Archive of Our Own ^beta

This at least gave Ferdinand the few moments he needed to pick his jaw off the ground. Hubert's gaze, when it shifted to catch Ferdinand's eyes, was less confident than his tone had been.

"I see," Ferdinand said. That these two words were merely a conversational placeholder until he could gather his wits again seemed to elude Hubert for the moment. The man looked even less about his wits than Ferdinand felt, and if it had not been for the measure of their long acquaintance, and for the deepening of their friendship over the long grueling war that was now behind them, Ferdinand would not have been able to detect just how profoundly ill at ease Hubert truly was.

Hubert fidgeted with the cuffs of his coat, though he did so with sharp decisive gestures that a more casual onlooker would not have identified as nervousness.

"It would be a wise union on several points," Hubert continued. "Edelgard believes it would benefit the Empire to have the Professor folded into a trusted household such as Vestra."

"Of course she does," Ferdinand said faintly. Of course he asked Edelgard about this. Of course he'd care for her opinion foremost. Why, then, did Hubert sound as though he was justifying himself to Ferdinand? The decision was all but made. Could Hubert possibly know about Ferdinand's own intentions? "You plan to propose soon, then?"

"Today," Hubert replied.

"When did you even have time to get a ring?" Ferdinand wondered, and his fingers flexed involuntarily as he stopped his hand from going to his breast pocket. 

"I..." Hubert's voice trailed off into embarrassed silence. His lips pressed together.

"Hubert!" Ferdinand couldn't help the note of horror in his voice.

Hubert laughed darkly.

"It will not do to raise expectations quite so high," Hubert said. "She's under no obligation to accept, after all."

Ferdinand, on the other hand, nearly tore his hair out in frustration. This infuriating man--! How could he have timed it better? Or worse, for that matter? If Ferdinand had had just a few minutes' good luck in catching the Professor alone, he would have made his own proposal already. He would have known if--

Did Ferdinand want Hubert to be turned down? It would mean a chance to propose to her himself, and yet... for the Professor to treat Hubert so cruelly, Ferdinand felt that surely his affections for her would suffer a blow. Ambivalence churned in him like tides pulling him in different directions. Would that he never knew of Hubert's plans.

"I must be off," Hubert said, his words cutting through Ferdinand's thoughts like a hot knife, and pulling him from his emotional spiraling back to the very real present.

"Wait," Ferdinand stopped him, and reached into his pocket to remove the small black velvet bag therein. "You will need this more than I."

Hubert's brows pulled together in a stitch of confusion as he accepted the small bag, and then rose in surprise as he felt the object inside. The ring Ferdinand had so agonized over, and that would end up presented to the Professor by one means or another.

"Ferdinand--"

"Take it, my friend," Ferdinand interrupted, placing a hand on Hubert's shoulder. There was so much gravity in the gesture, that Hubert was rendered speechless. "She is a woman deserving of a proper ring, even if you believe there is no hope."

Now that ring sat on the Countess von Vestra's finger, glinting to catch Ferdinand's eye every time she raised the teacup to her lips.

She was a different creature now than she had been back in her Professor days. Even different from how she'd been upon her return from her five year disappearance. She had traded in her lacy tights and black shorts for sensible riding boots and well-tailored trousers; her armor for a waistcoat bedecked in silver chains and little engraved buttons; her coat for--well, a similar coat, but obviously made by a court tailor. Subtle embroidery was picked out in dark thread along the hems of the black coat, showing the silhouettes of birds in flight at careful inspection. 

She was not quite the kind of person who followed the whims of fashion, but either life at court or life with Hubert had altered her sense of dress to something more... somber. These days, she also tended to pin her hair up. It suited her in ways Ferdinand would not have guessed.

But it also made him wonder how long her hair had gotten, and he vividly imagined pulling it loose so he could sink his hands into it. Impermissible thoughts to have about a married woman. Downright galling to think about a friend's wife.

He was so violently attempting not to think these thoughts, that he had somehow missed a question sent his way. He was brought back to the reality of the parlor by the clink of porcelain.

