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kaus-quietis · 2 years

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They are (BSD Fyodor x reader)

More precisely, Philosopher!Fyodor x Translator!Reader for @chuuyasboots beautiful BSD event, Renewing the Renaissance. Check out the full list of the event’s fics here!

Genre: I can’t believe it myself, but it’s fluff. Completely SFW.

Night fell into dawn’s embrace, in vivid red and purple play. Steady steps were on their way, up a hill covered in dew. Each droplet rejoiced in a frail man’s gaze, one that was trained to inspect even the simplest of things, the most mundane, and use them as steps on a ladder to the heavens. Like so many times before, such close inspection of nature was an elating activity for the philosopher approaching Y/N’s house on the hill. Each transparent drop of cold fresh water on wood and flowers and fallen leaves pointed his mind towards the universal ideas that weaved this world together: the same ones that also weaved them, the two, together. At the idea of the grand Author who made him and Y/N meet, the now hurrying philosopher only smirked, feeling he was all too familiar with Him, the object of his research for so many Parisian years. But Fyodor brushed this thought aside, focusing on the upward road he knew so well, the one that each season, again and again, guided him through Tuscany to –

“Columba mea.”

Subtly, silently, the philosopher entered Y/N’s house, only his greeting – recalling the Song of Songs [1] – letting their hard-working lover know he arrived. Through the smell of oak wood, the light reflected on parchment, the rustling of dried flowers, the silence of black ink, Y/N’s voice responded, completing him as always:

“Dilectus meus.”

The philosopher approached their writing desk, hiding the precious things he carried not only under his thick black cloak, but also inside his white robe. Admiring all the manuscripts lying open around Y/N, he deduced they were in the middle of translating another work of Greek origin, comparing all the copies they could find, analyzing all their unique variations in words and writing, everything in search for the original intended meaning. Y/N did not even lift their eyes soaked in concepts to meet their visitor’s unperturbed ones, hiding his eagerness perfectly behind their burning amethyst colour. Still, Y/N could not help but spot his unusual attire.

“Such blasphemy. A Cistercian disguised as a Dominican? But why?” Y/N laughed and wondered what his schemes were the night before.

“Oh, I would never… I side with the seculars.” [2]

“Surely you do. You side with your own self –”

“– and I side with you.”

Y/N stopped their work for a while, knowing what came next, and welcoming the rite with a smile. At first, they felt their lover’s palm embracing one side of their head in caress. The other side soon followed to know his kiss, lingering as if on the very mind he cherished so. As Y/N let their head gradually fall towards him, their smile widened as they made a mental bet right there and then. What followed did not even disturb the suavity of the moment, it only proved Y/N right on their bet:

“You misspelled cruoris on the left column, fourth row.” [3]

Parting with the warmth of his chest Y/N sunk into, the copyist sighed, moving the sharp knife they were holding from one hand into the other, switching places with their quill pen. They slowly scraped a bit of the ink away from the parchment and changed the abbreviated form of the noun. Y/N fixed the mistake, grateful that their annoyingly perceptive “partner-in-crime” spotted the minuscule “butchered” word on time. At last, they lifted their tired eyes to meet his, desiring to gift him sincerity. “I am proud to have you” was the message their gaze carried, but as quick as it reached the philosopher’s mind – and oh, how quickly he was catching on all the time –, Y/N almost teasingly dropped their adoring look and changed the subject.

“So what did you bring me this time?”, Y/N rubbed their hands in child-like excitement as their smiling visitor put five or six thick manuscripts on the desk. Y/N could not tell just yet, but their whole soul radiated.

