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Quiet nights like these are kind of a mixed bag of feelings. Rean’s spent the last few crammed into Crow’s twin-sized dorm room bed, barely big enough to fit the two of them and the four pillows they have between them (two from Rean’s own room, currently going unused as anything other than a study). Even if he runs the risk of rolling onto the floor in the middle of the night, the small size of the bed is a boon in that it lets him lay so close to him that they’re practically on top of one another even when they aren’t fooling around. He has one of Crow’s arms pinned underneath his body and their fingers tangled together as he watches him peacefully through half-closed eyes. Mostly peacefully, at least. The “mixed” part is because the other side of this proverbial coin is less fun. Quiet nights like these leave a lot of room for dwelling on everything that’s happened in the past few days, as well as what’s yet to come.
Garrelia Fortress has been wiped off the map.
Every day is an anxious step into an uncertain future.
Even without saying it aloud, everyone knows that the Blood and Iron Chancellor is going to respond to the attack with plenty of his namesake. It’s just a matter of when.
The only thing that Rean knows for sure right now is that in just a few short days, Crow will be graduating, and he’ll have to go back to sleeping in his own bed alone. It won’t really be the end of their relationship--Crow has promised as such by agreeing to pay off the interest he owes him and also in more normal, honest words--but Crow won’t be living across the hall in Room 206 where Rean can pop in at practically any hour he wants and find him. The time they have left together is limited. Even if it means laying in silence with the weight of the world bearing down on them, he wants to make the most of it.
Crow can hide the fact that he’s feeling the pressure too with carefree smiles, open jackets, and loose ties, but stripped down to a tank top and shorts like he is right now Rean can see the tension wound up in his muscles like a tightly coiled spring as Crow lays still but awake, staring up at the dark ceiling with a blank expression. He looks so far away like this--like he’s already left his world behind. The thought puts a knot in his stomach so Rean tightens his grip on the other boy’s hand and moves a little closer; this motion uncoils the spring and Crow flips over to grab him, pulling him into his arms. He’s warmer than usual. Crow’s a physically affectionate guy, but there’s a degree of raw tenderness in how he’s holding him now that doesn’t come out very often.
Crow’s fingers are in Rean’s hair and Rean’s face is buried in his chest, and after a moment of savoring the closeness, Rean turns to break the silence. “What’s up?”
“Not much,” replies Crow mildly. “How about you?”
“No, I mean… What’s up with you?” Nice as it would be to stay the way that he is right now, Rean wriggles free just enough to be able to look at him. Crow’s all-too-casual look has come back to him, so any glimpse Rean might’ve gotten of that rare vulnerability is out of the question, but at least he doesn’t look far-gone anymore. He cocks a questioning eyebrow at Rean, so Rean elaborates. “You’ve been really zoned out.”
The older boy shrugs his shoulders, lightly bumping Rean’s ear in the process. “Eh. I was just thinking. Believe it or not, I do that occasionally.”
“Thinking about…?”
“About you.” Rean’s heart leaps but the touching moment doesn’t last. “And how you could probably get with any of the babes in our class if you tried to, but my room’s the one you’re sneaking into every night.” The older boy tuts and feigns disappointment. “You’re a lost cause, Rean Schwarzer. Youth is wasted on the young.”
The joke is dismissive in a weird way, especially now that the two of them are dating, but there’s a compliment mixed up in there somewhere so Rean lets it go. The fact that his partner’s dodging the question is more important than how he’s doing it. “Crow, I’m being serious.” As he sits up on his elbows he unpins Crow’s arm; Crow tucks the newly-freed hand behind his head, lounging in the face of the serious turn the conversation is taking against his best efforts. “You can talk to me about the things that are bothering you. I tried not to pry into your business too much when we were just ‘bros,’ but now I’m your…” It’s only been a few days. The word still feels soft on his tongue whenever he tries to say it. “Boyfriend. I want to be there for you.”
“In sickness and in health?” Rean’s cheeks flush; Crow grins. “Man, you move fast. I should’ve known it would come to this. You told me you loved me after, what, three days of us going out?”
“It seemed like the right thing to say…” Was it? He still feels new to the dating game. “I loved you for a long time before that.”