"Are you well, Ferdinand?" Hubert asked, eyes half-lidded and a smile curling up the corner of his lips. He'd had this look on his face since getting married, like a self-satisfied cat basking in a beam of sunlight. Ferdinand would have hated it, if he did not also think it suited Hubert; happiness made him more handsome by half.

"I am very well, thank you," Ferdinand replied. "Just distracted. I apologize."

Hubert's head tilted, and his scrutiny grew sharp enough that Ferdinand could almost feel it cut him. He thought he bore it admirably, Ferdinand thought, except for the fact that this was only a distraction so that the Professor could flank him. She put her cup aside and rose from her seat to move onto the sofa, next to Ferdinand. He made the effort not to stiffen up, but the way she leaned close and inspected his face had him pinned in place like a butterfly to a board.

"Are you tired, Ferdinand?" she asked. Her voice was soft, but there was still something about her serious demeanor that had him feeling like a schoolboy wanting to give the correct answer.

"Only a little bit," he said, the half truth behind which he could hide his sleepless nights. It did not please him to lie, but it would have pleased the von Vestras even less to reveal that they were what kept him up more times than not.

After a moment more of quietly observing him, the Professor accepted this answer and nodded.

"Please don't overwork yourself," she said, placing a hand on his upper arm. "I only just had to have this conversation with someone else prone to neglecting himself."

She turned her head to Hubert, pointedly, and Hubert's cheeks flushed pink as he tried to retain his dignity by hiding his face behind his cup.

"Wife, don't cosset the man," Hubert muttered. It sounded more teasing than chiding, however, and the Professor made a face that wasn't quite smiling, just a slight crinkling at the corner of her eyes that implied mirth under her serious facade.

"If I don't, who else will?" the Professor replied, and turned her gentle eyes back to Ferdinand. He almost flinched to notice that her hand was still on his arm, palm flat against his bicep. The warmth of it had reached Ferdinand's skin even through the thick material of his coat, and now he feared the chill that its removal would bring as strongly as one might fear a hard winter after the forgiving summer.

They were good for each other, Ferdinand admitted to himself. Neither were expressive individuals to begin with, even though the Professor had gotten a lot more demonstrative with time. But to know how restrained they both were made every gesture of affection between them seem all the more amplified. Ferdinand was perhaps likely to see them in less guarded moments, being in their confidence as much as anyone could claim to be, but sometimes he would pass them through palace hallways, or see them across a room, and his heart would flutter at the sight of them standing shoulder to shoulder, or with their heads close together as they discussed some matter.

Something deeper in his chest ached deliciously when he'd catch glimpse of Hubert and the Professor exchanging small touches--on the hands, the arms, a lingering look when they were in public and couldn't risk a display. Once, Ferdinand had come round a corner to the sight of Hubert kissing his wife's hand as gallantly as a fresh suitor at first courtship. She blushed bright red, and Ferdinand had felt a vast maw of warmth open in his chest, bursting with affection for the both of them. They'd all three acted awkward in the wake of Ferdinand being witness to it, but despite that, Ferdinand would never let go of that image in his mind.

It was what made it all bearable to Ferdinand--that his most beloved friends were such sources of joy for each other filled him with vicarious happiness on their behalf.

It was a windy day when Ferdinand rode into Enbarr that day. Having been summoned by an urgent missive while in Aegir, and then crossing paths with another message just as he was rushing back, he abandoned the carriage as too slow and stormed into Enbarr on horseback.

He must have made quite a sight, windblown and dusty from the road, but luckily he was saved from making a panicked dash through the Imperial Palace by the Professor meeting him in the courtyard.

"We're sorry to have alarmed you," the Professor explained. "The entire thing has already blown over."

Ferdinand huffed as he allowed his horse to be taken away, but did not immediately launch into questions out there in the open. He fell into step next to the Professor as she led him through the courtyard and towards one of the more discreet entrances.

"I should have been here regardless," Ferdinand argued. "I was needed."

"You were needed in Aegir, as well," the Professor said. "We debated whether to call you back at all."