“I brought exactly what you asked from me…”

The young man lowered both his upper body and his tone, a speck of mischievousness glinting in his eyes: “…begged, even, on each night of our honey-sweet August, when we–”

“DON’T YOU FEAR THE LORD” Y/N tried to eat their shout, as if not to disturb the new books that the philosopher brought them. To hide the insane enjoyment Y/N was indulging in this very moment, the translator tried to fit it all under a mask of pure-heartedness, pretending to focus only on the manuscripts. Three of them had sophisticated binding and parchment pages Y/N did not yet dare to touch, while the rest looked like combined ones, mixing paper and parchment. That alone spoke so much to Y/N: the compiler probably valued the contents so much that they chose to collect copies and excerpts of all possible kinds, without wasting anything. The collector, Y/N continued to muse, was surely responding to the need to preserve the past, a lost tradition, or a neglected author’s works. Viscerally: Y/N resonated with this imaginary compiler viscerally, and now that this thought process was running around in their mind, they could barely control their trembling lip from revealing a bright grin. Yet Y/N stayed silent and still, expecting an answer from their dear guest as soon as they locked eyes with him again. The audacious philosopher inhaled slowly, preparing his voice for a dead-serious tone, and despite Y/N’s likewise dead-serious stare, he dared to continue:

“Y/N. You asked for more.

So I offer you more”

His next smirk widened, shone on his lips, as if it has been eagerly awaiting the blade that suddenly hovered above his Adam’s apple. It all happened in the blink of an eye, but this expression has no meaning here: the philosopher did not want to lose such thrilling, fleeting sight by blinking. He knew Y/N’s knife would show its true dance as soon as the provocation reached not their ears, but their heart. The man just smiled and swallowed slowly in delight.

“You’d want to keep that for your quills~”

At his mocking suggestion, served with that look, an expressionless Y/N put their knife on the writing desk. Be it for vanity or play, they could not allow their face to show what they were really feeling: their heart was racing, and the adrenaline made them reach heights of happiness each time such tension appeared between the two. But there was more: Y/N saw their elated state’s reflection, and not in the clean blade they put away, no. They saw it in the philosopher’s own eyes: the thrill, the rush, the excitement behind the composed mask, if only one dared to pierce through those dark pupils.

“Another find from the nameless philosopher. You continue to plague my existence”, Y/N mocked the man who was still standing next to their desk, not too distant, not too close now.

“Nameless, oh, please… It is you who refused to call me Theodoros for a reason unknown to me.”

“The reason was, and still is, it sounds like another one of your fake names and I can’t have that.”

“Don’t be so harsh on my pseudonyms, my soul, I have to use them for each–”

“Yeah, yeah, each “figure of authority” you flatter and profit of, as far as the sea spreads and swirls”, Y/N interrupted him gesticulating defeat, for it was a backstory they knew by heart already. The philosopher did not even mind; instead, he gently took the heavy manuscripts and closed the distance between them and his favourite translator.

“Speaking of seas – and to offer you a hint as of the tomes’ origins –, you would not have believed your eyes, Y/N, the immense number of people gathering from East and West, now in Florence! It is such a pity you refused my invitation, we could have met so many honourable people, we could have shared absurd abundant meals with them all and then–” [4]

“Aha, so that is how it went. That was at the start of this year, correct? Whose illuminated mind decided to part forever with these – I assume – rarest of books?” Y/N quickly jumped to correct conclusions, hearing the philosopher chuckle as a first response.

“Oh, but you see, he is under the impression I will bring them back in two months. That is perfectly acceptable. Many things can change in two months,” he explained, forcing himself to hide a wicked grin that was creeping on his lips at the thought of his “updated” plans. “Frankly, I was not entirely convinced by his lectures, but the Florentines are at his feet, my love, at his feet… or… at least the vast majority. One night, at a banquet, after several negotiations and agreements that would greatly please the Greeks – imagine, an entire future Platonic accademia! impressive plans these Florentines have –, I reached a deal with the Greek… “theologian” too. A debatable status, if you see through his words, but that does not change the value of what he brought from his Greek land [5]. You can see part of the result before your–”, he tilted his head in endearment both mocking and true, “–spellbinding eyes, dear partner.”