“You’re such a sap.”
“You remember saying it back immediately, right?”
There’s a little pause before Crow responds. “Yeah. I did.” And the tenderness Rean had been hoping to catch in Crow’s face comes back. Seeing it now makes him realize how rare it really is. It’s magnetic--drawn in, Rean leans over and kisses him, and misses him awkwardly from the positioning, he’s still getting the hang of it, but Crow corrects for his aim the second time. Crow looks a little more content as he lays back down once they part, and Rean can’t help himself before he plants one more peck on his forehead. And then one more after that. They’ve been more careful about doing this in public, but that just means the impulses have been getting saved up over the course of the day. Normally Crow reciprocates pretty enthusiastically, but right now he playfully pushes him off, palm flat against Rean’s forehead. “Okay, fine, you win. I can’t say no to that. I’ll let you in, boyfriend.”
He sounds defeated, but it’s still all in good fun. Kissing or talking, either way Rean’s satisfied, so Rean leans back and gives him a moment to gather his thoughts. Hopefully this time Crow won’t brush off what’s eating away at him like it’s about loose change or Rean’s nonexistent harem of doting women; even if he tries, Rean has no intention of letting it lie. Crow lapses into quiet and his gaze returns to the ceiling, the shadows of which seem to be settling over him as the moon outside slips behind a cloud or two. The room is plunged into a somber atmosphere, but at least in this kind of environment maybe he can expect an honest answer.
Crow does sound honest when he starts. “I’ve been thinking about my future…” he confesses, and then sighs. “Or lacktherof, I guess.” Now he shrugs. “I’ve got no real prospects. I don’t have the cash to get away with screwing around for a couple of years like Gelica, and no one’s chomping at the bit to have ole Crow on their payroll the way they are with Towa and George. Their mistake, if you ask me…” But as nonchalantly as he says this, he’s wilting into the mattress. “Not that I’ve been putting myself out there too much. I don’t know what I’d want to do even if I had prospects… What’s with the look?”
Look? Rean snaps out of his stunned silence to stammer out a quick apology. “Sorry, I was just a little surprised. ‘Crow Armbrust’ and ‘self-depreciation’ are two things I’ve never seen together before.”
This gets a frown out of Crow. “Hey man, you asked me to bare my heart and soul to you.”
“I know. I’m glad you are. I just…” It’s a little tough to put the feeling into words. “It caught me off-guard I guess. You’re always so confident.” The other boy shrugs again and withdraws.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have this conversation. I don’t want you thinking I’m soft or fragile or anything like that. I’ve got an image to maintain!”
“No, hang on.” Rean catches him by the shoulder and rolls him back over before he can turn to face the wall, and he kisses him again to keep him there. “I’m not trying to stop you. I don’t want you to keep this kind of stuff bottled up. Tell me about it, okay?”
But Crow is already retreating, mentally if not physically. He scratches at his neck and mutters under his breath, “I think you’re more worried about it than I am. It’s not a big deal.”
“Of course you have a future.” Rean forges ahead without bothering to argue and, unable to get a word in edgewise, Crow is forced to submit. “It’s normal for you to be worried about a big change like this, but you haven’t even hit twenty yet. Not everyone knows what they want to do as soon as they get out of school. I don’t have a clue what I’m going into after this.”
“Well, you’ve got a barony lined up.” That’s a very big ‘maybe,’ and Rean prepares to express that but Crow corrects himself. “So at least you’ve got a contingency plan. But you have a whole year to figure out something else if you want it. I’m pretty much living on borrowed time at this point, so far as planning for that kind of thing goes.” It’d sound dramatic if he hadn’t delivered it with an almost jaded coolness that makes the weird, anxious feeling from before creep back into the pit of Rean’s stomach.
He’d wondered a few times, Rean had, if Crow was nervous about graduating, but he’d mostly expected him to be worried that he might not get the chance. Instead he sounds almost afraid to go through with it now that he can, or maybe ‘afraid’ isn’t the word, not exactly…
“Well, I can tell you one thing,” Crow adds with a stretch that arches his back, pops a couple of vertebrae, and edges him out of the nihilistic turn he’d taken a moment before. “Unlike several of our equally lost, adrift pals stepping out into the world with absolutely no plans whatsoever, I’m definitely not headed into the Imperial army. No offense to our ‘benevolent emperor,’ but that’s not really my style.”
