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Following a deranged would-be king is not easy.
It sounds obvious, of course. If someone had come up to him five years ago and asked if it seemed simple enough to plunge headfirst into battle for a man who would barely blink if you died for him, Sylvain would have laughed. Now, when such a thing is a reality… well, laughter is a bit harder to find.
There’s more to it than that - that’s the hard part. There’s looking at Dimitri’s back and remembering the small child who had cried every time they had to part as children. There’s watching Dimitri eviscerate some poor soul on the battlefield and remembering his kind smiles and helpful demeanor during school. It’s knowing that he loves him, that he has no purpose outside of Dimitri’s goals, that he might as well die in the war.
His father had called it loyalty. Sylvain thinks that it’s more like a lack of anything better to do.
It’s why he throws himself headfirst into battle, why he gives it his all and then some, why Ingrid hisses at him for taking too many risks and Felix flatly asks him if he has a death wish. Maybe he does. Maybe that’s just part of working with Dimitri, of seeing him - really seeing him - looking like a lost and hungry animal on the battlefield and wishing he could do anything to bring him back to the person he used to be. He doesn’t know.
It doesn’t matter anyway. Sylvain falls to his knees on the battlefield and feels… relieved, if he’s being truthful. His eyes close and his shoulders go slack and he gives in the way he wants, the way he’s wanted to for months now.
But the final blow doesn’t come.
He opens his eyes after a moment and sees white, lavender, listens to the clash of blades. It swirls around in his consciousness like water down a drain and eventually he knows nothing at all anymore.
-
He wishes he wouldn’t have to wake up. Consciousness finds Sylvain again and he feels disappointed before anything else, just tired before he’s hurt. He had a chance to die a knight and to make his father proud. He thinks he’s blown it, but he knows that there’ll be more chances later.
Reluctantly, he opens his eyes.
“You’re awake!”
The breathy, soft voice is familiar and Sylvain blinks a time or two before Mercedes pulls herself into focus above him. She smiles down at him sweetly and reaches down to touch his hair. Behind her, he recognizes a few others: Felix, Byleth, and Yuri, standing further back than anyone else, his arms folded across his chest.
Felix, similarly, seems to hold some distaste and Sylvain gathers that it’s only Mercedes’ presence that keeps him from lashing out and smacking him upside the head in his usual way when Sylvain has done something exceptionally stupid.
“We were so worried about you,” she continues, reaching up to press a cool hand to his forehead as if to check for a temperature. Silly, Sylvain thinks, seeing as to how he took a blow to the side.
They want him to say something. They’re expecting it, and so he forces out a smile that he already knows is shaky and tries to get up on his elbows.
“Hah. It’ll take more than that to get rid of me.”
“Don’t talk like that, idiot,” Felix hissed in response, and Sylvain could see the thin veneer of disregard that he liked to wear like armor waver in front of him.
“Fine,” Sylvain breathes, and then winces when he pulls uncomfortably at his injured ribs, “fine. Did we win?”
Mercedes nods in response and Sylvain isn’t sure why he asked. If they lost, he’d be dead. They all would be.
Conversation fizzles out from there. He’s not dead and from what Mercedes tells him, he’s sure to make a quick recovery soon. Sylvain nods as if that’s excellent news and thinks that he’ll be able to get back into a horse in a few days. He’ll have to, if he doesn’t want to be left behind by the army.
His father would never forgive him for that.
One by one, the others file out, surely consumed with other duties now that the battle has ended. Mercedes has more soldiers to try and mend, Felix has inventory to take, Byleth needs to try and calm Dimitri and stop him from forcing the army to move before it’s ready.
It’s a few moments after Byleth has finally stepped out of his private healing tent before Sylvain realizes that Yuri is still there. He blinks and tries to sit up again, managing to prop himself up on the pillows, and realizes that Yuri has been staring at him this whole time, wordless and hawklike.
He’s not sure what to say to him. It’s only after combing through his fading memories that Sylvain recalls that Yuri is the one who leapt forward to save him somehow, using some manner of trickery to seemingly teleport himself forward and take Sylvain’s attacker by surprise.
Should he thank him? From what he knows of the man, Yuri wouldn’t take too kindly to thanks, and was more likely to brush it off than to be genuine. They’re alike in that way.
They’re alike in a lot of ways.
Sylvain remembers still when they were younger and had first met at Garreg Mach. It was interesting to finally see the guy who Dimitri had been spending all his time around, and when he’d heard tales of their adventures in the underground, his interest had only gotten brighter.
But it wasn’t - it never quite worked out between the two of them. Were he a more analytical man, Sylvain would say that it was because they were too similar. He knew deflection well enough to know when Yuri would neatly sidestep him with a bit of flirtation, and the thought of it, knowing that Yuri meant it as little as he did, spoiled the game.
He couldn’t get under Yuri’s mask and Yuri didn’t seem bothered to try and get under his, and so the two of them warily regarded one another throughout most of their days in the Academy.
