There's no way I'm fucking apologising.

Whoever had decided it was a good idea to leave Ban unattended with any form of alcohol was beyond the realms of stupidity. He was absolutely inebriated, swaying merrily atop one of the barrels he was supposed to be delivering.

"Ayyyyyy, it's Lil' Miss Shitty Tits!~" The man drawled, raising a sloshing tankard towards me in greeting. Both internally and externally face palming, I closed the front door behind me, making a beeline towards the counter to grab myself a clean tankered for myself, because goodness knew I was done with that shit.

"Okay, before I kick your leathery ass, hand over Chastiefol." I sighed, holding my free hand out towards him, but he just tugged me a fraction closer by my sleeve.
"I'll let'ya in on a lil' secret..." He was obviously trying to whisper, but wasn't doing a very good job at it. "I don't have it!~ Fairy boy needs t' quit bein' so gullible!"

He really does, because that means I came here for nothing...

I filled my cup to the brim, not caring if I got a frothy moustache from gulping it down in one breath. As I returned immediately for a second, I decided to speak up.
"You're a pretty shitty person sometimes, Ban." I announced, glancing at him from the corner of my eye. "Still, thank you. You know, for coming to my rescue both those times. You really didn't need to."

"Sure I did~" Ban chuckled, teetering back and forth on his perch. "Couldn't leave a pretty damsel in distress, now could I?~" The way he sang half of his sentences wasn't exactly frustrating, but I realised that sometimes it did rub me the wrong way. At least, that was how I perceived the heat in my ears.
"If memory serves me right, I wasn't in distress that first time. I was just really fucking drugged out." I mumbled, taking another swig of bitter ale. "I don't particularly appreciate being called a damsel..."

Wait...did he just call me pretty?

Ban hopped; or fell, off the barrel, clumsily trying to fill his tankard again for what appeared to be the umpteenth time.
"That's what ya looked like t' me." He shrugged, ale overflowing from the wooden edges before he stopped the stream. "Gotta say, it was fucking hilarious when ya went all, like, sobbing baby when ya thought I fuck'n died!" He burst out laughing, and I clonked him up the side of the head.

"Sh..shut up! It was graphic, okay?! You were cut in half!" I whined, already starting on a second refill. "How was I supposed to react?! Nobody told me shit about you..." Replaying the images in my mind made me shudder. There had been so much blood, and even though that kind of thing had never bothered me before, when it came from him it really seemed to.

Hiccuping, Ban blew a raspberry, missing the mark when he went to sit back down on the barrel and ending up on the floor.
"Awwww, you were worried 'bout lil ol' me?~" He was sounding drunker by the second, but somehow it was kind of endearing, in an annoying way.
"Well, don't you worry, you booze hound. I won't be worried about you anymore." I scoffed, downing the rest of my third and setting my tankard down. "You're shitfaced. Go sleep it off, idiot."

"You just contradinkled y'self!" Ban wheezed, slapping towards his knee but missing by a long shot.
"I think you mean contradicted." I prayed somebody else would return soon so I didn't have to deal with babysitting, but that didn't seem likely.
"Hah! You said dick!~"

King, the second you grow wings I'm going to rip them off...

I glanced between Ban and the staircase, knowing that if I tried to haul him up there I would just lengthen my recovery.
"Look, we'll end up with customers soon, so you need to drag your drunk ass up to your room." I glared at him, but there was very little anger behind it. It was hard when he was grinning at me like an excited kid.

"I will if you tuck me in~" His drunken purr made my baby hairs stand on end, and I could feel the heat beginning to rise in my cheeks. He stood up, unevenly stepping towards me until he was close enough to throw his arm across my shoulders. "What? Don't want me t' slip 'n break my neck, do ya?"

Kind of...

Groaning, I began to lead him to the staircase, struggling under the amount of weight he had decided to share with me. Being so close beside him, I finally realised just how tall the guy was. I looked like a little kid in comparison, and I was kind of awestruck.
"Why the hell are you so tall, anyway?" I grumbled, feeling my muscles begin to ache more already.

"I 'unno." He mumbled back, putting even more weight on my shoulders.
"You're actually...not as heavy as I thought you were gonna be..." I hummed, trying to keep him talking so he wouldn't pass out on the way up.
"Oooo, you were thinking 'bout my weight?~" Ban cooed, leaning in on me, which almost made me stumble and fall over the railing.

"Sh..shut up..." One thing I hated more than anything was feeling flustered, and Ban made quick work of that. He certainly was an attractive specimen, but I didn't want to accept it. I didn't want to become attached to anybody else in the Seven Deadly Sins, especially not due to a stupid crush.

"So, why'dya hate the capt'n?" He asked out of the blue as I nudged open the bedroom door with my boot. Keeping my eyes on the floor, I didn't move forward.
"That isn't really any of your business, Ban..." I murmured, feeling him shift to try and look at me, though he was likely seeing double.
"I know it ain't, I'm just cu~ri~ous!" He sang, clinking his head against mine. "F'real though...What did 'e do to ya?"

