#mishejize

Fandom:The House in Fata Morgana

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings:No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationship: Michel Bollinger/Giselle

Summary: So that he could keep on holding her hand for more than a millenium.

Giselle struggles to share some of the house’s domestic work, so Michel have a proposal for her.

[@gischelweek Collections of unrelated one-shots for the Gischel Week prompts:

Day 1: Wedding Day

Day 2: Cooking/Baking Together

Day 3: Roleswap

Day 4: At the beach

Day 5: Proposal

Day 6: Bad End

Day 7: Domestic Family]

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Link on Archive of Our Own

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Notes: So I actually tried to not go for the obvious ‘proposal’ prompt with this one, but as a result I kind of struggled to write it and in the end I just… don’t like it lol (partly why it took me such a long time before finally posting it). I went for a ‘trying to adapt to each other while living together for the first time’ kind of theme and then it ended up as me trying to deal with Giselle’s Maid Trauma^TM very briefly, oops.

This takes place during the modern era post-main game and post-Happily Ever After but pre-Reincarnation, though it does have some brief references for it. Also, there are a short mention to the short story ‘Joyeux Noël’ from the guidebook (you can read an English fan translation here https://fatamorushortstorieseng.tumblr.com/post/679270096468869120/joyeux-noël).

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The two of them weren’t unfamiliar with the reality of living together as a couple.

They had, after all, already lived together for a whole year back in the Middle Ages; and even in the modern era, Giselle had quickly taken the habit of hanging around at Michel’s apartment a lot, even sleeping here quite often — she’d practically spent the entire two weeks of her Christmas vacations with him there.

However, as she would quickly discover, there was in fact a big difference between living together in the Middle Ages, spending a few nights at your boyfriend’s place sometimes and actually living together in the present days.

Their daily life at the mansion was nothing alike to what they had now. For starter, they didn’t have a lot of belongings before — a few clothes, some utensils, and food; that was pretty much it. The books stayed in the library, their own rare and small personal effects in their respective bedchambers; and the mansion was so big anyway it was hard to scatter things around — and thus, there was not much to actually keep in order or to trespass the other’s space. Back then, Giselle had been the one taking care of most of the chores as well. Michel would help with the cleaning from times to times — but with how she’d rapidly noticed he was most definitely on the sloppy, messy execution of housekeeping, and given she had quite literally been hisservantthen, it only felt natural she’d end up being the one handling all of it after all — and that hadn’t really bothered her much, either.

She was not his servant anymore, however — and now that they were just a normal couple of the same status, it meant that the natural thing would be to truly share equitably with him this kind of domestic work. But it hadn’t been the case so far.

Breaking out of her habits as the Maid was sometimes a struggle for Giselle, especially now that her previous life’s memories were back. So, whenever she stayed at his apartment and noticed the inevitable pair of socks or scattered papers Michel would leave left and right laying around, her instinctive reflex was to tidy it up automatically. She never considered herself like a very fastidious person, but it felt important to her to have her clothes properly ironed and folded, the dishes washed and put away right after a meal, or sweeping and vacuuming and wiping the place around regularly. On the other hand, Michel and his lackadaisical nature — while definitely much better than it was in the past — didn’t seem to care about that as he most often did the bare minimum required, which meant that she’d just mechanically reverted back to her servant self from the mansion, taking care of all the chores before he even had to raise a finger.

This quickly started to create an odd tension between them, as that was something Michel was not happy about and where he just barely managed to restrain himself from getting angry at times.

“Ialready told you, you don’t have to do this,” he once said sternly as he tried to get a dirty plate that had been left in the sink out of her hands. “I’m not a child, and I was doing fine on my own when you weren’t there. You can just relax and go watch TV if you don’t have anything else to do.”

“I know that, but you’re too slow! If you can do it, then do it now, instead of pushing it off until next week.”

Michel groaned. “I have more important priorities, and it doesn’t bother me—”

“Well, it bother me, so either you take care of it right away or you let me handle it.”

Her tone was unyielding and let no room for him to argue back. She could see his eyes waver for a moment, before he finally gave in and let her do as she pleased reluctantly, likely not wanting them to quarrel over something so trivial.

She and Michel had gotten only one big fight since their reunion, and it had been during Christmas Eve when they’d spent the night at a hotel at the Champs-Élysées together. This one time asides, all of the fights they had were barely fights at all; just some of their usual banters much like they had back in the days at the mansion, and Giselle wished it stayed that way. She really did.

But for some reason, whenever Michel would get insistent about the topic of her intensive housekeeping activities, it would instantly put her on the defensive — and she could feel how easy it would be to just let herself snap back at him undeservedly then.

She’d done her best to control her emotions in order to avoid that particular argument, and she felt Michel was doing the same — however, things got even more tense when they actually moved in together for real.