Now, in a war, he’s thankful for the help - and, he supposes, thankful for Yuri saving his life - but doesn’t know what to do about the man himself. Yuri has always been an outsider. Sylvain thinks that he prefers it that way, but here, in his medical tent, Yuri is the last person he’d expect to see hanging around.
He doesn’t say anything, daring the shorter man to speak first. After a few long minutes, in which it feels uncomfortably like he’s being sized up, Yuri opens his mouth.
“If you wish for death that badly, tell me now and I’ll slit your throat myself.”
It startles him and Sylvain blinks in surprise, opening his mouth but finding himself speechless. How does one respond to that sort of thing?
“I don’t know what you -”
“Save it for your friends,” Yuri snaps back, folding his arms as he moves up for the hospital bed but stops near Sylvain’s feet, leaning a hip against the edge of the bed, “I’ve seen you fight. I know your limits. You could have gotten back up but you didn’t. This army doesn’t need someone who won’t give it their all.”
His casual way of saying it rankles Sylvain and he tries to sit up further, eyes narrowed.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’d die for this army.”
“And therein lies the problem.”
There’s a pause. Sylvain tries to hold Yuri’s gaze for as long as he can, but eventually he has to look away, his jaw set tight. He’s still angry enough to lash out, but there’s nothing he could really say that wouldn’t just roll off of Yuri like water.
Yuri sighs at the resulting silence, moving a little closer, sizing Sylvain up like a cat eyeing a larger predator.
“All you Gautier boys are the same,” he murmurs, his fingers brushing against Sylvain’s open palm, which is resting against the bed. It makes Sylvain’s fingertips twitch, but Yuri is already sliding his hand upward, fingers pressing into the pressure point on Sylvain’s wrist.
Feeling his pulse.
“Destroying yourself because you can’t win the approval of the one person who will never give it… if only you knew - there are so many other people more worthy of your time.”
Sylvain stiffens, pulling his hand away. It tingles where Yuri had touched him, and he rubs at his wrist, frowning.
“Dimitri will come around. You don’t know him like I do-”
“I’m not talking about Dimitri.”
Yuri moves to sit on the bed next to Sylvain’s waist, balancing precariously along the edge of it as he looks over Sylvain with a critical eye, as if deciding whether or not he really wants to get into this.
He must somehow decide that Sylvain is worth it because he continues.
“I met your brother once, you know.”
The words fold like ice around his heart. His stomach drops away and the hazy memories of five years prior bubble up to the surface again. Sylvain doesn’t know how to respond to that, or if he even wants to.
Miklan is the last thing he expected to talk about today. Or ever again. His father never speaks of him, the name is almost forbidden in the Gautier estate, and why would his friends bring up such a dark memory for all of them? No, he’s content to lock Miklan away in a box, where he’d never have to think about him ever again.
Except…
“Oh, he was the worst of them,” Yuri continues, his lip curling, “a real brute, all anger and misplaced masculinity. I thought then, that he was just a monster. After knowing you… well, it’s clear to me that the two of you are two sides to the same coin.”
Sylvain growls, resisting the urge to just kick Yuri off of the bed.
“I’m nothing like him.”
“No,” Yuri agrees, tilting his head to look at him. For the first time, Sylvain notices the dark circles under his eyes, the kind that he usually conceals. How Yuri never has a hair out of place, but here his clothing is torn, as if he’d barely stopped to change after the battle. “You’re better. And before you say it, it’s not because of your crest. It’s because you’re fucking smart, Sylvain. And you’re too damn good to let your father’s expectations bring you to an early grave like he did.”
Point made, Yuri slides off the bed, but Sylvain reaches out this time, catching at his wrist. Yuri turns, surprised, but Sylvain doesn’t let go.
It’s not something he likes to think about. He knows that if he starts down that path, he’ll never stop, and brooding has never quite been his style, but it’s clear that rampant denial isn’t doing him many favors either.
He has to be strong. He has to be brave and loyal, because he’s all that his family has left and Sreng is a constant threat and Dimitri needs strong men, but… when has he ever been allowed to be anything else? Goofing off, fucking around with women, it was tolerated, even accepted, because it didn’t mean he was weak. What Yuri is saying, what Yuri wants him to be… he doesn’t know if he can.
“Why do you care?” he finally asks, his voice a little softer than he intends it to be.
Yuri shrugs, making a move to pull his arm away, but Sylvain doesn’t let him.
“I don’t.”
Sylvain finally finds the strength to sit up, his teeth grit in the pain. It brings him closer to Yuri, his brows drawn together in concentration.
“You’ve been watching me.”
“I watch everyone.”
Sylvain shakes his head. “You don’t go to everyone’s hospital bed.”
“I do if they’re being suicidal idiots.”
Yuri tries to pull away again, but Sylvain doesn’t let him. He can’t seem to want to let go of this, the one person who cares enough to try and look past the exterior to see his ploys for what they really were. And he didn’t even know Yuri was looking until just now.
What else has he been missing?
He dismissed Yuri years ago, when it was clear that he’d never break through his skin, but had he already done so without realizing it? Had Yuri also seen them as kindred spirits and kept watching, even when Sylvain had turned away?
