seemed to make Giselle cry harder though, and Clémence glared at her.

“Could you  stop saying things like that?” She asked in an angry voice, and Michel guessed from it that Morgana’s cutting remarks must’ve been a recurring thing since earlier. “You’re only making things worse!”

“I’m only saying the truth. She’s the one who suddenly burst out crying out of nowhere and ruining what’s supposed to be the biggest day of her life.”

Morgana shrugged without even lifting her eyes from her screen, and Michel could see Clémence doing her best to restrain herself from getting up and slapping her right here and then. Thankfully, she seemed to notice Michel’s presence at this moment and a relieved expression crossed her face.

“Can someone please get this girl out of here?” She asked.

Maria grimaced, threw a desperate look at Michel and then stepped in to grab Morgana by the arm.

“Right! Sorry! Let’s go now, Morgana. We’ll go find some food to stuff ourselves with. Surely that’ll be more productive than trying to destroy poor Giselle’s self-esteem.”

Morgana opened her mouth to protest as Maria pulled her out of the couch, but in the end seemed to decide she was right and simply stood up.

“I’m not trying to destroy anything, I’m just annoyed. At this rate, these two will have to wait another thousands years before finally getting married.”

“Yeah, yeah, now come on, over here.”

The girl sighed while Maria was hurriedly trying to drag her out of the room, but stopped just when she passed next to Michel.

“It’s not a big deal. She still want to marry you, she just needs a push in the right direction — so stop looking as if someone gave you a death sentence.”

Without waiting for an answer, she then disappeared in the corridor. Nellie seemed to hesitate to follow them a little, looking back and forth between the room and the hallway; Michel guessed she was probably fighting between knowing it was better to leave them some intimacy and her desire to see what the drama was all about — but finally she ended up patting Michel’s shoulder in a comforting manner with an awkward smile.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine. You’re just the cutest, most perfect couple, after all; there’s no way something like that could ruin your wedding! We’ll wait for you in the chapel!”

And then she was off. Michel let out a sigh, before finally joining Giselle and her sister; the first one didn’t seem to be able too look at him in the eyes, sobbing quietly, while the former stood up and shot him a distressed look.

“We tried all we could to cheer her up, but she doens’t seem to want to tell us anything,” she said. “Naïla and Aurélie and went to seek out Mom. But I think you’re the one she needs to talk to the most.”

He nodded silently. “All right… I’ll do what I can. Thank you.”

Clémence smiled uncomfortably at him, running her hand in her black hair — practically the same as Giselle’s, but shorter and tied into a ponytail — before finally adding hesitantly: “…You know, I was angry at you at first, but I don’t think it’s your fault anymore. So… don’t blame yourself too much.”

He simply nodded again; an admission like that was actually a big deal for Clémence, as it had took her some time to warm up to Michel and that she often tended to be pretty protective of Giselle. She gently put her hand on her little sister’s shoulder one last time in sign of support before leaving the room, closing the door behind her.

Despite her words, however, a part of Michel couldn’t help but think it was, in fact, his fault; even if that didn’t make much sense. He always had that reflex to blame himself for whatever thing that might happen to Giselle, regardless of how true it was — and today was no exception. In fact, today felt even worse than usual, in a way.

He stared down at Giselle, then finally kneeled down next to her, gently taking her hands in his own much like Clémence had done earlier. She didn’t try to fight him off, which he took as a good sign — and then, as softly as he could, he murmured her name.

“Giselle.”

His fiancée didn’t respond, but he could see her bare shoulders ease up a little.

“Giselle… please, talk to me. I cannot help or do anything if you don’t talk to me.”

Of course, she must already know that. He heard her sniffle; one, two, five times. Finally, she was able to muster her courage to lift back her head, and her jade eyes crossed his ruby. One of her hand let go of his so that she could rub her eyes, trying to prevent anymore sob from escaping her.

She seemed to struggle to find her words. He waited.

“I…” She coughed a little. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s okay.”

“No, it’s just… I mean. I-It’s silly, really. Morgana’s right. She’s always right.”

“Well… I don’t want to contradict you, but she’s actually often been more wrong than right about a lot of things.”

Giselle chuckled at this, which relieved him.

“I didn’t want them to get you,” she finally added in a very quiet, very muted voice; so much that he wouldn’t have been able to hear her if she hadn’t been right in front of him. “I didn’t want to— I didn’t want you to worry…”

“Well… If that can comfort you, I was already worried.”

“I know. That’s why I didn’t want to make it worse. But it’s… I don’t want you to think I don’t want us to get married anymore. It’s not like that.”

“I know.”

The confidence in his voice actually managed to bring a timid smile on her face; and as such, it automatically brought one on his, too.

If there was one thing he wouldn’t waver on anymore, it was on the certainty and strength of her love.

“But you’re still crying.”