Michel talked to her about the building he inherited from his grandparents in late January; his parents had been taking care of it until now, and they’d been thinking about selling it. He thought it’d be a good opportunity to use to move in together — have their own proper place for them rather than his small, impersonal apartment that was starting to feel too cramped for two people, and of course Giselle was delighted at the prospect.

It went without saying that she was extremely happy to be able to live with him — a part of her missed her family, but being able to see Michel every single day, eat with him, going to bed with him and waking up nestled against his body each morning was an incomparable gift she’d trade for nothing else in the world.

But it also made her even more acutely aware of just how much she and Michel’s lifestyles and routines diverged.

It was like having to adapt and adjust to a whole new person — one she should already know by heart, but somehow didn’t anymore.

When the preparations for the café’s opening began, it only made things worse, as she felt that the slightest thing that wasn’t under her control would add stress to her already very anxious streak.

Michel observed her from afar for the most part with uneasiness, as whenever he tried to step in and do anything she’d simply blow him off — and it stayed that way for about a month until finally one evening where he came to seek her as she was ironing their laundry.

“Giselle, it’s late,” he started in a soft, cautious voice. “Come to bed already. You have to get up early to meet up with Maria tomorrow, don’t you?”

“Yes, but I just need to—”

“Come on.” He insisted, and just as he saw that she was going to keep protesting, quickly added: “I’ll take care of it myself in the morning.”

At this, she put down the iron and glared at him with tired green eyes.

“You? Please, the rare times I let you took care of it you only do it sloppily.”

“That’s only because you never let me practice. I can learn, you know — if you just let me try.”

She shook her head exasperatedly. “Look, there’s not much left, and I—”

“Giselle, you need to stop.”

Suddenly, his voice became a bit firmer. A hand grabbed her wrist, and while it was gentle, the gesture made her stop everything she was doing right away — she froze, then slowly raised her head towards her fiancé. She wasn’t able to make sense out of the expression he was staring at her with.

“Come to bed with me. I want to… talk to you. It’s important.”

She stared down at his hand; bit her lip.

Something inside her stomach turned at the idea of leaving her work half-finished, and her first instinct was to keep arguing with Michel — but his gaze poised on her felt so intense she couldn’t bring herself to. So, with a lot of reluctance, she finally nodded and followed him back in their room.

For a moment, neither of them talked as she untied her hair and put on her pajamas, feeling Michel’s nervous eyes glimpsing at her back the whole time. It wasn’t until she sat on the mattress next to him that he finally opened his mouth again.

“Why were you so insistent on finishing this?” He started, his voice soft, careful; and she could tell with his way of speaking that he’d thought quite thoroughly about this conversation before bringing it up.

She shrugged. “I just don’t like leaving things half-done, that’s all.”

“…That’s not all there is, though, is it?”

Her eyes fell on the ground, and a strange feeling of annoyance and shame began to build up in her chest.

She knew what he was really asking her here, and she wasn’t sure she had a concrete answer for him.

Why had she been so adamant on completing something as trivial as ironing clothes? On taking care of all the domestic work by herself? On not tolerating Michel’s negligence?

That was hard to explain. It was like a visceral, instinctive part of her, in which not doing so felt like removing a crucial root of her being. Tearing out a piece of her identity.

Michel sighed. He leaned towards her, then gently took her hand in his. “Look, I’ve been thinking about this for some time now, and… I have a proposal for you.”

Giselle raised her head towards him timidly, a curious look in her eyes. “A proposal?”

“From now on, I’ve decided to make sure to… stop being as messy. I’ll stop letting my clothes lying around, I’ll wash the dishes right after eating, I’ll tidy up things as much as I can… well, I can’t promise it’ll be instantaneous, but I’ll try my best to do better, at least. And, in exchange, you actually let me do half of the chores.”

Giselle blinked at him. “But…”

“I wouldn’t mind if it was just that you really love cleaning like with cooking, but… I don’t really get it, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I… think you simply do this out of habit from your experience as the Maid. Am I wrong?”

She opened her mouth, a bit stunned. No words got out.

He was right, though. She just hadn’t expected Michel to be able to figure out something like that by himself. Most of the time, she preferred to avoid talking about her life as the Maid, which he respected — and for as much as he could be a mindful person, he also tended to be pretty dense and not very attentive towards other people’s feelings.

Had he just gotten so good at reading her that he could decipher even the most hidden part of herself which she made a point of keeping locked inside?

He was staring straight into her eyes, his hand tightly grasping hers, waiting for an answer.

She stared back.

She was not the Maid anymore. She was not his servant anymore.

She was just a normal woman, with a normal lover — so it only was natural she’d confide in him like any normal couple, right?

