Chapter Text
It felt like it had been so long since they’d gotten a chance to sleep in a real bed, instead of a sleeping bag or a cot, that Glenn couldn’t resist the urge to just— throw himself onto the bed as soon as they walked into the room.
He buried his face in the pillow, spreading his legs and arms as far as they would go, and completely ignored Miklan laughing at him in favour of melting into the mattress. It was much harder to ignore when Miklan reached out and smacked his ass hard enough to make a distinct THWACK sound.
In fact, he didn’t so much ignore it as he launched straight up and threw the pillow he’d shoved his face in right at Miklan’s big dumb head.
Miklan caught it, of course— the bastard. Glenn rolled his eyes at the grin Miklan gave him, and didn’t bother trying to block or catch the pillow when Miklan gently tossed it back at him.
“You’re gross,” Miklan said. “At least get washed up before you go rolling all over the bed.”
“You’re gross.” Admittedly, it wasn’t Glenn’s best comeback. But he was sure Miklan would forgive him.
“I’m not the one with blood all over my face. C’mon, bath time.”
Glenn rolled his eyes even harder, but Miklan was too busy stripping to make a snide comment about it. And then Glenn was too busy watching Miklan strip to continue being… Difficult.
When he was a kid, he never would have acted like this— something he didn’t normally think too much about, but being around Felix made him feel nostalgic, and he was yet to decide if that was good, or bad, or maybe a little bit of both.
Of course, he’d had a few… Moments when he was younger, and when he was joking and playing around with his friends, especially Miklan, he’d been pretty wild. But in general he’d been a lot more… Well-behaved, or what the nobility would consider well-behaved, anyway. Glenn personally thought they were all a stuck up bunch of idiots (perhaps excluding his father, who he’d never seen as stuck-up, just too caught up in his own world— and excluding King Lambert, who had always been bright and happy and not at all the stiff, formal man you would expect to be a king).
Glenn Fraldarius had been, for all intents and purposes, an ideal knight. Gentle spoken, attentive to his training, quietly complacent. The only person he’d ever spoken out against when it came to such things was his father, who always managed to somehow be both sympathetic and crushing at the same time.
When he’d asked him why he had to marry Ingrid, who had still been practically a baby at the time and so much younger than him that Glenn couldn’t even begin to imagine getting married to her, his father had looked sad— hadn’t told him not to ask questions like that or told him to just mindlessly obey, the way Margrave Gautier had always treated Miklan... at least, until he stopped caring about him and what he did at all.
But then Rodrigue had told him, “It’s simply the way things are, Glenn. You’ll understand when you’re older.”
To his credit, he was right about that— Glenn understood perfectly, now that he was older, and more importantly was away from all that nonsense. He understood that to the nobility, his own happiness, and Ingrid’s, didn’t matter at all— what mattered was continuing on the family line uninterrupted, passing down his Crest and his name and everything that came with it. Marriage was a political contract, binding families together for the sake of bloodlines and wealth and power. They had absolutely nothing to do with love… Especially if you were, like Glenn, a man with absolutely no interest in women.
After years of living with little more than the clothes on his back, going from job to job and village to village, Glenn wasn’t going to pretend that there weren’t benefits to being nobility. You had money and power, not having to worry about feeding yourself or clothing yourself or having everything taken from you in a moment, not unless you were outrageously unlucky, like Ingrid’s family. Glenn had spent too many nights going to bed with an empty stomach to think the average person was better off than the nobility, the way he had once thought.
Still, if he hadn’t given up his noble title and all of the trappings that came with it, taking off with Miklan into the night with as much stolen money and pawnable goods as they could carry on horseback, they never would have been able to be together. Relationships like theirs weren’t universally accepted even among the common folk, but the weren’t universally hated like they seemed to be with the nobility. They might get a few odd looks from some of the older clients or shop keepers they dealt with, or have to spell it out for an inn keeper on occasion that no, they didn’t need separate rooms or bed, but for the most part no one treated them differently from any other married couple. Which would have been… Unthinkable, if he’d stayed a noble.
