Chapter Text
The inside of Sylvain’s room was a mess of disheveled papers, pieces of charcoal, and dogeared books. Accented by the soft glow of a Saturday afternoon winding down and illuminating the everything in shades of pink-washed golds. Usually the clutter would bother Sylvain, he hates when his space is untidy, but he can’t bring himself to mind at the moment. Not when Ignatz is sprawled out in the center of the chaos, a quiet humming eye to the storm.
“I think it might be nice if we team up here,” Ignatz says while pointing to a map. “Claude wants us to pick the next town we go to, and I think this one is a mining town which might mean new weapons.”
The map is a fictional creation crafted by Ignatz and Claude. Claude had laid out a detailed, yet disorganized, world plan that stretched the limits of the country in their D&D campaign. Sylvain’s seen the original draft of it once. It was an abomination of every fantastical concept Claude could think to shove into a country with the deadly intent to match. It was nothing short of miraculous that Ignatz had managed to transform the stacks of tea ring-stained papers into something as comprehensive as the final project.
But it was Ignatz, so of course he could.
“That’s a cool idea and all, but what we went here instead?” Sylvain asks while tapping on a location far off from Ignatz’s suggestion.
Ignatz blinks, a surprised humor coloring his voice. “You want to go to the Circus Town?” he asks. He shakes his head, laughing quietly. “I mean of course you do. What would I expect?”
“Hey,” Sylvain defends himself. “I have my reasons! It’s about the character development.”
“The character development?”
“What better place could Simeon the con artist monk to confront his shadowy past than in a place of entertainment?”
Ignatz snickers into his hands. “Are you implying that Simeon was raised by clowns?”
“Well–“ Sylvain cuts himself off and thinks about it. “That’s not bad actually. That’d kinda make sense.”
“What about the church?” Ignatz asks. “He’s a monk!”
“Circuses can have churches too! Maybe his father was a lion’s tamer and a preacher. It happens.”
“If you say so, Sylvain,” Ignatz tells him in a way that’s supposed to come off as playfully dismissive, but there’s not enough bite in his statement even for that. He smiles cheerful at the pages laid in front of him, not thinking as he starts to doodle at the margins of masterfully crafted map. The shocking red of Simeon’s head comes into existence, but this time with a bright clown nose to match.
“Unless Idris has other plans?” Sylvain asks. It’s not entirely up to the two of them to decide where their small cavern will travel next. If Claude cares enough, he’ll Goddess-mode his way to where he wants them to go, though that exertion of control is rare for their amicable gamekeeper who really prefers to go with the flow. Bernadette, similarly, hates making decisions as to where to lead the party. She’s extremely worried that she’ll be their downfall, despite Claude’s repeated assurance that it doesn’t matter where they go, he’s going to find new ways to try and kill them either way.
“I think…” Ignatz answers finally. “I think Idris would just be excited to know more about Simeon and his home origins.”
He’s shy, pressing his glasses up the bridge of his nose while avoiding Sylvain’s eye. It’s an innocent expression that squeezes at Sylvain’s heart with recklessly.
“Is that okay?” Ignatz snaps him out of his thoughts.
Sylvain laughs, a bit embarrassed as well now that he’s aware that he’s staring. “I wasn’t serious about the raised by clowns thing,” he assures him.
“It’d make sense though!” Ignatz argues with surprising animation. “He’s a performer, right? Conning is performance, so, he’d have to learn it from somewhere. And then circuses aren’t always the safest places, which would explain why he has a hard time opening to others. And it’d even explain the basic magic he knows and the tacky clothes and–“
“Okay, okay, okay!” Sylvain threw his hands up in defeat. “You’ve convinced me! Simeon was the world’s shittiest mime who ran away from home to sell bibles and find true love.”
“True love?” Ignatz asks with his eyes sparkling.
“Yeah,” Sylvain affirms with a wicked grin. “Money.”
Ignatz sighs. “I thought it was going to be something romantic. A lost lover or a muse he’s chasing.”