“I’d have a hard time picturing you adapting very well to the whole strict, no-nonsense military life.” Rean brushes some of Crow’s unruly hair off of his face indicatively.
Cutting his eyes up to Rean as his fingers touch his face, Crow gives him a half smile. “What can I say? I’m a rebel.”
“‘Rebel’ is a word for it.” Rean smiles back, and Crow laughs, but he doesn’t sound particularly amused. The sinking feeling grows deeper. Normally when he gives him a hard time Crow responds with either backtalk banter or joking defeatedness. Teasing doesn’t usually seem to get to him, not seriously. What’s on his mind must be weighing on him a lot more than he’s trying to let on… And now that Rean really thinks about it, he must have been harboring these feelings for a while. Even before the festival there were a few times where Rean had caught him sitting alone and looking uncharacteristically listless, staring out windows or shuffling cards for solitary, wager-free games, until he’d realized Rean was watching. Then the cheerful, charming Crow Armbrust would suddenly resurface and mask whatever it was he’d been thinking about before Rean had half a chance to ask, and he’d decided to leave it alone.
Not this time. Rean slides his fingers through his silver bangs and across his scalp. Petting is soothing, and it seems to do its job. While Crow’s eyes have been pointed at the wall since the remark about his ‘rebel’ status, his body starts to relax. Rean kisses him again, on the cheek this time, and Crow breathes a little puff of air out from his mouth to signal his forgiveness.
“Seriously, though,” Rean adds, “I’m glad you’re not going into the military for a few reasons.” Since he isn’t being pushed off, playfully or otherwise, Rean lays back down and drapes an arm across his partner’s chest. “You’re definitely a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield, but I don’t want you to get hurt.” He hugs him a little more securely as the events from the past few days begin to resurface in his mind. “We have no idea what’s going to happen with the military now.”
“We can probably guess.”
“That’s half the problem. When I think about how you could’ve been stationed at Garrelia, or some other fortress that could become the next Garrelia…” Before he can work himself up too much, Crow takes his hand and squeezes it, finally rolling his head over to look at him again.
“Don’t worry too much about it,” he says in a softer tone of voice. “I definitely feel you, though. All this shit with Garrelia makes the stuff we’ve been dealing with before now seem like a cakewalk, huh? Besides maybe the last time we had to deal with Garrelia.”
“Y… Yeah.” The hand-holding is a comfort that Rean appreciates--the problem has just morphed into two. Rean can still see the railway guns as clearly as if he were looking dead at them. He can still hear the explosion as they fired--blanks, but he had no way of knowing in the moment. All he could think about at the time was the amount of people in Crossbell that those impossible weapons had locked onto when they’d gone off, Towa, Prince Olivert, and Chancellor Osborne among them. And now Crossbell has something even more impossible and deadly effective--something that can not only compete with the railway guns, but destroy them so thoroughly that it’s like they were never there in the first place. What will that mean for Erebonia now? Are they going to war? Can they do anything but throw men and women at it, fully expectant that most of them won’t be coming home?
Crow’s fingers on his unwind and poke Rean in the cheek to get his attention back. “Yoo-hoo.” Rean shakes the invasive mental images out of his head. “You’re pulling my hair a little there.”
He quickly untucks his hand as Crow rolls onto his side, and now Crow is back to being the one spooning Rean. Now that he’s being held against him again, he can sense--almost feel--something sitting in Crow’s chest. It’s like his lungs and his throat keep coming to the brink of saying something before he swallows whatever it is down again. They wind up laying together in silence, but at least this time Crow’s closed the distance between them.
Then, finally, “Rean?” His voice is barely audible--it’s the sort of quiet question used to test if someone nearby is sleeping. Rean pulls enough away to make his own response obvious, and Crow tilts his head at him. “You ever wonder what happened to those guys?”
“What guys?”
“The Imperial Front or whatever they were called. I know one of them got killed, but what about the rest of them?”
“I think two of them got killed, actually.”
“Right. As per usual, you pay more attention than I do.”