He sounded genuinely concerned, but that had to be due to his intoxicated state. Despite knowing that, I felt like I kind of wanted to give him some kind of explanation.
"He just...broke every promise he ever made to me...that's all..." I sighed sadly, continuing towards the bed and all but hurling him onto the mattress.

Once he recovered from the initial bounce, he peered up at me with groggy, narrowed eyes.
"I feel like there's more to it, but my brain ain't thinky enough to process more shit right now." He mumbled, reaching out and grabbing hold of the leg of my tights. "Are you a spoon?"

Quirking a brow, I shook my head slowly, eyeing his hand.
"Uh...no?" Before I had a chance to realise what was going on, I had been dragged down to the mattress, long arms and legs draping over me without my consent.
"You are now~"

Oh fuck oh fuck oh shit oh fuck!

I was absolutely frozen solid as I laid there, the only sound to be heard being the slowing ebb and flow of Ban's breath as he passed right out. Every cell of my body was on fire, and my eyes were as wide as dinner plates. It wasn't that the position or anything was uncomfortable. Honestly, if I hadn't been so weirded out I likely would have found it pleasant, but that wasn't the case.

After a minute or two, I tried to make a break for it, but those lengthy arms pulled me right back, making escape impossible.

I'm going to die here.

Goodness knows how much time passed, but when I heard somebody enter the room, I immediately reacted.
"Fucking finally! Could you please get this drunk asshole off of m-" I zipped my lips when I looked up, (E/C) eyes nearly turning into slits when I saw that spritely cherub face.

"But you look so comfy!" Meliodas chuckled, hands on his hips as he admired my predicament.
"I change my mind. I'd rather perish here." I deadpanned, screwing my nose up. Fondly rolling his eyes, Meliodas reached over the top of me, grabbing Ban's upper arm and prying it off of me, simultaneously flipping him over onto his back, and nearly onto the floor.

Immediately, I jumped up, darting past Meliodas to make sure there was a great enough distance between us.
"He trapped me..." I defended without being asked, bitterness oozing in my tone.
"I gathered." Meliodas snickered, his face twisting into a look I never saw often on him. Aprehension. "Do you...mind if we have a talk?"

Spinning around, I stomped hastily towards the door, pausing in the archway.
"That's the last thing I want to do." I growled, hand gripping the wooden frame. "If you wanna talk to someone, why not go find your precious Elizabeth?"

I hate the taste her name leaves in my mouth...

There was a short silence, but the air around us turned heavy, and I felt like it was beginning to crush me beneath its weight.
"You know she never replaced you, right?" Meliodas spoke after a while, and I felt his hand come to rest upon my shoulder in some pathetic attempt of pentinence. I shrugged him off like his touch was poison, ignoring the warmth that remained.
"Obviously..." I spat, my legs seeming to ache as I forced myself out of the room. "...I had to have been something to you at the start for that to be the case..."

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***THIRD PERSON POV***

Meliodas hung his head as he watched her leave the room, resisting the urge to chase after her. He had being doing a lot of that lately. Fighting back the compulsion to dote on the girl, just like he had done for so many years.

When he had first seen (Y/N) after Merlin and Ban had rescued her alongside Elizabeth, he had nearly collapsed. After what seemed like eons searching for her, there she was, just as he had remembered her, the only difference being the condition she had been in. In that moment he swore to completely decimate whoever had a hand in hurting her like that.

"Whadd'ya know...The capt'n really might be a sack of shit~" Startled by the sudden words, but not letting it show, the blond turned back to the bed, smiling as per the usual as Ban sat up, one knee bent.
"I don't know what you're talking about!" Meliodas replied cheerfully, cocking his head to play the part. Clicking his tongue, the immortal didn't look at all convinced.

"Cut the act. From what she said before, there's a lotta broken promises from your end of whatever fucked up relationship the two of you had, and I don't think I like it." Ban said dryly, slouching back down into the pillow. The captain wasn't thrilled that the man had been playing dead-to-the-world during the personal exchange, but there wasn't any changing it, so he played it off like it wasn't anything important.

"It really isn't too much to worry about, Ban. (Y/N) and I just had a little misunderstanding. It'll blow over and she'll be back to her sweet old self in no time!" He grinned, starting to stroll out of the room, likely to go and find Elizabeth. "You two looked pretty cosy! Getting a soft spot for her?"

"Extra pillow, that's all. You know I've got a woman..." Ban muttered back, though Meliodas could hear a strange waver of vague unsurity in his usually confident tone of voice. Spinning swiftly around on his heel as he reached the door, he shot his right hand man a large, closed-eye grin, hands clasped behind his back.

"Great! Because I don't think I'd like that!~"

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***Uh, protective father mode activated?***