Miklan wasn’t the only reason he’d run away, but damn if he wasn’t the best one.
He was so wrapped up in his thoughts— all of which had been in the back of his mind all day, but he didn’t have the breathing room to think about any of them until now— that he drifted completely out of touch with reality until something hit him square in the face.
That something turned out to be Miklan’s smalls, and before he could pretend to be disgusted at Miklan throwing his dirty underthings at him (they’d lived in a small tent together for more than a decade, he’d seen a lot worse) or throw them back, he caught a glimpse of Miklan’s bare ass disappearing into the adjacent washroom, and his brain stuttered pleasantly for a split second before he launched out of bed and followed.
Calling it a washroom was probably being pretty generous, but considering most of the time Glenn found himself bathing in rivers or, at best, with a bucket of heated water in the corner of a much more cramped inn room, having a separate room just for washing up was a pretty big luxury— one he intended to enjoy just as much as he was going to enjoy the bed.
Miklan was fiddling with the heating runes when he walked in, kicking off his own clothes as he followed him in. Despite the fact that he’d just thrown his dirty smallclothes at his face, Glenn decided to be a good husband— ugh— and give him a hand before he ended up embarrassing himself.
“You know you’re no good at that,” he said, all but smacking Miklan’s hands away from the runes. “Let me.”
No one said he had to be nice about it, though. And Miklan certainly didn’t bat an eye as he instead went to move the metal wash basin under the faucet in preparation.
Glenn was sore all over from the unexpected beating he’d received, which was pretty typical— they were mercenaries, after all, and he and Miklan weren’t exactly known for being well behaved even off the battlefield (Miklan always lectured him for getting into fights, as though he didn’t get into just as many, if not more, and Glenn always had to come to his rescue). Now that he didn’t have ten other things to focus on at once, his face was reminding him of that by throbbing painfully in time with his heartbeat. It wasn’t the only part of him that hurt, but it was the most obvious one.
He wished they had a real bath that he could just… sink into and soak all of those aches and pains away, but since this was already pretty cushy as far as bathing usually went for them, he wasn’t going to complain. At least they had fresh, hot water that he didn’t have to fumble with heating himself…
Once the rune was active and given a bit of time to heat up properly., Miklan turned the faucet and filled the basin to the brim with steaming hot water. Even just the steam suddenly flooding the small room was enough to make Glenn flop down bonelessly onto the washing stool and suddenly feel like he couldn’t stand up even if he wanted to.
Wordlessly, Miklan came over to him with a rag soaked in the steaming water, and a bar of a pungent herbal soap he must have gotten out of their bags while Glenn was too busy merging with the bed to pay attention. He lathered the soap between his hands and started gently massaging it into Glenn’s aching shoulders, which suddenly released so much tension that he was left practically spasming under his touch. Miklan didn’t comment.
“Washing my back for me? Cute.”
“I wash your back for you all the time. Ever since we were kids, remember?”
“You only ever did that because you wanted to see me naked.”
“Yeah, but I got really good at it, didn’t it?” He was still facing away from Miklan, but he could feel the smirk on his face as he pressed it up against the spot where his neck and shoulder met, just before he pressed a kiss there. “Just sit back and relax, babe. I’ve got you.”
“I thought this was supposed to be your birthday.” Glenn didn’t hesitate to do exactly what he said, though, relaxing back into Miklan’s big, calloused hands as they massaged his sore muscles. “Why am I the one being spoiled?”
“Just shut up and accept it,” Miklan grunted as he dug his fingers hard into a particularly nasty knot at the opposite junction of his neck and shoulder.
Glenn didn’t need to be told twice; he squirmed a little on the uncomfortable stool to get as comfortable as was possible, and settled in to let Miklan work his magic.
He’d joked earlier, but how many times had Miklan done this for him? And how many times had he done it for him in turn? Too many to count; all of the scars he had might as well be tally marks of the times Miklan had taken care of him, and vice versa.
Miklan finished with his back faster than he would have thought— or maybe he had just completely lost track of time, losing himself in the feeling of Miklan’s hands on him, massaging him and washing him at the same time, pressing kisses as he went and leaving the smell of the soap on his own skin stinging his nose, which was probably one of the few things actually keeping him awake.