Needless to say, Y/N was so used to this. After they met on the hills six, maybe seven years ago, as he was travelling the land, the nameless philosopher would visit Y/N’s little house near the small forest again and again to chit-chat. Although both of them were rather rigid and playing mysterious at first, the two realized soon enough that they shared the most pleasant discussions in each other’s company. They started to value eachother more and more in their self-isolation from the rumours of society: one as a wandering philosopher in exile, the other as a book-producing hermit. Y/N came to know he is a magister theologiae of the University of Paris, but his birth origin remained unknown. His sharp yet melancholic features always struck Y/N as foreign, his peculiar accent charmed them – on the rare occasions when he did not hide it on purpose –, but nothing captured their interest more than his mind, endless like meanings lost in translation. His own excitement bloomed and he truly opened up when Y/N revealed to them they were not only a copyist, but also a translator, dedicating their life to collecting and preserving Greek manuscripts, especially anything that could link them back to what Augustine still followed so closely in his early writings, and to what was at the roots of even that [6]. Y/N would collect, copy and translate everything into Latin and let the resulting manuscripts spread all around the West, its libraries still lacking too many Greek works in their opinion. Y/N was sick of Aristotle, they were sick of his commentators, they felt the search for Plato should be prolonged and deepened, but who would listen? Only a few villagers, only a few remarkably cultured monks and nuns, even a few royals, but overall only a few souls who kept donating parchment to Y/N. This way, they could continue to produce such compilations of translations. And so, for six, maybe seven years already, Y/N sunk into this kind of work, and with infinite pleasure: it was simply too perfect.

Still, it took a few more years for Y/N to realize who exactly God’s gift to them was. Admiring such passionate pursuit of a higher goal, the philosopher decided to help Y/N on their mission. It was only natural, he had the… let’s say “means” and “ways” to find more, to “obtain” more manuscripts that would please Y/N, as he could enter anyone’s heart and soul (not to even mention pockets) with his training and talent of speech. He had nothing to lose by entertaining Y/N – in fact, he enjoyed their interactions and exchanges each time they met, even if only few times a year, when new findings and new thoughts had him running up that hill.

“More…” Y/N whispered sweetly, already a victim to nostalgia, slowly opening and inspecting each book. It was summer again now, but the last August still lingered in both of their minds: somehow, he was able to stay with Y/N for the entire month – a most predictable one, as there was nothing that surprised the two old partners. Everything was predictable: each tease and each wordplay, each mental exercise, each gesture, each day, each night, and every mark. For their minds, everything was predictable in the most entertaining way, whereas outside their bond predictability equalled boredom. They both accepted it all, and so they stayed.

“So these are…” Y/N shook the nostalgia away, speaking in a cold tone, so obviously fake it was adorable.

“Some excerpts of Platonic dialogues. Some copied in their entirety too. Surely some things by Plotinus and, if luck’s on your side, Porphyry too, I would assume. My apologies that I did not have time to check, I arrived in Florence to pick them up a couple of days ago. You shall see, only two of them have somewhat of an index, you know how it is. I think I saw the Enneads, too?”

“The what?” Y/N showed surprise, so obviously fake, but only to themselves. Right?

“The Enneads. Plotinus. You will adore this” the philosopher chose to give only a simple answer, so that Y/N could have the pleasure of discovery all for themselves. Hiding a smile, he was already imagining the moment Y/N will dive into the thickest manuscript the philosopher brought them – how Y/N will devour its contents and lose themselves in their words.

Overwhelmed by emotion, Y/N sunk in thought for a moment, deciding whether to show deepest gratitude or deepest suspicion to their precious friend and lover. Of course, they chose a sweeter side of the latter.

“Love… Then… I assume these should have gone directly to Ficino [7] !! Heavens!! How angelic of you to offer to transport them to him!” Y/N burst into wild laughter, “This is AMAZING, and he will never know!! Ahahahahah!”