“What do you mean, though?” He looks up at him, his brow furrowing as an idea he hadn’t considered before starts to take form. “You don’t think they had something to do with what happened to Garrelia, do you?”
“I don’t know about that. Maybe,” Crow replies with a non-committal hand-wave. “I was just thinking about them since the subject kind of came up. Whatever they were up to might’ve gone down with the ship that their leader was on, or it might not have.” The older boy scrunches up his nose. “That leader of theirs, huh. Talk about a colossal screw-up. Not only did he get knocked around by a bunch of kids, but he blew himself up, right?”
“I… yeah, I think so?” Despite being with their group when they went into the mines, Crow wasn’t actually there for the moment that C died, but even though Rean had watched it happen for himself even he can’t really say what went on. It all happened too fast to fully process. There was a ship, an explosion, and then nothing but the abyss. He squirms a bit as he halfway tries to make sense of it, and he realizes Crow is staring at him.
“You’re not scared of that guy, are you?”
“I mean, a little bit.” Whether Crow is surprised or not, it’s not an embarrassing thing to admit. “Most people our age don’t typically face off against criminal masterminds as often as we had to.”
“I guess you have a point,” Crow accepts with a sage nod, having lapsed back into his usual habits despite the weird subject matter. This topic is even darker than the one they’d been discussing earlier, but it doesn’t affect Crow directly, so it seems to be easier for him to talk about. “The ‘got beaten up by teenagers’ thing feels like it should knock the fear factor down a peg or two, but maybe not for the teenagers who had to deliver the beat-down.”
“Flattered as I am that you think that, I’m pretty sure we were the ones who got the beat-down,” Rean sighs. These aren’t pleasant memories. He uneasily rubs his upper arm, and the moment he pulls his hand away Crow lightly whaps the back of his own against the spot where Rean’s just was and comes out with something out of the blue.
“Here’s a thought experiment for you--if you could say anything to that guy, what would it be?”
What?
Rean sits up on his hands and turns toward him, perplexed. Where did that come from?
“Uh…”
Crow rises to match his baffled gaze. “Have you never thought about it? I’ve got a thing or two I’d like to say and I never even met the guy.” Squinting one eye, Crow takes imaginary aim at the dartboard across the room, miming as though he’s wielding his pistols and wisecracking at the phantom of the terrorist they are, for some reason, still talking about. “ Hey, asshole! Good try with that rockslide but it looks like you’re the one who’s about to get rocked. Pew!” Left hand. “ And this one’s for messing with my cute boyfriend! P-chew! ” Right hand. He blows smoke off of each barrel and gives Rean a wink. “Right?”
Rean… has no idea what to say to that. “... So you’re saying you’d take him on by yourself?”
Crow’s head hangs at the lukewarm response. “Come on, Rean, let me have this fantasy. And is that really all you have to say?”
“I just don’t get it. Are you trying to make this funny or something?”
“As funny as dangerous criminals can be.” The pretend pistols have been holstered; instead Crow’s hands clap down on Rean’s shoulders. “Maybe it’s in bad taste, but when everything sucks you just have to laugh about it. What else can you do? Wallow in despair?” He pats Rean’s cheek, then leaves his hand there to cup his face a little more gently. “Can you try to humor me?”
When he puts it like that it actually sounds kind of sweet. “Well…”
“Come on.” Crow lets him go and sits with his back against the wall, looking eager now that Rean is close to playing along. “Pretend I’m ‘C,’ and let me have it. Promise I won’t throw you around or anything like that, unless you want me to.” Another wink.
Rean’s response is instant and deadpan. “There’d be a pretty big difference between what I’d tell the real C, and what I’d tell you. If you were C you’d have a lot more to answer for.”
Crow’s hands shoot up in surrender. “Fair enough! I guess ‘being madly in love with the guy and also sleeping with him’ adds a few more notable layers to the scenario. Maybe don’t pretend I’m C, then. Just pretend C is alive, and you can say whatever you want to him without having to worry about any retaliation.” He leans forward with a spark dancing behind his eyes. “Every thought that went through your head whenever you had to deal with him, just let it all out. I wanna see you at your rawest.”