He rounded to his front, paying careful attention to washing his arm. A joke about being on his knees for so long was on the tip of Glenn’s tongue when he reached up to gently run his thumb over the swollen part of his face, frowning.
Glenn laughed and reached out to poke the spot between Miklan’s eyebrows that always wrinkled up whenever he frowned. “You’re going to get wrinkles if you keep doing that. You look old enough as it is.”
“How did you manage to get these?” Miklan asked, gruff as ever, glazing right over his insult like he was more than used to it— which Glenn hoped he was, after so many years.
His smile faltered, but he reached out to comb his fingers through Miklan’s hair— it was long and unruly, to the point where it was probably about time to cut it, even though Miklan liked keeping his hair long just like Glenn. (Glenn’s looked good long, though— Miklan’s looked like a really angry bird had decided to nest in his hair, which was charming in its own way, but probably only to the guy who had abandoned his entire life to run off and marry him.)
“That bad, huh?” Miklan hadn’t even started washing yet, but his hair was already slightly damp from the steam, which let Glenn slick it back and away from his face. “Give it to me straight. Am I ever going to be beautiful again?”
“...You’ve looked worse,” Miklan said with a snort, tossing his head to ruin the good work Glenn had just done with his rat’s nest of a hairdo.
“Felix did it.” Glenn hadn’t meant to dodge the question, he’d only wanted to lighten the mood a little bit. “We were sparring, and things got a little… Heated. It’s fine, though.”
Miklan exhaled deeply through his nose. It was a noise Glenn was all too familar with— it was the sound of Miklan trying to rein in his temper, something he didn’t always succeed at, especially when it came to Glenn.
Usually he was in equal parts annoyed and— flattered— by Miklan’s protective instincts. He could be a serious hothead; they were both pretty guilty of that, although Miklan had a cooler head when it came to tactics, at least until his axe actually started swinging. If someone hurt Glenn, or even pissed him off, whether they were on or off the battlefield… Well, it tended to end poorly for that person, and admittedly despite his usual annoyance Glenn didn’t do much to stop him unless it looked like he was about to get his ass kicked.
It was… Nice, to have someone stick up for him like that. Whether it was facing down bandits with his sword in hand or dealing with jackasses in taverns who couldn’t keep their mouth shut about Glenn’s feminine looks, Miklan always had his back. There was nothing in the world that made him feel more secure.
And, against his better judgement, turned on. Watching a big, tough, handsome guy take a swing at someone for sullying your honour? Was never going to get old, even though Glenn wasn’t the delicate spring blossom the men who fucked with him thought he was, and he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself without the help.
Right now, though, considering the situation, Glenn was glad Miklan was reining in his usual response. He actually felt a little flare of annoyance at the fact that Miklan even had that kind of reaction when he knew it was Felix who caused it, because he knew exactly who he was going to side with if it came to that— regardless of the fact that his nose still felt tender and his face was definitely going to be swollen and purple for a while.
But he shoved that down quickly. Considering Miklan’s typical behaviour, it was normal for him to react like that, and the fact that he was trying hard to suppress his protective urges meant that he didn’t want to act on those urges any more than Glenn wanted him to.
“Guess your talk with Sylvain went a lot more smoothly, huh?” he half said and half asked, just to distract both of them before either of them felt the need to acknowledge any of that.
“Well, if we’re comparing it to getting punched in the face, then yeah. I’d say it went a lot better, for sure.”
Miklan hadn’t stopped touching the swollen part of his face the whole time, but where it was kind of cute at first, now Glenn just wanted to roll his eyes. Like Miklan had said, he’d looked a Hell of a lot worse in the past. He really didn’t need him getting all mopey about him getting hurt over something so trivial.
Glenn placed his hand over Miklan’s, moving it away from his bruises and over to his mouth so he could kiss his palm. Then, while Miklan was distracted by him doing that, he took him by the wrist and tugged him up— considering he had no leverage and Miklan was about twice his weight, it was really more of a gentle suggestion, but Miklan went along with it anyway.