And so Y/N jumped into the arms of the philosopher disguised as a Cistercian disguised as a Dominican. They embraced him strongly enough to feel the contour of his shoulders under his two hoods, while he took advantage of the momentum to spin them around in a few full circles. Repositioning themselves, Y/N’s hands around his neck, they exchanged a confident calm look, completely satisfied with the situation. Yet Y/N’s chest got tense suddenly, succumbing to a suffocating feeling they by now struggled to hide. Y/N so desperately wanted to succumb to their shared bliss this one time – no, not like in August, but finally in the truest way they knew they still had to reach.

And Y/N hoped to reach it, because Y/N could no longer bear it. They wanted to escape.

“My soul, allow me to guess what drowns your heart in pain now. Although, why would there be anything like that…

…when we exist in the best possible world God could have created.”

The philosopher said that with a genuine smile, knowing exactly what could come next, likewise in repressed hope that Y/N would respond exactly the way he imagined they would.

Because, if they did, then…

“…

…

…Pascal isn’t born yet, Fyodor Dostoyevsky.”

Finally! FINALLY! Ah, how liberating it was to answer Fyodor’s call now! Oh, how liberating for both of them! They could finally drop their façade officially, they could finally erase the thought of everything they’ve built between them being one gigantic lie, they could finally, finally stop…

… h u n t i n g e a c h o t h e r d o w n .

This was the last test they threw at each other and Y/N knew: not answering Fyodor’s call now would have meant Y/N denying – …

…

“… – all those years they spent together in the novel. Look at us, Poe-kun. We’re both in our mid-30s. Carrying your novel on my person each day? Yeah, I hate to admit this, but there isn’t a second I’m not nervous. And it gets worse each month… What is even happening? Will they ever come out?” The voice of the master detective sounded dull, yet accumulated nervousness was imprinted on every consonant. He spoke almost absent-mindedly, as if he waited far too long for the conclusion of his plan. It worked, it did: Y/N and Fyodor were both trapped inside Poe’s Renaissance-themed novel. But Y/N was supposed to escape around five years ago – exit the novel carrying Fyodor’s corpse, his blood on their knife, and they could not fail. Ranpo designed the plan around the best assassin the Agency and the Port Mafia could hire, in a joint effort to catch the Rat. Ranpo even adapted to Fyodor’s strategies, after all, and Dazai supervised the entire thing, until he simply disappeared one day. Nobody knew why, they could only hope he would return to them again alive, unharmed, victorious…

Poe brought two cups of hot chocolate and gently put them on Ranpo’s desk. “I don’t quite know how to describe this, but I got a feeling the time will come soon”, he said, blowing the steam in the direction of his beloved raccoon, which sniffed around and licked its nose, raising its sleepy eyes from under Ranpo’s palm. “You said that 16 days ago, what can I do with this?”, the detective whined, knowing that if he took the hot chocolate and sipped from it now, it would surely burn both his lips and his tongue, so that they could not feel any taste for a good while. Somehow, as Ranpo was processing this, the fluffy raccoon handed him Y/N’s confidential contact card that Ranpo lost under his empty bags of sweets, years and years ago. The detective never saw such a determined look of steel imprinted on any other human face and his first impression of Y/N never left him. How could an assassin of such high intellect take so much time, waste time inside Poe’s novel? Refusing to say anything else, as if fearing a bad omen, Ranpo simply exhaled stating the obvious: “There it was…”

…

…There it was! Yet another mark of a voluntary player of Fyodor’s own games. Before him – he was sure of it now – stood a person willing to run the same race even in the most insignificant ways, such as spotting an anachronistic philosophical reference in what was supposed to be the 15th-century Tuscany. His suspicions came true, as well as Y/N’s. They both knew what they were now, and all doubts vanished.

Y/N’s arms still around Fyodor’s neck, the two now even closer in a tightened adamant hold, the translator waited calmly for the philosopher’s verbal reply, for his wonderstruck eyes already burned with delight and fever.