It’s been so long since Rean thought at length about C that he isn’t even sure he can remember anything that vividly. The bigger question is why Crow is so enthusiastic about him trying. “You really want me to just sit here and go off on an imaginary dead guy?”
“Yup.” Crow crosses his arms with an affirmative nod. “I think it’ll be a good way to work out some of your stress. You can’t direct your fear or anger about what’s going on at anything simple, so why not reroute it to something a little smaller that’s almost just as bad, but doesn’t matter anymore? The world might be outside your control, but you had a personal stake in the C thing, and he’s dead. That makes him the perfect target.” Crow’s face lights up cheerily and proudly as he finishes. “Pretty clever, right? You can shower me with compliments after you’re done.”
Leave it to Crow to make something so random sound so reasonable. He really is creative, and kind of brilliant, even if he slacks off so much that some people can’t tell. Rean’s still not sure if it’s a game he wants to play (Crow’s games, even the sensible ones, always come with a little bit of a risk), but Rean’s arms cross too and he finds himself tapping himself on the chin as he gives the question a little more consideration. What would he say to C?
“If that’s not enough to get you to indulge me, you can consider it the next natural step in my relentless corruption of your innocence. First I turned you gay, now I’m teaching you to speak ill of the dead.”
And now it’s gone just a little too far in the wrong direction. “The ‘next natural step’?” Rean sighs. “That actually makes it sound less helpful. And you didn’t ‘turn me gay’.”
“Lies. You said as much while we were cozying up in the festival tea house. I can, and will, quote you--hey!” He flinches at the light whap Rean gives him on the head. “Okay, whatever, just go back to the ‘stress relief’ thing. Either way, no more bottling things up in this bedroom. That’s the theme of the evening, as laid down by one Rean Schwarzer.” He tops it off with a smirk; that’s checkmate.
If they could sit down and have a conversation--if he could confront him in words and be totally honest without fear or inhibition, what would he say to C? He dredges up as many of the details of their encounters as he can and tries to concentrate on the things he’d felt while living through them. If he can remember the railway guns, he can remember the people who’d nearly fired them. It just takes a little effort. “Well…”
Comrade C, the leader of the Imperial Liberation Front. Enigmatic and inscrutable--when Rean had looked into his face, he had only seen his own reflection in the red glass of his helmet and the imagined glint of something sinister just beneath the surface. What could he possibly say to such a person, the kind of person that would risk so many lives and whom some people had willingly given their lives for?
After a moment of leaving Crow waiting on baited breath, he finally comes to something. “I think I’d just ask him to explain himself.”
The truth does not impress. “That’s it?” Crow asks flatly.
“Yeah. I don’t think yelling at him or calling him names would be worth it. If he couldn’t do anything to me, I’d just want to know why he did the things he did while he was alive.”
“No choice words for the terrorist you helped take down? No places that he could send himself to, or creative locations where he could stick that giant double saber thing he’s got?” Rean shakes his head. “You wouldn’t even give him the finger?”
“Maybe I’d do that,” he admits, “but as far as words go, if I had to face him again I’d just want to understand him.” Crow looks as though he might complain further, but he quiets down and leans back against the wall, watching and listening as Rean goes on. “I’d want to know how he became the person that he was--what it takes to drive somebody to hate someone so much that they’d risk so many lives just to threaten them, including the lives of the people he seems to be close with. I don’t get it.” As he thinks, he rubs the back of his neck and then falls back onto propping himself up with his hands. “Like that guy Gideon--he died in Crossbell, I think, while we were at Garrelia. Was his life worth whatever cause they were championing? If C himself knew he was going to die, would he have still gone through with it?”
“A guy like that probably knew the risks when he set out to achieve his goals,” Crow finally chimes in, leaning an arm on one of his knees and looking unusually serious. “People don’t typically go into terrorism under the assumption that it’ll be a smooth ride to an early retirement.”
“I guess not. Or what about the soldiers who died in Nord? Or all the people in Crossbell who would’ve been caught in the crossfire if the railway guns really had gone off?” He pauses here as a new thought occurs to him. It makes him antsy enough that he has to shift his weight to feel more comfortable. “Actually, what’s even stranger is that when all of that happened, the woman my field study group fought made it sound like C never intended for the railway guns to go off in the first place. And now that I think about it, no one in the mines ended up getting hurt besides C himself.”