He tugged Miklan up until they were in the perfect position for Glenn to put his arms around his neck and kiss him. It was deep, but slow and sweet— they had nowhere to be, all the time in the world, at least until morning.
And maybe it was kind of childish, since they had really only been apart for a few hours on and off, but he’d missed Miklan. It had been a pretty long, stressful day— he’d gotten punched in the face, he’d had to constantly worry about attracting the attention of the most elite fighting force in Fodlan because he was a merc who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he still felt like he was on decidedly shaky ground with Felix. Add to that the fact that he and Miklan had been very nearly glued at the hip for the better part of a decade and he felt like he was perfectly within his rights to be a little clingy, and anyone that had a problem with it could go to Hell.
Miklan was obviously not one of those people, because as soon as Glenn wrapped his arms around him and pulled him in for a kiss, Miklan’s hands went straight to Glenn’s waist as their chests pressed together. Their size difference was such that Miklan’s hands could almost touch around his waist— something Glenn would never not be horny about.
“C’mere,” he said, which he could tell confused Miklan because at the same time he said it he got up from the stool— then he urged him to his feet and guided him to sit on the stool in his place. “Let me return the favour…”
“Gonna wash my back?” Miklan asked, his grin softened by the way his eyes crinkled at the corners with genuine softness. His hands carded through Glenn’s hair the way he’d done for him, and it felt so nice that Glenn didn’t even care about the strong-smelling soap he still had on his hands, or the water that was dripping down his face afterwards.
He looked up at Miklan with half-lidded eyes as he went to his knees, tilting his head so it was leaning against Miklan’s knee. He pressed a kiss to the nearest bit of skin his mouth could reach, and he watched the way Miklan’s pupils expanded, choking out chocolate brown with deep black..
“Something like that,” he said, grinning, and nipped a love bite into his husband’s inner thigh. Just for good measure.
As far as bed partners went, Miklan was a pretty damn good one, as far as Glenn was concerned. At least, when he wasn’t tickling him awake at godawful hours of the morning…
Goddess, that felt like ages ago— it was hard to believe it had only been that morning that they’d been curled up together in their old, worn out tent, wondering whether they’d even be able to get in to see their brothers again after so long, and if they did, worrying about what would happen if they did… Or maybe that had just been Glenn and he was projecting a little too hard, but hey. They were married. If anyone was allowed to put words in Miklan’s mouth, it was him.
Right now, though, when Miklan was just as exhausted as he was instead of making himself a pain in the ass in the early morning, it felt pretty damn perfect. The two of them lying in a bed together (that did a much better job of holding two grown men than a single bedroll, not that Glenn would ever admit that, because he was usually the one badgering Miklan to sleep with him), curled up so Miklan’s barrel chest was pressed against his back, the heat that radiated off of him like a furnace soothing the aches in Glenn’s muscles just as well as the hot water from the bath had.
He could feel Miklan’s dry, cracked lips on the back of his head— not kissing, not quite, just resting there so he could do so at a moment’s notice, which he no doubt would. Miklan had never been able to keep his hands, mouth, or anything else off of him— in fact, one of his hands, big and broad, was resting on Glenn’s hip and rubbing comforting little circles there, occasionally stopping to drag his finger along a scar he had gotten when a particularly lucky bandit had managed to break his defensive stance and glance him with his axe.
Miklan’s other hand was laced with his own, tucked under their heads; they would have to move before they fell asleep or they would both wake up with numb hands and arms, but for now it was nice. Miklan gave his hand a little squeeze every so often— not a big, purposeful squeeze, like he might do if he was trying to get Glenn’s attention or comfort him in a particularly stressful situation, but little almost subconscious flexes of his fingers. That, combined with the way Miklan occasionally huffed through his nose…
“I can hear you thinking,” Glenn said, and it was only half a joke.