"Oh." Ferdinand tried not to sound overly disappointed by this apparent lack of faith. Hiding his feelings had never come as naturally to him as it did to others, no matter how much he had had to learn for the sake of politics. But in this case, he wished he could at least conceal the depths of his disappointment.

The Professor bumped her shoulder against his as they walked.

"Not because we didn't think you should be here," she said, clearly having a direct line to his thoughts. It made Ferdinand blush for what else she might see when she looked at him. "But we did suspect we'd be able to resolve the situation before you'd even had time to return, in which case sending for you would only be disruptive to your work in Aegir."

"I appreciate the sentiment, but the Prime Minister's office takes precedence in any emergency situation!" Ferdinand argued. 

The wind whipped viciously, and sent his own hair flying into his face just as he was about to make an impassioned point. He bit back a curse as he swept his long mane of strawberry blond over his shoulder, blinking his eyes open again to see the Professor giving him a very small smile. Her coat also fluttered mercilessly in the gusting wind, but her hair was safely pinned in place--with concrete, judging by how not a hair was loose. Ferdinand tried not to look too jealous.

"What I mean to say, is that as Prime Minister--" The wind picked up again unexpectedly, with a sharp change in direction that sent his hair whipping right back into his face.

This time he heard the tinkle of a laugh before he brushed the troublesome locks out of his face, and the Professor had a hand to her mouth when it was safe to open his eyes again.

"Can we please get out of this hurricane?" Ferdinand asked, just short of a whine. "It is like the Goddess' own vengeance out here."

"Come," she said, and took his arm to lead him indoors, no matter how many times the wind blinded him.

There were many rooms in the palace meant for meetings and discussions. Originally, perhaps some of those rooms had been studies, or antechambers, or the personal libraries of some long-gone imperial consorts. Nowadays, since the palace's army of servants were keeping the places dusted and aired out anyway, many of Edelgard's staff used them for whatever purpose required some private space. Ferdinand himself had a favorite library where he went to get work done. He'd never seen anyone else use it, perhaps because due to a quirk of architecture, the entrance could only be seen if you were looking for it.

The Professor took him to a room he'd never encountered before. Paintings hung on the walls--not the portraits of dead Hresvelgs staring down forbiddingly that adorned the corridors of the palace, but inspiring landscapes of nature and cities. There was a fireplace, with a fire already roaring inside, and armchairs set at a comfortable distance.

"Now, please tell me exactly what has happened in my absence," Ferdinand demanded.

The Professor nodded, and launched into a detailed timeline of a very short-lived insurrection that had both hit its climax and been dismantled within a week. Ferdinand had many questions as he listened, but he decided to keep them for the end of the lecture, and at any rate, the Professor guessed exactly what each of those questions were and gave answers as she spoke.

It had not been any of Edelgard's old enemies who had been behind the unrest, but merely a convergence of circumstance and popular sentiment that led to some individuals unhappy with the current state of affairs to express their discontent in the more ill-advised manner possible. Rabble-rousers of the most common kind. An almost quaint kind of danger, compared to what had come before.

Ferdinand sat back, shaking his head.

Reform was complicated, as he had discovered in his own territory. Even with good intentions, and a desire to better her people's lives, Edelgard still had to contend with the awkward transition period in which things looked worse before they got better.

"What did she decide to do with the ringleaders?" Ferdinand asked.

"Currently they're under lock and key," the Professor replied. "The Emperor wouldn't want to make martyrs out of them."

So, he had not returned to witness bloody public executions, at least. Ferdinand found himself sighing in relief. 

"That was your advice to her," he stated. 

"I didn't need to insist overly much," the Professor said. "She's not so bloodthirsty as that, despite what they say about her."

"But now she has some inconvenient prisoners on her hands whose fate she must decide in such a way as to not inadvertently further their goals," Ferdinand said. "I assume the matter of quiet removal was already brought up to her." By Hubert, Ferdinand did not add. But by the tilt of the Professor's head when he said it, she guessed his unspoken assumption anyway.

"Actually," and now the Professor looked lightly amused, if anything, "Hubert's stance is that this will be a prime opportunity for recruitment."