“And almost me.”
“But not the hostages. They could’ve done whatever they wanted with them and there wouldn’t have been any way for us to stop them, but they all came out unscathed. Lives were lost in Nord, and I don’t know what his intentions were with Elise and Princess Alfin, but during two of his biggest schemes, it’s almost like… he was never planning to hurt anyone who wasn’t directly involved. Could that even be possible? I can’t work any of it out in my head.” That’s about much as he can put into words without talking himself in circles, so he looks back at Crow. “I guess that’s why I’m not a terrorist. That’s the truth, though. Whether I agreed with him or not, I’d just want to know why.”
“You just want to know why.” Crow repeats, his voice low and his expression strange. The tension he’d been holding in while thinking about his graduation is back, but so is the tenderness from when they had been holding each other. Rean isn’t sure how to interpret that either, at least until Crow closes his eyes and smiles in a way that, honestly, looks a little sad. “You always try to see the good in everyone. Even people who don’t deserve it.”
Rean suddenly feels sheepish--even moreso when Crow reaches across the bed and tugs him close enough for Crow to pat him affectionately on the head. From underneath his hand, Rean tries to make sense of his reaction. “Did you really take that incident in the mines that personally?”
“Hell yeah!” Instantly, Crow is back to normal. “C almost deprived the world of Crow Armbrust. That’s an unforgivable crime.” He punctuates this with a thump to his chest. Rean shakes his head, but he does feel a little more at ease--at this point, whether it’s masking inner turmoil or not, Crow’s ridiculous charm is a welcome relief to the somber conversation they’ve been having. Rean crawls over to nestle in beside the other boy. Even those few minutes sitting across from each other felt like a waste--this is how he’d rather spend their time. Not talking about war or terrorists, just hanging out close together, enjoying each other’s company. Crow’s arm winds around him to accept the affection, but he tones down the goofiness as he adds something else. “Seriously, though. Not everybody deserves a second chance or an understanding ear to talk to. Being that nice all the time could get you killed.”
“Maybe,” Rean admits. It’s reasonable advice. “But I don’t think I can change that about myself. I don’t really want to, either. I’m okay with always being headstrong and optimistic.” And since it’s been a few minutes since the last one, he kisses him. “But that means I’ll have to count on someone a little older and more experienced in the ways of the world to have my back. Know anyone who might fit that description?”
Rean can’t be sure if it’s from the kiss or the request, but Crow looks unexpectedly surprised despite the fact that they’re cuddling in his bed. For a split second his mouth hangs just barely open as he looks at Rean, but he quickly snaps it shut and hums in exaggerated contemptation. “I might know a guy…” he muses, then grins. “But he doesn’t come cheap.”
“Well, unfortunately you keep making off with my mira… Does he accept alternate forms of compensation?”
Crow’s eyes practically glitter. “Now you’re thinking like I’ve taught you to! What kind of ‘alternate compensation’ were you planning to run past him?”
“How about payment in kisses?” The moment he finishes the question Crow starts cracking up, but rather than wait to get an answer (or get called a dork), Rean pulls him in for a down payment. Teasing peckish ones to start, but these lead to longer, slower, heavier ones that leave them breathing the same hot air whenever their lips aren’t on each other. This is a much better use of the dark and the quiet than the doom and gloom they’ve been sitting in--this has been proven to Rean multiple times in a few different creative ways since he and Crow started going out, but it’s nice to be reminded again by Crow’s hands as they stroke his hair, then move to his waist. A little light tugging on his shirt is all it takes to get him crawling into Crow’s lap--well, into Crow’s arms. Crow suddenly breaks off the kissing entirely and instead rests his head in the crook of his neck, his long arms wrapping Rean up in a tight hug. It’s a little different from the mood they almost had going, but that’s just fine. Rean can appreciate this kind of quiet, loving intimacy just as much as the heated, awkward fumbling they were about to start on otherwise. He hugs him back as Crow’s grip tightens, then tightens even more until he’s squeezing him so hard that Rean can barely breathe. “Crow!” He rasps out a laugh. “I get it, Crow, come on!” The other boy finally lets up enough for Rean to catch his breath, but he doesn’t move from where he’s tucked himself into him.