“Hm? Oh, it’s…” He could tell that the next word that had been about to roll off his tongue was ‘nothing’, but obviously Miklan decided against it. Which Glenn was glad for, because he didn’t like when Miklan was lying to him— even those small, automatic lies that he didn’t even know were lies until he’d already said them. “Sylvain… Suggested something while we were walking back from the Monastery. I’m just… Thinking about it.”
“Sounds like story time.” He didn’t quite have the energy— or the motivation— to roll all the way over, but he craned his neck enough that he could actually see Miklan’s face, even if it was only a sliver.
Miklan had other ideas, turning so he wasn’t looking directly at him like he was— what, embarrassed? Glenn snorted and gave in, rolling over so they were face to face instead of front to back, having to shift around to make himself comfortable again.
Their hands stayed linked the entire time.
“Promise not to call me stupid?” Miklan tried to grin at him, but instead of his usual cocky, lopsided grin that always made him look even more roguish and punchable, it looked wavering and uncertain.
Twelve years was a long time to get to know someone inside and out.
“I make no such promises,” Glenn said. “C’mon, Mik. You should know me better than that.”
“Yeah, I guess I should.” Miklan snorted out a laugh and reached up with the hand that had been rubbing pleasant circles in Glenn’s hip to card it through his own hair, which was still damp and clinging in waves instead of sticking up in every possible direction, like it usually did.
He sighed, took a moment to collect himself. Glenn let him. If it was bothering Miklan this much, he knew it had to be something important, and no matter how much of an asshole he could be sometimes— and really, Miklan brought out the worst in him just as much as he brought out the best— he wasn’t that sort of man.
“Sylvain had… An idea. I’m still trying to figure out if it’s a good one or not. Guess I could use a second opinion.” Then, like he was steeling himself for a terrible response, he took a deep breath before continuing with, “The mission that his class is going on… Some idiots thought it would be a good idea to steal the Lance of Ruin from my family’s estate and hold it for ransom, and they’re being sent to get it back. Sylvain wants me to go with him, if we can get it squared away with his teacher.”
“With Sylvain and Felix’s class.”
“Uh-huh.”
“To get back the Lance of Ruin.”
“Yep.”
“For the Margrave.”
“Glenn—”
“Sorry.” He felt almost compelled to stick his hands up in front of him, as a universal sign of ‘no harm intended’. “Didn’t mean to interrupt. Just… Wanted to make sure I’d heard all that right.”
“You think it’s a stupid idea, don’t you?”
“What gave you that impression?” The sarcasm was dripping heavily from his voice, but when Miklan’s face fell— his eyebrows scrunching up in the middle again, like they had been when he was looking at his injuries in the bathroom— he couldn’t help but soften and reach up to touch Miklan’s face in turn, his fingertips mapping out the edges of the scar that ran across his face like he’d done hundreds of times before. Miklan always seemed to take pride in it; he’d gotten it saving a Duscur boy from some thugs, so Glenn could see why he did, even if he always made dumb comments about it making him seem more ‘rugged’ and ‘intimidating’.
That didn’t mean he had to like it, though. He didn’t like any of Miklan’s scars. Even the smallest nicks and scratches were reminders of times Miklan had gotten hurt— and the bigger ones were reminders of times when he could have lost him. Every single one of them made Glenn’s blood freeze or boil, depending on how he felt at the time.
There was one little scar in particular that he hated the most, though— the big scar on Miklan’s face might have been the largest and most notable one he had, but if Glenn followed it with his eyes— and his hands—
There. Right below his lip. Glenn dragged the pad of his thumb across the corner of Miklan’s mouth, feeling his husband smirk and snort out something like a laugh against his touch, even though Glenn didn’t know what was so funny. The laughter, if it could even be called that, stopped as soon as he touched the small scar that ran from just below his lip, down his chin, and across his jaw…
Miklan didn’t talk about that scar. Glenn had dragged it out of him once, when they’d been young and stupid and drunk on both the thrill of having finally left their old lives behind them, and on the vinegar-y gritty wine they’d bought with their scraped together earnings— not the whole story, which he didn’t know even twelve years down the line, but the fact that it had been his own father who had given it to him.