"What!" Ferdinand reeled in his surprise and cleared his throat, starting again on a less shrill note, "That is to say, what do you mean 'recruitment'?"

The Professor pursed her lips and steepled her fingers, the way she would do sometimes when she needed to gather her thoughts in order to better explain a concept to the class.

"In the process of thoroughly investigating whether any of the insurrectionists had ties to those who slither in the dark, Hubert discovered that many of these individuals were... ah... as he phrased it, 'more suited to the world that the Emperor wishes to create than they know'. He believes many of them are the kind of self-motivated individuals who might be of great aid in creating the world that Edelgard envisions."

"He does?" Ferdinand asked.

"Once they are properly enlightened about the Emperor's goals, certainly," the Professor shrugged. "Most of them are young, idealistic... fit to mold into a desired shape, Hubert thinks."

Ferdinand had to expand all his effort into not gaping like a fish. That marriage had changed the Professor tended to be more obvious in her appearance, but Hubert had undergone quite the transformation himself, judging by the fact that he was not bent on slitting throats and salting the earth at the slightest opposition to Edelgard. Perhaps there was some hope yet that the Emperor's shadowy hand would be persuaded to the benefits of working in the light.

"Well." Ferdinand blew out a breath and leaned back in the chair, trying to absorb everything. "It is good that I was called, then."

"Oh?"

"I would not miss Hubert's attempts at persuading these individuals for anything," he said, half-joking. He suspected it was not Hubert who would try to play these particular games of persuasion, however. Hubert's brand was more artful threats and a blade against the jugular, and that tended to work on the unprincipled, but not on the idealistic.

Regardless, it seemed despite the Professor's claims that the entire thing had already blown over, the true work was only just about to begin.

Ferdinand rose to his feet with a sigh.

"It is best I find my office and see what else I have missed while away," he said. He realized, however, that he was unfamiliar with the layout in this part of the palace. "Which way do I, ah..."

"You'll have to go back out," the Professor said, "and through the courtyard."

Out into to maelstrom, then, to lose the last scraps of his dignity. He found himself quite put-upon at the notion.

"Hold on," the Professor instructed, and walked around Ferdinand to stand behind him. 

He did not understand why until he felt her reach up from behind, and rake her fingers through his hair to comb it back. Heat descended upon his body, and the gentle scrape of her fingernails against his scalp was sending tingles through his skin, and down his spine. 

He swallowed dryly. She was only attempting to help; his hair must have surely been a mess. She was shorter than him, but not so much that Ferdinand felt he could offer to lean down without making it awkward. 

Once she'd pulled back his hair, he felt her gather it at the base of his neck. It took him another moment of wondering before he realized, by the feel of it, that she was tying it for him.

"There we go. Much better," she said, stepping back into his field of view.

Ferdinand's hand went to her handiwork, and he felt the soft satin of a ribbon tied around his hair. He looked at her trying to discern where she'd produced it from, but she had no ribbons either in her own hair or on her clothing that could explain its origins. Did she merely always carry hair ties on her for such occasions? He could not definitively believe she didn't.

"Thank you," he said, voice coming out rougher than he intended. He cleared his throat and looked away, hoping the orange glow of firelight hid the flush in his cheeks. "I will go now."

"Alright," the Professor said.

He all but fled the room, lacking his usual poise in the face of such bewildering developments. 

But the feeling of the ribbon haunted him for the rest of the day, no matter how hard he attempted to not think of it. He left his hair loose usually, and the ribbon's presence was unfamiliar enough to take him by surprise when he noticed it. Like a hand on his shoulder, drawing his attention. 

At the end of the day, when he lurched into his sleeping quarters at the Imperial Palace, tired from half a day of hard riding and half a day of insufferable bureaucracy, he stopped by the mirror of his vanity to look at himself.

The Professor had done her best without a comb, and the wind had done a number on him, so his hair was pulled back loosely enough to show its natural waviness. But he found he did not mind the look at all. He had grown too used to it loose and long, and a change might be in order.