Her eyes fell down again.

“…I… often had that habit of doing this, since I was a child. Tidying up things, I mean. My sister sometimes called me a clean freak.” She chuckled. “It’s like… I have that profound need of everything being in perfect order… Like a way to have control over things, I guess. Though back then I didn’t know why.”

He nodded, staying perfectly silent.

“It’s funny, you know, because back then… I mean, before… you know, before becoming the Maid, and before… everything, I didn’t really like doing chores. I didn’t really like being a servant either, nor was I particularly good at it. But as the Maid, it became the only thing that gave my life meaning, and… well, I don’t know. Maybe it still does on some level. Letting others doing this kind of things for me just feel… like removing a part of myself.”

It was odd putting all of that into words. Those were things she’d internalized for such a long time, but now that she’d started talking everything just flew out like water.

She didn’t think Michel would really get it. She didn’t expect anyone to really get it, honestly, not even Morgana who had spent an eternity in her company when she was in that spectral state.

It was her own personal burden she’d have to bear, a loneliness no one would ever be able to grasp or share.

And in a way, she was fine with it, too — it was like a sharp jewel that could cut and hurt at the touch, but was too pretty and comforting to throw away and let anyone see it.

Michel certainly couldn’t get it, but he still listened to her attentively, sympathized with her, loved her nonetheless; and that was all she asked of him.

“…But, you are not the Maid anymore,” he finally declared. “You are my partner, and as such, we should be able share those types of things.”

The word ‘partner’ took her off guard, but it soon enough made a smile bloom on her face.

“This must be the first time I hear a man fight his future wife for letting him doing more chores,” she teased, and he narrowed his eyes at her with annoyance.

“I don’t like it, but what I like even less is letting you do all the work by yourself. Especially now that you’re going to be busy with the café. We’re together in this, so please rely on me a little, all right?”

Giselle sighed, shaking her head with fond exasperation. She let herself fall on the bed, dragging Michel down with her under the sheets.

“Giselle—” He tried to protest, but she interrupted him by pulling the blanket over them.

“All right.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll accept your proposal. Or, well… I’ll try to. I don’t promise I’ll be able to do it right away, either.”

She turned her head towards him, then kissed him on the cheek. “And you definitely will have to make more efforts than this. We start tomorrow with letting you iron the clothes, but be sure I will check out afterwards how well you did.”

He smiled awkwardly. “I’ll… do my best.”

“Please do.”

She laughed then snuggled against his chest, burying her head in his neck. The sound of his heartbeat and the warmth of his body put her at ease instantly, soothing the anxiety at the prospect of having to let behind some of her most ingrained bad habits.

But he was right — as partners this was something they should share, and it was all with the purpose to built a good life together.

“Michel?” She murmured, lips against his skin.

“Hmm?”

“Thank you.”

And she couldn’t see it, but she could feel his smile on his face as he put an arm around her while she closed her eyes.

All right, and so this was the last day of Gischel Week!

Of course don’t worry if you still want to submit some late works, I’ll keep reblogging anything that might come up even long afterwards.

Thank you very much to all who participated, and all of those who liked/reblogged as well!

I was pleasantly surprised so many people actually participated, I wasn’t expecting this so it was heartwarming to see! It was a bit more quiet here on Tumblr but the fact there was still works being shared was amazing to see regardless. Still, if anyone here is curious you can come check some more creations over on the Twitter account!

Given how well-received this event was, if people are still interested maybe it’d be nice to try to do another one next year. But that’d be all for now!

Thanks again for supporting this event and making it happen~ ️

As I’ve said before, there are no particular rules for this week — you are pretty much free to do anything you want. However, here’s a few reminders:

• Obviously, no bigoted content/hate speech of any sort will be allowed.
• FataMoruin itself deal with a lot of mature themes and you’re free to explore that however you want in your works, but just be sure to warn/tag anything before posting it.
• NSFW/sexual contents are allowed, but same here, just be sure to appropriately warn/tag it so that others can avoid it if they want.
• The prompts for the week are here, but you’re not obligated to follow them if they don’t inspire you.
  
• Be sure to @ this account and/or tag #GischelWeek so that I can reblog it! If I haven’t seen it for some reason feel free to directly tell me as well.
• It’s also okay if you’re late for the week! I will reblog any post no matter how late it is.
  

Everyone is encouraged to join no matter your skill level or medium! So I just hope you all have fun!

The week will have prompts for each day, although you can choose whether you follow them or not! There’s no obligation and you can just do whatever inspire you.

You can suggest prompts for the week if you want to here on curiouscat: https://curiouscat.live/GischelWeek, or just directly submit them via the blog’s inbox.

After which the 7 most popular will then be chosen by a poll.

Please feel free to send as many suggestions as you would like!