Chapter Text
In a new life, on another world, Light found herself staring into a hidden section of Hope’s enormous closet, where garb after garb of hers from the old world had been carefully recreated and lovingly hung on hanger after hanger. Little notes attached to each outfit explained the name of the garb and what each one had accomplished, as well as what stats it had once had.
She raised an eyebrow at the silver-haired man standing next to her. “Do I even want to know how long this little project of yours took to finish?” She didn't add how frighteningly good his memory was. She never would’ve remembered half this information, nor did she care to.
Hope’s green eyes danced. She would never be over how beautiful they looked when his heart was whole, or how adorable the light smattering of freckles across his face were. They were especially prominent after the afternoon they’d spent in the sun sparring, her with her usual sword, him with his trusty boomerang.
“Not as long as you might think,” he told her. “I invented a very efficient sewing machine to make them with.”
She scoffed. “What would that be, some kind of 3D printer the rest of the world won't have access to for another ten years?”
“I'm in talks to get it patented,” he responded, his lips twitching. “Believe it or not, I do enjoy sharing my creations, Light.”
“Then show me.”
It was a trip down memory lane as they looked through all the different garbs together. He really had recreated all of them, no matter how unusual the materials were, no matter how difficult the designs were to reproduce. They looked fantastic, and she wanted to wear some of her favorites again, like Equilibrium, Spira’s Summoner, Midnight Mauve, and Heartstealer. She pulled those four aside and carefully put them into a pile.
“You know why I called it Heartstealer, right?” Hope asked as he lovingly adjusted the bolero jacket and its red poppy.
She shook her head. “At the time, I thought you were on to my ploy to steal hearts and souls away from Bhunivelze.”
He chuckled. “Well, you did steal one heart away from him for sure. But that heart was already yours.”
A blush crept up her cheeks. “Really? That's why you called the outfit Heartstealer?”
It was cheesy, to be sure, but she couldn't help but smile as he wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, pulling her to him. She pictured Hope’s heart in her mind’s eye, glowing with warmth and light as she tenderly cupped it in her hands. It might have been broken and bleeding before, but it was stitched back together and healing now.
“Mhmmmm,” he murmured in her ear. “You stole my heart a long, long time ago, Light, and it's been yours ever since,” he added, nuzzling her cheek.
Damn, if he wasn’t a charmer. His lips felt good, so good on her skin, and his gentle touch and warm breath made pleasurable shudders go up and down her spine—
Wait a minute. If he had named Heartstealer on purpose, then she had questions about several of the other outfits.
“Hope?”
He paused, his lips lingering on her neck near the chain of her engagement necklace. “Mmmmm?”
“Did you make any of the other garbs to flirt with me?”
She could practically feel him smiling against her skin. “Oh, absolutely.”
Aha, she knew it, and he had finally fessed up. She wriggled out of his grasp and shuffled through the hangers. “Dark Muse?” she asked, holding the steampunk-inspired outfit up.
He smiled softly. “Because you’re my muse, Light. You always inspire me.”
"Mist Wizard?” she asked, holding that one up now.
His expression grew sober as he took it from her. “Bhunivelze had tampered with my memories at the time, but I think my subconscious was trying to warn you about the rose-haired phantom and how he had modeled it after you, hence all the business about you popping in and out of existence like a phantom in the mist.”
She sighed. It sure seemed like every single thing he had told her on the Ark had been meaningful and important, and she had been oblivious half the time. “I wish I had been better about picking up on your clues.”
“You kept trying until you succeeded, and that’s the important thing.”
She gave him a crooked smile. "Right.” She found a few more garbs he’d custom made for her and handed those to him. “Were Dark Mage and White Mage imbued with your abilities to make up for not going to the surface with me?”
He nodded. “I knew Bhunivelze would never have let me leave the Ark, so giving you those garbs seemed like the next best thing.”
"I know I said it before, but I'm sorry he held you hostage. I thought his only hostage was the fake Serah.”
Hope shook his head. “It worked out in the end. He underestimated you, and he underestimated the human heart. He threw me away like I was worthless once he had no more use for me, and that's exactly what convinced you to fight him.”
“True.” Her eyes flickered to her pile of favorite garbs. She grabbed Midnight Mauve and gently pulled it out of the pile. She had remembered something about the beautiful dress that she wanted to ask about.
“Hope, is it possible to change the colors still?”
He tilted his head. “Why?”
“Because a certain someone did that back on the Ark and made it look like a wedding dress.” What a sneaky little stunt that had been. She had been so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she hadn't even thought about why Hope wanted to see her in a wedding dress at the time.