He removed the ribbon, untying it and smoothing it out. It was black and soft, and Ferdinand found himself folding it with great care before putting it in a drawer of his vanity. It was a bit too dark to fit with the color palette of his usual outfits.

But after that day, the Professor's eyes took on a certain light whenever she saw him with his hair tied back, and if she recalled that she had ever given him a ribbon, she did not ask for it back.

Even in the absence of crises, the matters of state tended to be unrelenting. Every issue solved seemed to crop up three different new ones, but Edelgard thought this was a sign of progress, and Ferdinand found himself agreeing.

Teatime with Hubert and the Professor continued to be the highlight of his days, schedule permitting. Ferdinand found himself rearranging items on his daily agenda with the mind of saving time for tea, and despite the fact that surely the von Vestras were run every bit as ragged as Ferdinand was, they also somehow found time to sit down with him for several times a week and enjoy each other's companies. It did not occur to Ferdinand until embarrassingly late into this habit that surely Hubert and the Professor had to be scheduling their work as carefully as he was, and had to know his daily activities besides, that they were somehow always available.

It brought a thrill to Ferdinand that they would go through the trouble this way, and then, more guiltily, it made him consider that he ought to put a stop to it. It made him wonder if his friendship was under false pretenses, and if he was taking advantage of them by basking in their presence when he also harbored such selfish desires for them both. They were happy together, and ruining that even by accident would have gutted Ferdinand. 

But always, every time, whenever it was teatime, his traitorous legs would carry him to his destination and his greedy heart would not allow him to turn back.

In Ferdinand's defense, his condition was perhaps not entirely due to the fact that he was overworking himself. Or at least, he didn't think so. His last trip to Aegir had been at the tail end of Wyvern Moon, just as the weather was taking a turn for the worst, and he returned barely ahead of heavy snowfall. 

He felt absolutely wretched, it was true, but when his colleagues peered into his face and asked him if he was alright, he was not lying when he said it was only a cold. He did believe it was nothing more.

"You should rest anyway," the Professor told him at the last teatime he attended before his condition worsened. "Have you seen a physician?"

"I do not need to bother a physician with such things," Ferdinand said. "It will run its course."

"Maybe," the Professor said, looking doubtful. 

Perhaps she would have been more convinced if Ferdinand hadn't almost immediately launched into a fit of hacking cough.

"If you are to serve the Emperor, you should be at your best," Hubert jumped. His face bore the same disapproving expression as his wife. "There are others who can handle things until you're feeling well again."

"Oh, Hubert, we both know you would continue to work through your lungs exploding," Ferdinand said. "I am certain I can work through a bit of discomfort." He could not do any less, when he knew very well that Hubert would be working like a dog through any similar condition.

"Hn." Hubert skewered Ferdinand with a searching look before turning to the Professor. "My dear, were you handling the petitioners from Ordelia today?"

"I have been, yes," the Professor said. "I believe their meeting with the Prime Minister just got moved back by a week."

"That is hardly necessary--" Ferdinand tried to argue.

"Nonsense," Hubert retorted. "Given that they will be snowed in with us for the foreseeable future, there is no need to rush a meeting anyway. We've all winter to hash out their demands."

Ferdinand groaned and rubbed his forehead. His sinuses were so clogged up, that his head had been aching all day. But the mention of snow only made him remember how the snowed in roads had caused problems throughout the Empire. The only reason they were not all running around like chickens with their heads cut off was because the difficulties in communication prevented them from getting reports about whatever problems might have cropped up in other parts of Fódlan. They did not even know all the things they were meant to worry about yet.

At least Ferdinand was reasonably certain that Aegir was doing fine. The administrative apparatus they had cobbled together after Edelgard started dissolving the nobility was meant to replace the need for a Duke of Aegir at all, but that did not change the fact that Ferdinand's family had run the lands for generations, and that Ferdinand himself had a continued, sentimental interest in seeing the area prosper. It was only that building a new world was tiresome, and it would take many years yet before there were enough people in Fódlan instilled with both the education and the moral substance necessary for governance.

There was not much he could do about Aegir at the moment, at any rate. Even if he could, and even if Aegir needed him to. He had an entire country to worry about, at that.