“I’d say mission accomplished, wouldn’t you too, my soul?” Fyodor extended his left hand towards Y/N, who took it in the most natural manner. “We entered this simplistic novel as each other’s hunter. Let us walk out as partners, as equals reborn.”

Fyodor’s assigned assassin never expected a change of purpose, and truly even less a change of heart, but it was the Agency’s and Mafia’s mistake to toy with those they failed to understand. The truth has always been there, predictable and in plain sight, and now Y/N could grasp it, entwine their fingers with it, with their lover’s. A blinding light began engulfing the two, a sign the novel was rejecting them. The translator gave the philosopher a smileless, determined look:

“Correct. You are no longer my target.

…They are.”

– – –

Endnotes:

[1] "Columba mea", Latin for "my dove", but literally "my pigeon" as a species; "dilectus meus", Latin for "my beloved (m)". [2] Referring to monks belonging to the Cistercian Order and Dominican Order respectively, as well as to the seculars, religiously-neutral persons (or, in this case, intellectuals), not consecrated to a monastic order, nor affiliated with a religious institution, e.g. the Church. [3] "Cruoris", Latin noun (genitive case, singular) meaning "of the blood <freshly spilled or flowing from a wound>" or, by extension, figuratively, "of the murder / assassination". [4] Referring to the ecumenical Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438-1445), more precisely to when the council was moved to Florence in January 1439. Large numbers of representatives of the Latin Church and the Greek Church gathered to discuss doctrinal differences in hopes of reuniting the two Christian Churches, officially separated since the 1054 Great Schism, also known as the East-West Schism. [5] Referring to Georgios Gemistos Plethon (c. 1355/60-1452/54), Greek scholar who reintroduced the Western/Latin public to the ideas and works of Plato during the 1438-1439 beforementioned Council of Florence. It is said he influenced Cosimo de' Medici to found the Platonic Academy of Florence. Despite having translated and assimilated Aristotelian works already (12th-13th century, thanks to Arabic translations and commentaries), Western Europe (Latin-speaking Europe) did not know the majority of Plato's works and many important Neoplatonic works, as it severely lacked translations and overall access to Greek manuscripts. This Council was a major event that led to communication between the Latin and the Greek cultures, exchanging knowledge and manuscripts, and Plethon was a key-figure in this. Ironically perhaps, the Churches themselves remained separated. [6] Referring to Neoplatonism and Platonism respectively. [7] Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), Italian humanist philosopher and theologian. He was the first translator of Plato's complete works, from Greek to Latin, immensely contributing to the revival of Platonic philosophy in Latin (Western) Europe. Among many other translation projects and his own works, Ficino also translated works of Neoplatonic philosophers, such as Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. He was the central figure and leader of the Platonic Academy of Florence.

#bungou stray dogs #bsd fyodor #bsd fyodor x reader #bsd fyodor dostoyevsky #bsd fyodor dostoyevsky x reader #bsd fyodor dostoevsky #bsd fanfiction #renewing the renaissance #bsd x reader #bsd event #fyodor dostoyevsky x reader #I CAN'T BELIEVE I AM ONCE AGAIN CONTRINBUTING TO THE DOSTOYEVSKY X READER TAG #how could I do this/??? how did I succeed??? how why where did these 3200+ words come from?? I am so nervous and I want to hide forever #I am no writer but I hope this will entertain a few fellow fans of this fine character a normal amount kfjsdnfksjd #how?? me?? writing Fedya fluff?? how on Earth #anyway ngl I put lots of love into this idea for the event and I am glad I managed to post it #also you're NOT getting stereotypical philosopher tropes with this one because I serve them like actual people #not like idealized discount versions of Sokrates fjksngjs trust me it's my job #ok now excuse while I go hide in a cave of course #one day I'll post my Fedya essay too to bring canon evidence that he has indeed a playful mind and can tease others but until then.. enjoy

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