“How does a mime have a muse? Does he just follow her around copying all her movements?” Sylvain asks. “Isn’t that just monkey see, monkey do?”
Ignatz crosses his hands over his heart. “Romance.”
Sylvain shakes his head and chuckles softly. He peeks over at Ignatz, who had gone back to scrawling a caricature of a mime next to the circus tent.
“It’s cute that you wrote meta for Simeon,” Sylvain tells him.
Ignatz startles, a bright blush overtaking his full body. “N-no I didn’t,” he defends himself. “It’s just obvious from how you play him.”
“And you think I play him as a con-artist who has a hard time opening up to others?”
“Well, yes?” Ignatz tilts his head, his glasses falling slightly askew as he squints at him as if he was stating the obvious. “Was that not on purpose?”
Trying to avoid the topic, Sylvain coughs into his hand and turns away. “Well,” he says pulling at his collar. “The artist’s mind is a wonderment, as they say.”
Ignatz nods in agreement. “Indeed.”
“Do I really come off as that two-faced?” he asks.
Ignatz shrugs. “I think you’re fine. A little scary at first,” he admits.
Sylvain laughs. He remembers how Ignatz flinched when Sylvain had approached him the first time with too much excited while asking him to join his and Claude’s D&D club. If being friends with Ignatz and Bernadette has taught him anything, it was how to tone it down.
“But you just seemed excited about playing,” Ignatz continued. “It was sweet… and nice. it’s nice to do things with people outside of the Golden Deer.”
The words of praise are hard for Sylvain to take in. He tries to brush it off as best he could, but even still, Ignatz admission fills his chest with a warm glow. “How could I not recruit your killer art skills to the squad?”
“Thank you, Sylvain. Seriously. This has been a lot of fun and just, well, thanks” Ignatz tells him while standing up and brushing off his trousers. “I really liked getting to have this time together.”
“You make it sound like you’re disappearing or something,” Sylvain sounds nervous at his own joke, as if Ignatz may actually evaporate into nothing.
Ignatz stares down at his hand, fiddling with his blunt nails and mulling something over. “Maybe,” he says. “Or something close.”
Sylvain blinks. “Okay, well now you’re scaring me. If there’s something wrong, or someone’s hurting you then I can–“
“No! Nothing like that!” Ignatz hands hover like nervous birds in the air as he tries to sort out what he’s trying to say. “Could you do me a favor and close your eyes?”
“Exciting, I like it,” Sylvain complies willingly. “Just don’t try and feed me something weird.”
“Why would I–never mind. Just. Just hold still.”
It’s quiet except for the shuffling of paper on the ground. Ignatz’s footsteps have only grown more silent as the professor has started his training, but if Sylvain strains his ears, he can hear the soft pad of feet carefully avoiding wet ink on paper. There’s the sound of quiet breathing, a hitch in each inhale that speaks of a deep held nervousness, and then the feeling of warmth far closer than Sylvain expects.
Small hands graze over Sylvain’s feature. They curve the turn of his jaw, connecting freckles, and sculpting the crooked line of Sylvain’s twice broken nose. Ignatz had once said he’d kill to draw Sylvain’s profile for that imperfection alone. Finally, his face is cupped. Soft locks of hair that are not his own tickles his skin as a held breath canvases Sylvain’s own. Like the silence of a snowfall, there’s little to indicate a kiss, aside for the brisk chill that’s pressed against Sylvain’s lips with unsure hesitance.
As if wanting to be sure that he had truly done it, Ignatz leans in once again. He captures Sylvain’s mouth with his own and holds still in the inexperienced manner those who’ve never kissed do so often.
And then he releases him.
Sylvain’s slow to open his eyes. Already Ignatz had taken several steps back, his hands safe behind him, and his teeth worrying at his lip.
“That’s all,” Ignatz says with a slight chatter in his speech. “Thank you.”
Sylvain brings his finger up to touch his bottom lip, but is unable to trace his own skin, in fear it’ll brush off whatever part of Ignatz remained.
“That’s one hell of a thank you,” he says.