Glenn had always respected Miklan’s decision not to tell him the whole story— not only because they were friends, lovers, and family, but because he was pretty sure if he ever heard the entire thing he wouldn’t be able to resist storming Gautier territory to punch the Margrave right in the face, at the very least.
Just looking at it, though, was enough to make Glenn’s stomach turn. He was sure Miklan hated his own father more then Glenn did, but Glenn was pretty sure it was a damn near thing. After all, Miklan had almost… Come to terms with how much of a shithead his father was. It was probably healthier for him to leave behind his anger and hate in the long run. Glenn had seen sprinklings of what anger could have done to Miklan, in their younger days, before they’d even run away together.
But he would gladly hold onto that anger for him forever, until he needed it.
Glenn gently stroked the scar over and over again with the pad of his thumb, not looking Miklan in the eye but instead looking at his lips.
“Mm.” He made a non-committal noise, eyes flicking up just briefly to see the look on Miklan’s face— which was both worried and hopeful.
Damn him.
“Convince me,” he said, finally daring to look Miklan in the eye again, knowing that doing so meant he wasn’t going to be able to go against a damn thing he said, no matter how stupid he was.
Not that he would have said no to begin with; he would do anything for Miklan. Had proved that pretty spectacularly when he’d ridden off into the night with him, leaving everything he’d ever known behind when it was pretty likely they would end up either arrested or dead in a ditch somewhere before they made it very far.
Sometimes, he just liked to make Miklan fight for it— especially when his heart was leading his head, like it was now. So he could see exactly what he was asking Glenn to agree to, and give him a chance to really think it over with the tactical brain Glenn knew he had.
This time, though, he had a strange feeling that no amount of common sense was going to convince Miklan this wasn’t a good idea— Miklan already knew it wasn’t a good idea, he’d just decided it was worth doing anyway.
“I don’t give a shit about the Margrave or the stupid Lance,” Miklan said, as though Glenn needed to be told that. “In fact, it serves him right for losing the damn thing in the first place, to a bunch of bandits. But I don’t care how strong or talented that professor of his is, I don’t like the idea of Sylvain going up against a bunch of idiots who got their hands on a Hero’s Relic. You don’t have to be smart or talented to be dangerous with one of those things.”
Glenn understood. He understood it all too well. He’d been groomed to eventually take his family’s own Heroes’ Relic which, even while not being a weapon, was dangerous in its own right. He’d heard the lectures, and he’d seen King Lambert wielding Areadbhar— proving how dangerous a Heroes’ Relic could be, even in the right hands.
“I don’t like the idea either,” he admitted. After all, it wasn’t just Sylvain who would be going up against someone wielding something so dangerous— It was Felix’s mission just as much as Sylvain’s. “But something like that… You know your father will be watching how things play out closely. If we want to stay under his radar, that’s the last thing we should be doing. And as much as I want to help our brothers, I… I don’t want to do that if it means putting you at risk like that.”
It was the same kind of selfishness that had made Glenn pack up and leave Felix behind to clean up his mess and shoulder his family’s burden… He’d picked Miklan over Felix back then, too, and no matter how guilty he might feel now, he didn’t regret it. Would never regret it.
Felix and Sylvain had other people they could rely on. Glenn and Miklan only had each other.
“But,” he said with a sigh, and he practically felt the tension rush out of Miklan’s body. “If it’s really what you want to do, even knowing that? You know damn well I’ll stand by you no matter what. I just want you to be absolutely sure.”
He would walk directly into Hell for Miklan, after all… And walking directly into Margrave Gautier’s hands felt pretty much like that, but even though he would rather trust Felix and his classmates to be able to handle the situation on their own than take a risk like that, he wouldn’t ask the same of Miklan.
Miklan had abandoned Sylvain for him once. He wasn’t going to ask him to do it again.