The smile dropped, and she looked down again. For a while, she didn’t seem to be able to add anything; so, trying to encourage her to go on while still not pressuring her, he gently cupped her cheek in his hand — caressing her skin, wiping the tears at the corner of her eyes with his thumb. He hoped she could feel the tenderness in his gesture, the solace he sought to bring to her heart.

And maybe she did, because her features then seemed to relax and she opened her mouth again:

“Michel, do you remember… Do you remember that conversation we had at the mansion, that one time?”

She looked at him, and then closed her eyes. He frowned, but waited patiently for her to clarify her words.

It always felt like a double-edged word whenever Giselle evoked their past lives of her own volition; even with the happiest of their memories. Maybe was it a product of her experience as the Maid, but it had always seemed like her recollections of their time together at the mansion was blurrier than his — that they were often jumbled, changed, out of order. It was like a puzzle she had to recompose every time in her mind, and sometimes, even all that effort wasn’t able to remind her of every occurrence. It wasn’t like Michel remembered  everything  that had happened back then perfectly either, but his were distinctly more lucid and defined than her own.

“Back then… after you’d… sent that letter to your family, for us to come back to the capital. Before we get… raided by the knights… We had a conversation together at night, in your bed, about the future… Do you remember?”

“…I do.”

“I… I actually think I forgot most of it. But… I do remember the feeling of anxiety I felt then. And earlier, I realized that was the exact same feeling I felt then. I… I think… that at that time, you talked about how… surreal it all felt. That it was like… the world outside the mansion never existed and was just a figment of your imagination…”

He did say that. In fact, he remembered this conversation very well; in strangely odd details. Maybe one of their discussions he recalled the best.

She laughed softly. “It’s funny. I said I could understand what you meant back then, but to be honest, I only truly understood it after becoming the Maid. That was how it always felt at the time. That the world outside the mansion never really existed, and that everything… our live, our past together… was nothing more than a story…”

Giselle looked out towards the window, her gaze suddenly seeming a little empty, and by instinct he grasped her hand more tightly; as if hoping that her feeling his grip would ground her here, in their reality — remind her that she wasn’t the Maid and that they weren’t stuck in that mansion anymore.

“It still feel that way, sometimes. I still feel… I don’t know, like I’m just dreaming. Even with my memories of my life here, I still feel like that’s just something I made up out of boredom. I did that a lot as the Maid, you know. Create stories that are not my own. Happy stories. Happy endings. All of them fakes.”

He paused; deciphering her words, emphasizing with her; making sure he could find the right thing to say without dismissing her feelings, though in the end the only he could mutter was the most simple of assurance: “…But this one is not fake.”

Of course, there was no way to truly prove it — and both of them knew it.

That was why Giselle simply looked back at him and smiled sadly without replying anything.

The memories of their past lives was a double-edged sword; a curse and a blessing.

It had brought them together, but it still inevitably tied them to the past.

For people like them who desperately tried,  needed to move on and reach a new, better future, it was like a chain around their ankle — one they had no way to break now that they remembered.

“That’s true. I did say this, back then. But… do you recall what you said then, Giselle?”

Her face darkened a little. She frowned, and he could see the gears in her brain turn, trying to remind herself of a clumsy discussion between two broken, lonely lovers living in a decrepit cursed mansion from a millennium ago.

“I… I’m not sure I…”

“You said… that it was natural to be nervous, to be scared of what the future might be… but that as long as we were together, we’d be able to overcome anything. That as long as we had each other, there was no need to be afraid of the future.”

She stared at him with an unreadable expression; and he had actually no idea if that meant she was able to remember or if something else had come up to her mind. Regardless, he only gave another squeeze to her hand, and smiled bitterly.

“I don’t think I can promise you the same thing now. I can’t prove to you that this is reality unless you accept it for yourself, and there’s no way to know what might await us in the future. We’ll probably run into other struggles, experience some new painful moments. I can’t even promise you I’ll never hurt you again. We were naive to believe we could do so back then. But…”

He took a deep breath, making sure to not break eye contact with her— and then gently pushed his forehead against hers, their noses brushing each other’s.

“Back then, like during that conversation, you were always the one pushing me forward. So, I want to do the same for you now. What I  can   promise you, is that I’ll always try my best to be there for you and love you, so that we can share this burden and make it at least a little less heavy.”

His fingers pushed away some of the strands of her black hair that had fallen out of her bun. Tears welled up in her green eyes again, but she didn’t look as upset anymore. In fact, she seemed relieved… content. He hoped that’d meant he had been able to find the right words to ease her discomfort.

After a long moment of silence, she finally let out an exhausted sigh, then nodded imperceptibly, smiling.

“Yes… That’s right. You’re right… We can share that. We can try, at least.”

A smile of his own spread on his lips. “Good.”

There was slight moment where none of them said anything, simply basking in the other’s presence; before Michel opened his mouth once more.

“So… I really want to kiss you right now. Do you think that’d be against the tradition to kiss the bride right before the ceremony?”

Giselle laughed; a pleasant, slightly trembling melody.

“You’re an idiot,” was the only comment she made before pushing her lips to his own.