“You said… there were other people more worthy of my time.”
Here, Yuri’s demure deflection and his games crumble. Here, Yuri has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, the wolf in the henhouse. Here, Sylvain can see his lashes flutter and his expression sink for a blissful second when he realizes that he’d given up the game and what’s worse, Sylvain caught it.
And then it’s over. In his desperation, Yuri reaches for something and grasps it easily. He’d slipped but caught himself before he could fall entirely, and his expression morphs back into an impassive mask.
“Don’t you think? Your classmates, for one. Even setting aside the fact that your king is a beast, there’s still your friends.”
He says that last word like it’s something distasteful, as if the very concept of friendship is beneath him, but Sylvain knows better. Sylvain knows he wouldn’t fight in any war he didn’t care about, and so he tugs Yuri’s hand back, shaking his head.
“And you…?”
“I’m your friend, aren’t I?” Yuri miffs. Sylvain finds himself smiling despite everything, and shrugs.
“You don’t have to be. You could be something more.”
That makes Yuri laugh - and it was supposed to, an obvious line to cut the tension, and Yuri turns back to him finally, lavender hair falling over his shoulders. The mask is firmly in place again, the same one that rested there every time Sylvain had tried hitting on him in the past, but this time… well, this time, he seems a little more playful, as if excising his earlier vulnerabilities gave him more confidence.
“One of your conquests?” His voice goes high pitched and tinny, imitating some gaudy form of femininity, “Oh Sylvain, where is my fainting couch?”
Rather than grow frustrated by Yuri’s deflection as he often had, Sylvain finds himself charmed by it, now that he had gotten close enough to the truth that it scratched the surface of their interaction, still there in Yuri’s sly eyes like a once-folded page in a book.
“Darling,” Sylvain tries and gets an arm around Yuri’s waist, pulling him closer with a strength he didn’t know he had, “I could never conquer you.”
Wrapped in his arm, Yuri’s lashes flutter softly, his figure thin-boned and suddenly feeling all-too-delicate in Sylvain’s grasp. The old nickname, bird, suddenly makes more sense to him now, and Sylvain thinks for one fraught moment, that if he holds on too tight then he might snap his breakable limbs; too loose and he might simply fly away.
How then, could he keep him? How could he begin to pry back underneath his skin, to the heart of the man who cares so deeply, but shows it in crass speech and abrasive behavior? How could he hold this man in his arms, a captive, a possession, the only person who really sees him?
Why, he has to want to be there.
Maybe that’s what he’s been missing all this time. Maybe he’d been so preoccupied with trying to see what was underneath, of clipping Yuri’s wings and studying him, that he’d never bothered trying to make him comfortable at his feet. In his arms.
Yuri’s face is close to his now, all traces of teasing lost from his eyes. He watches Sylvain with soft breaths, uncertain, searching his face for something.
“Give me a reason,” he breathes, still in Sylvain’s grasp.
He has to want it. He has to feel at ease, comfortable, and Sylvain suddenly realizes - maybe the same is true for both of them. Maybe when he’d given up on Yuri all those years ago, he’d also in a way, given up on himself.
Sylvain could still get out of this with a joke. He might even be able to get out of this with a kiss, one that he doesn’t mean, one that might let him and Yuri tangle together a time or two, have a few fun romps before equilibrium returns and they go their separate ways.
Or…
He could pull this thread and see where it goes. If the key to unlocking Yuri’s vulnerability is to be vulnerable himself… well, he could do it. He could try.
Sylvain leans in then, kisses him without another word. The kiss is heartfelt, earnest, and when Yuri turns into it, raises his hands to Sylvain’s chest - careful of the bandages there - it’s clear that he understands.
They don’t go any further than that. Sylvain doesn’t push for it, isn’t even sure if he could do anything right now on his hospital bed, but when Yuri pulls away and licks at his lips as if to taste the last traces Sylvain has left on his mouth, he seems satisfied in a way that Sylvain feels deep in his gut.
“As reasons go,” he says slowly, gathering himself, “it’s a pretty bad one.”
Sylvain can’t help it, he laughs even though it pulls uncomfortably at his injuries and leaves him clutching at his side with a wince - but he still laughs in short, heavy exhalations through his nose.
“Wait ‘til I’m out of this hospital bed and I’ll give you something better.”
Yuri snickers as well, rolling his eyes like he’s exasperated and reaching up to ease Sylvain back, to make him lie down again so he can at least do some semblance of healing.
“I don’t sleep with suicidal idiots,” he finally says, glancing around for the blanket before tugging it up in some belated attempt at preserving Sylvain’s dignity and keeping him warm inside of the chilly medical tent.
“Then I guess I’ll,” Sylvain starts, and is interrupted by a yawn. Undeterred, he continues, “- guess I’ll have to live a long and healthy life.”
“Prove it,” comes the retort.
Sylvain smiles to himself, situating himself so he can be somewhat comfortable on the bed behind him, pleased at how this has gone. He can still taste Yuri on his lips and now that he knows what the other man feels like in his arms - well, some things are worth waiting for.
“I will.”