Work Text:
Shirou was someone who would rather burden himself than let others help him.
Now that was something Saber had known for a while now, given how he was during the Holy Grail War. But that was two years ago now.
And Shirou was still insistent on doing everything himself.
He was planning to study to become a proper magus at the Clocktower, but that also required him to at least learn the basics of common magecraft.
Basics that were hard for him due to his Incarnation status.
Between that, his job, his college studies and housework, he was wearing himself thin.
Yet he was hell bent on doing everything alone, and that didn't sit well with the former King of Britain.
So she picked up her phone —she lost count of how many she had broken accidentally— and dialed a number she rarely did.
Ring...
Ring...
The person on the other end picked up rather quickly. Though, it was probably because whenever Saber called someone, there was something wrong.
“Saber?”
“Hello, Rider. I…”
College was bullshit.
To be fair, it was his decision to study law, but between memorizing all of it, sessional exams and studying magecraft, it was getting quite hectic.
And then there was his job.
“Hey, can I have another glass?” A man, somewhere in his forties, asked as he slid the glass across the polished wooden table.
It was Three AM, and Shirou had already asked Saber to sleep without him. Normally, he didn't stick around for so long, but the bartender who usually worked the night-shift had come down with a fever and Shirou took the work for himself.
He was being paid extra for it though, so it wasn't all bad.
“Same as the last one?”
He pondered for a second, looking at the bottles lined up behind Shirou. “Nah, get me some scotch.”
“This’ll be the last one, by the way. You’ve had enough.” Shirou said as he filled up the glass and added an extra ice cube before passing it to the man.
“Bah, if I don't drink, I wouldn't have anything to do and I'd have to go home. Then my wife is going to scream at me again.”
Shirou dipped for a moment, quickly serving another patron before coming back to him.
“Is everything okay?”
The man gave him a deadpan look. “Would my wife be screaming at me if everything was okay, kid?”
“Fair point, but why are you two fighting?”
“She says that I drink too much and barely take care of the kid.”
“How old is your kid?”
“Six years old, turning seven tomorrow.”
“Would you care to listen to me for a minute? I know I'm half your age, but…”
“Oh, c'mon kid, it's not like you're a stranger. Just fire away.”
“When your kid grows up, do you want them to resent you?” As he said that, an image of Illya flashed in his head.
“If the brat grows up to hate me, that's his business. I'm working enough to support him, and that's all that matters.”
“And can he see that you're doing your best? You come here after work, and given the time, you apparently come here late during the weekends.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“What I mean is, as you are now, do you want your son to be like you?”
He knew that Kiritsugu would never want Shirou to be like him. No father would want their child to pick up their bad traits.
No father would want their child to become a hateful person.
“I…”
Shirou turned around, taking one of the glasses off the counter to wash under the running faucet.
Once satisfied, he picked up the cleaning cloth on the hanger and began wiping it down, not looking at the man.
“I don't have the experience of a parent, obviously, but I do have the experience of a child in this.”
Obviously, he couldn't go around talking about Kiritsugu’s actual work, but he could help this man by sharing a little of how he lived.
A good bartender was one who listened and helped, after all.
“My father was… someone who abandoned his family for his job. He abandoned his wife, his daughter and all his wealth to help people.”
“Sounds like a nice man.”
“But back when he was still with his family, he was emotionally distant. His wife knew what he was doing, but she passed away from an illness, leaving their daughter behind.”
The man offered no words, but he could feel the eyes on his back as he quietly cleaned the glasses. He knew that some other people were listening to him too, but he didn't particularly mind.
“He didn't spend enough time with his daughter, which led to her resenting him till the day she died because she never understood what he was truly like.”
“How old was she?” He asked.
“She was nineteen when she died from the same illness as her mother, which was a year ago.
The way he was with her was far different from what he was like with me. So, to some extent, we never really knew the same man. I was seven and she was nine when he passed away from Tuberculosis.”
He held the glass against the light, finally satisfied by the sheen on it as he put it in the cabinet.
“No one really knows when they die. But if no one knows what you're really like before you're gone, then you end up being forgotten rather quickly.”
The man left shortly after that, the glass of scotch half-finished.
The story wasn't exactly fool proof. The only reason why he could say it in one go was because no one really questioned him and he wasn't looking at anyone.
Rin would probably be proud.
Birds chirped overhead as he parked the motorcycle right next to his shed.
When Illya decided to spend her last few days with Shirou, she gave off every single thing she had in her possession, things that she inherited from Kiritsugu but refused to touch.
One of the few things that Kiritsugu apparently had was a modified Yamaha V-max, known as ‘Cuirassier’ on paper. Though a good chunk of the modifications were removed so Shirou could ride it safely.
He was definitely going to sleep for a while after making breakfast.
But as he put the helmet down, he couldn't help but notice that the front of the house was completely swept, the backyard was clean and even his shed’s lock was open.
Surely, she didn't…
He quietly opened the door and slipped into his house, desperately trying not to make a single peep.
It was weird to go in like a thief in his own residence.
He could see that the hallways were swept and wiped too, given the slight sheen that the surface gave off.
Sakura didn't come over this early, so he knew it wasn't the purple haired junior behind all of this.
And then he found the culprit, dozing off on the dinner table. The clock on the wall read five-thirty in the morning, so she must've started working around the time when he was talking with that man in the bar.
He quickly went to his room and picked up the neatly folded blanket in the corner, going back to the living room to cover the servant with it.
And when he walked over to the kitchen, he found that the vegetables were already cut and put in bowls, covered by lids.
Were they cut properly? Not really.
But she tried her best and that was more than enough for him. While he was working overtime, picking up someone's work, she was still waiting for him.
Honestly, this woman…
He was definitely cooking some of her favourites for breakfast.
But first, he had to fix the vegetables.