“Geez, I love you.”
As he tries to restore his regular breathing rate, Rean gives him an appreciative pat on the back of his head. “I love you too, Crow.”
“I love you way too much.” Rean can picture the long-suffering look on his face as he kids around… or he could, but Crow’s tone of voice is humorless. The hugging is starting to feel more like clinging. The conversation about C must not have done as much for Crow as he was hoping it would do for Rean. “It’s crazy. I really can’t believe it.”
He maneuvers his body just enough to support Crow a little more comfortably. “I guess I threw a wrench in the whole ‘playboy ladies-man’ thing you were trying to pull off.”
“Heh. Pretty much.” He feels Crow’s fingers drumming against his shoulders as he seems to hang onto another thought before saying it out loud. “Just… don’t forget it, okay? No matter what crazy shit ends up happening in our lives in the next few months, I love you. Burn that into your mind.”
So it’s all looped back to the beginning. He had dodged the issue and tried to twist it into something else, but when Crow had said he was thinking of Rean, he’d really meant it. That must be why he’s worried about graduating--does he think he’s not good enough for him? No money, no prospects? The Ymir barony that Rean isn’t even sure he has the right to accept? None of that matters. “Crow…” The other boy doesn’t let go, so he leaves him there and kisses him softly on the temple. “I’m the last thing you need to worry about. I love you, too--that’s not going to change. No matter where we find ourselves, I’ll do whatever it takes to stay a part of your life,” he promises. “Don’t you forget it.” A little tremor passes through Crow’s body before Rean hears him exhale under his ear.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. We’re ‘partners in crime,’ buddies, fated soul-bonded companions and all that.”
“Boyfriends.”
“Definitely boyfriends.”
“And you owe me a lot of accrued interest,” he adds pointedly.
“I know! You little miser.” To the growing warmth of Rean’s heart, Crow starts snickering through his protests. They might not be able to settle all the things that are bothering him, but Rean can at least make him laugh. Sometimes that’s the best that can be done, isn’t it? “Hey, you know what?” Triggered by his newly-lifted spirits, Crow thumps Rean twice on the back with both hands and sits up, smile stretching from ear to ear. “I think I just solved all our problems!” Rean can only blink before he launches into the pitch. “I have to pay you back, I have to watch your back, and I need to figure out what to do with my life. I’ll just flunk my exams and do another year here at the academy! Three birds, one stone.” He waggles the appropriate number of fingers for emphasis. “That’s efficiency.”
“That’s a hard ‘no’,” Rean interrupts him firmly, but gently--when Crow’s smile fades he takes the older boy’s face in both hands. “You know you have to go through with this, Crow. Think about the amount of time and work you’ve put into getting this far.” He’s been transferred through three different classes and he’s almost gotten killed more times than that. Even if he spent most of his time gambling and playing around instead of doing his classwork, at this point Crow has more than earned his right to graduate. “You can’t give up on all of that just because of me.”
There is no immediate response. He couldn’t have seriously been considering it, could he? Rean tries to be soothing by stroking his cheek; finally, Crow breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth, and affects a small, soft smile. “Yeah. I know.”
He removes Rean’s hands from his face and scoots away from him so he can drop back into the pillows, where he goes back to looking at nothing in particular. It’s such an abrupt end to the conversation that it leaves Rean wondering if he actually made him feel better at all. Either way, talking about it any more will lead to him repeating himself, and that won’t be any more helpful than just letting Crow abandon the subject would be. He’ll cut him a break. Instead, Rean lays down beside him and snuggles close until his head is laying against Crow’s arm. He grabs a handful of blanket and tosses it over the both of them, then snakes his own arm around Crow’s body until they’re tangled together like they were before they’d started talking. The real convincing will have to come after graduation, when they’re actually put to the test, but Rean is firm in his convictions: Crow is going to remain a part of his life. He belongs there. He’s a little sad about the changes that will come, but he’s not worried.
Quietly, Crow mutters a final passing thought under his breath. “It sure would be nice if I could, though.”