He smiled, his eyes lighting up his whole face. “So I did. In my defense, I thought I was going to die soon and wanted to see what you’d look like as a bride before that happened. And to answer your question, I could make Midnight Mauve white, but I was planning on making you a new custom dress specifically for our wedding—”
She grabbed his engagement necklace and pulled him close for a kiss. She couldn't wait to marry this man, and he had been so sweet and thoughtful with all of this that she couldn't help but—
Something about the words “sweet” and “thoughtful” must have caught in her brain, because neither of those things applied to a particularly revealing garb that she wouldn't be caught dead in now that she had emotions like shame and embarrassment back.
Amazon Warrior. It was just as skimpy and revealing as she remembered, that stupid neck collar was as bad as she remembered, and she wanted to groan at the thought she'd ever worn the whole thing in public, even if it had been for a good cause.
“So what's the story on this one?” she asked, waving the skimpy garb in his face, eyebrows raised.
He blinked at her a few times, his face the blank mask he used when feigning innocence when really, he was guilty, guilty, guilty.
“Hope, you had better come clean about this,” she warned him.
“There's not much to say. Truth be told, I just wanted to see you in a bikini,” he finally admitted as he took it from her, as casually as if they were discussing dinner plans for tonight. “I made the stats extra good so you would be more tempted to wear it.”
“Hope Estheim!” she sputtered, her voice several volumes louder than it probably needed to be.
He simply shrugged and smiled. “What? You're a beautiful woman, Light, and I had pined after you and longed for you for a thousand years. Even though I couldn't access the majority of my feelings back then, I remembered loving you. So in order to test myself, I made this garb to see if I could get my heart to react when I saw you in it.”
That…made a surprising amount of sense. Dammit. It was the same reason why she'd worn it.
“I said it before and I'll say it again,” he continued, “but I'm no perfect saint who’s above my human impulses. Sometimes, I just want to see the woman I love in a sexy outfit. But you didn't have to wear it. I was surprised when you actually put it on.”
She couldn't believe this. “Surprised? You’ve gotta be kidding me. You gave me all these bullshit excuses about how it would distract my enemies if I wore it, so I thought I'd put it on to mess with you instead. But then you barely reacted, and I wondered if you didn't think I was—I was—”
His expression softened, and he gently cupped her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. “I'm sorry about that, Light. I didn't think it was appropriate to say anything. We were work colleagues at the time, and I wasn't myself.”
“Seriously? That was why? Because we were work colleagues? Not because you didn't think I was attractive? Dammit, Hope, I wish you had said something.”
He searched her face for a moment, then wrapped his arms around her. “And because I wasn't myself, Light. My heart was missing, and it didn’t feel right to make a move until I got it back.”
“You still had enough of yourself left to make Amazon Warrior in the hopes I would wear it,” she pointed out.
“True. Unfortunately, I failed my own test. I knew something was really wrong with me at that point, because I didn't react the way I should have to seeing you wear it. If I had been myself, I wouldn't have been able to take my eyes off of you, trust me.”
At least he wasn't dodging the truth or trying to change the subject. And he had been testing himself at the same time she had been testing him. They’d unknowingly shared the same sneaky objective, which in hindsight was almost hilarious.
Almost.
“So we were both trying to figure out what was wrong with your heart,” she muttered.
"Correct.” He leaned in close, and her breath caught in her throat. “And if you put it on now, Light,” he murmured in her ear, his voice low and husky, “you'll see just how differently I’ll react with a fully functioning heart.”
He smiled an impish smile, and that smile sent a jolt all through her body. She thought about arguing with him. Considered telling him where he could take that garb and stuff it. Letting him know, in no uncertain terms, that there was no way in hell she was ever wearing that thing again.
She opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, a devious thought entered her mind. A part of her did want to wear it again now that he had a fully functioning heart. She could picture it now, how she would wipe that smug smile off his face and make him speechless. How his hungry gaze would roam up and down her body, how easy it would be to tease and mess with him, how quickly he would snap and succumb—
A compromise then, maybe? She cleared her throat. “I'm not wearing that thing again,” she grumbled, crossing her arms.
His face fell, but he nodded his understanding, and she almost felt bad for messing with him.
Almost.
“But…” she continued, and he perked up again, “…I’ll surprise you with a garb of my choice…if you put on your Academy uniform.” She raised an eyebrow. “I assume you recreated that one too?”
His shit-eating grin told her everything she needed to know.
She just chuckled and shook her head. “Of course you did. Well then, time to test you again. For science.”
“For science. We have to confirm my heart is in working order,” he replied, very seriously. But his lips twitched and his eyes danced with excitement. No test was needed. It was clear his heart was doing just fine, but she wasn't about to stop their little game now.
“Your heart, sure, Hope, that's what we’ll be testing,” she said with another chuckle, and his laughter in response was wonderful.
The results of their experiment far exceeded her wildest expectations, and she thought to herself that maybe, just maybe, some of these ridiculous garbs had served a good purpose after all.
Hope certainly seemed to think so, and truth be told, so did she.