Suddenly, Glenn found himself being pulled into a tight embrace, his face being crushed against Miklan’s breastbone. One of Miklan’s massive hands was on the back of his head, stroking his hair like he was comforting a child, but all Glenn could focus on was the heat, and the scent— Miklan always radiated a comforting warmth, like sitting next to a well-stoked hearth after coming in from the cold in the dead of winter, and underneath even the pungently clean smell of the soap he could still smell Miklan’s natural musk, a sort of spicy smell that had always reminded him of getting his head into the pantry as a kid where the cooks would keep their dried herbs and spices…
He buried his face further into Miklan’s chest, unashamed by his clingy nuzzling even as his arms circled around Miklan— with no small amount of squirming— and he kept his hands pressed into his shoulderblades, keeping him close, rough nails digging into his back…
(Okay, so maybe Glenn did like a few of Miklan’s scars— namely the little, barely noticeable white lines down the length of his back, left by Glenn’s own fingernails…)
The warmth and smell blanketing him, combined with the exhaustion from the day, left Glenn feeling almost dizzy. He could have fallen asleep, peacefully, just like that— except for the bitter gnawing in the pit of his stomach, the bad feeling that he couldn’t quite shake no matter how much he told himself that all of his thoughts were the worst case scenario.
It was just paranoia, being overly cautious— if Margrave Gautier got his smallclothes in a twist about Miklan being around Sylvain, they could just leave. It wasn’t like they were at his mercy… They had run from him once and all they had gotten was a bitter reminder of how little he had ever cared about Miklan, more enraged at what he had taken with him and how he had “embarrassed” him by taking off with Glenn...
And still, no matter how much he tried to tell himself that, the feeling persisted.
“I could go,” he suggested, mumbling directly into Miklan’s skin. The hand petting the back of his hair stopped. It was embarrassing, the way he almost whined for its loss. He needed the small comfort. “You know I won’t let anything happen to Sylvain. It doesn’t have to be you.”
Miklan rumbled a laugh directly into his ear, and Glenn felt it through his entire body. Much as he wanted to just melt against him and let all of his worries drift away, he pulled back to give him a harsh look and ask what was so funny— but the hand that had been gently stroking his hair instead gripped it tightly and used it to keep Glenn exactly where he was.
“So instead of me worrying about Sylvain running off to fight an idiot with a Hero’s Relic, you want me to worry about both of you doing it?” he asked, and when Miklan said it like that, Glenn felt ridiculous— but he dealt with that by digging his nails in even harder, making Miklan’s breath hitch on a wince.
“I’m just… Worried.” That was putting it mildly, but Glenn didn’t know what else he was supposed to say. There was something more to it than just worrying about the Margrave. Something else he couldn’t put his finger on, but which was making his stomach dance nervously…
Glenn was a practical man, not prone to being superstitious, except for one or two little harmless things— he didn’t like taking off his wedding ring unless he had to because he considered it both a good luck charm and a reminder of what kept him going, for example, and he preferred constantly having the same sword repaired over and over again to just getting a new one even if it cost just as much because it was hard for him to trust a weapon to keep him safe until it had proven itself to him, and then hard to part with one once it did.
Now, though… There was nothing he could say to explain with absolute certainty why he was so nervous. He hated it. If he said as much, he was sure Miklan wouldn’t make fun of him— not anymore than he usually did, at least— but he still couldn’t force himself to.
Instead he just buried his face further into Miklan’s chest until he could feel his voice just as much as he could hear it when he said, “If you tell me not to go, I won’t.”
“You know I won’t.”
“We’re in this together, or not at all. Until the very end, right? I’m not going to drag you into something unless you’re sure about it.”
“You think I don’t want to help Felix just as much as you want to help Sylvain?” Even though Miklan had a tight grip on him, Glenn fought it enough to tilt his chin up so he was looking Miklan in the eye instead of staring at his clavicle. “If this is what you want, we’re in this together. Until the very end, just like you said.”
“Glenn…”
“Don’t ‘Glenn’ me. I knew what I was getting into when I ran away, and when I married you. What makes you think this is any different?”
Another rumbling laugh that Glenn felt to his very core.
“Guess you’re right,” Miklan said, and Glenn instantly felt warmed by the smile on his face, even though he was at a terrible angle to see it properly. There was still a glitter of uncertainty in his deep brown-gold eyes, but he also looked a lot more relaxed— like he wasn’t just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Glenn could have stared at him all night— it wouldn’t have been the first time— but Miklan pushed him back into his chest so he could kiss the top of his head. Glenn was embarrassed by the little half-whimper that came out of his throat.
No one looking at Miklan for the first— over six feet tall and built like a wall, already starting to fill out around the middle in the way that was typical of all Gautier men if his father was any indication but still muscle on more muscle, his default expression a scowl and the jagged scar across his face giving him a mean and intimidating look even when he wasn’t scowling— would ever think of him as gentle, or tender.
All of them would be wrong, and Glenn knew better than anyone exactly how wrong they would be.
He had never met anyone in his life more gentle or tender than Miklan— when he wanted to be, of course. Not to mention anyone more fiercely protective of the things he loved. Glenn was honoured to be counted among that number, but it was also… Overwhelming, at times. No one had ever treated him so softly… Not his father, who was a good father as far as the noble of Faerghus went but would still always love his duty to king and crown more than he loved his family, and not his mother, though he could remember very little of what she was like before the plague had taken her.
The idea of losing that— of not waking up to being tickled awake, lips pressing against his forehead or the back of his neck, surrounded by that comforting spicy scent— was unthinkable. The ring he wore on his finger was a symbol of that promise, their promise to always support each other, to protect each other, to keep each other close and safe.
Glenn wasn’t about to break that promise, or let anyone or anything else get in the way of it.
“Of course, it might all be pointless,” Miklan said with a laugh— not that comforting rumble, but a humourless snort. “If that teacher can’t get us permission to travel with them, I’m not about to fuck around with the Knights of Seiros on top of everything else.”
“We’re not going to leave them,” Glenn said, as much a comfort for himself as for Miklan.
Both of them had been punishing themselves for so long for what they had done, no matter how much each of them tried to reassure the other. He didn’t know what was going to come next— and he certainly didn’t know what they were going to do when their brothers’ year at the Officer’s Academy was finished and they had to go back to Faerghus, back to the families Miklan and Glenn had turned their backs on and run away from for so long. But what he did know was that the two of them had always been good at fighting… Whether that was swinging a sword, spitting an insult, or grinding their heels on the traditions that had dominated their lives from birth.
Glenn knew he wouldn’t give Felix up again without a fight. He was sure, without a doubt, that the same was true of Miklan. And if it was a fight, they would come out on top. He had to believe that.
He also got the strong impression that the two of them being able to join Felix and Sylvain wouldn’t be a problem. He thought about their Professor— Byleth, the daughter of the infamous Jeralt the Blade Breaker, with eyes that sent shivers up Glenn’s spine and made him feel like he was being read like an open book. About how quick she had been to figure out who he was, and had been equally quick to shove him at Felix, even when he’d been uncertain about whether that was the right thing to do. Was her intuition just that good, or did she know more than she was letting on? Felix and Sylvain had seemed so sure that she would be able to solve the problem for them…
Of course, he wasn’t going to get any answers then and there. They would go and meet with their brothers’ professor the next day, hopefully to get some good news— although whether Glenn thought of it was good news was debatable now that he knew what kind of mission they were signing themselves up for. Still, he would be able to keep the promise he’d made to Felix about not going anywhere. And as long as Glenn was living and breathing, he wouldn’t let the Margrave or anything else come between him and Miklan…
That was the thought, the conviction he held onto with a vice grip as he let himself relax into Miklan’s chest, focusing on the sensation of Miklan’s lips on the crown of his head and his hand going back to petting his hair, rather than all of the thoughts bouncing around his head. They were together— they had found their brothers again, and their brothers wanted them in their lives, even if that was still on uncertain ground. It had been more than Glenn had ever hoped for when he’d suggested the visit to Miklan— more than he’d ever dared to hope for, knowing he didn’t deserve it.
There were still so many things that were uncertain, but as he let the exhaustion wash over him, the combination of it and Miklan’s comforting presence smothering his doubt, Glenn knew two things without a doubt:
He loved Miklan Gautier, and as long as the two of them were together, they would be alright.