"I promise I will not take on undue amounts of work," Ferdinand said. "You do not believe me?" he then asked when both Hubert and the Professor gave him identical unconvinced looks.

"It's not your word we doubt, Ferdinand, it's your powers of assessment when you are in this state," Hubert replied.

"Thank you, that is so much better," Ferdinand groused.

"What Hubert meant," the Professor interjected, lightly nudging her husband with her elbow, "is that you may push yourself past your limits without realizing it. Overworking yourself when sick can delay healing."

Ferdinand was begrudging about accepting that. He considered himself quite the fine specimen. Hearty; robust; of a healthy stock. Surely capable of overcoming some measly cold.

Still, despite not wanting to provoke their concern, Ferdinand had to admit that perhaps they were justified in it. As the day dragged on, the feeling that his head was stuffed with cotton worsened. He found himself spacing out during conversations, and his body felt simultaneously overheated and unbearably chilled, as though his skin was a damp rag stretched over a burning log. Or the other way around. He could no longer tell.

Suffice to say, by the end of the day, Ferdinand admitted to himself that he was well and truly sick to a point where his performance was starting to suffer.

He returned to his quarters in the palace convinced that all he needed was a good night's rest, and he barely managed to undress before collapsing into bed.

Ferdinand spent the rest of the week burning through a fever. The healers came and went in a parade that Ferdinand took note of only because their comings and going were often marked by having some bitter medicinal draught poured down his throat, or a healing spell prickling over his skin and sinking into his flesh.

His dreams were odd; red-tinged and restless. They weakened the locks of his mind to unleash the worst memories out of their cages, and when he slept, he was brought back to the old battlefields of his youth, the atrocities he'd witnessed taking on grotesque proportions. Blood ran knee-high, and smoke burned his eyes, his cheeks, his lips. He breathed in, and fire licked his throat. He was thirsty; he was too-hot and too-cold, both at once.

He dreamed of old school friends dying, sometimes by his own hands--skewered, slashed, burnt, crushed. Worst were the ones which had really happened, worse even than the dreams in which he was the one dying by their hands instead. But even when he was awake, everything took on a nightmare tinge, until he could no longer distinguish between waking thought and fitful sleep. In his most lucid moments, he understood this was delirium induced by fever, but he could not concentrate long enough to follow any thoughts to their conclusion. He was a prisoner to this circumstance, with no control and no escape.

He twisted and turned, unable to find a comfortable position. He began crying from the discomfort at one point, so frustrated by this war waged against him by his own mind and body, that he no longer had the strength to keep himself from the outburst. He only wanted to sleep. He wanted to rest. Only for a little while, he wanted not to burn and ache.

Cool hands cradled his face, and thumbs wiped at the tracks of tears, even though they might well have been indistinguishable from the sweat beading on his skin. Lips pressed against his forehead like a benediction, and soothing nonsense offered white noise to keep the troublesome din of nightmares away.

His restless thrashing stopped for a few minutes then, and he was still for long enough to fall asleep, though before he did, he looked up and thought he saw a goddess haloed by golden light. Strange, but hadn't the Professor had softly green hair in his dreams just then?

He reached up to brush a lock of dark hair behind her ear, and though he managed it, the effort was so grand, that he slipped into unconsciousness immediately after.

He blinked awake one day and was met with the sight of Edelgard sitting in a chair by his bed.

The lamplight cast sharp-edged shadows on Edelgard, pooling in every fold of her dress. She was deep red and gold against the pastel flowery patterns of the wallpaper and the chair's upholstery, and striking as uneasy a picture as a vulture perched in a rose garden. Even the pallor of her hair took on a bleached-bone quality in the unrestful atmosphere of the room, though perhaps that was only Ferdinand projecting his own misery and physical discomfort on her appearance.

Ferdinand was at least clear-headed enough to realize that, despite how miserable he felt, it was mostly a left-over misery, the ravages of the fever on his body. He no longer felt hot and freezing at the same time, or the terrible dizziness that came with fever. He mostly felt tired and aching, as though he had just had a forced march at high altitude.

Edelgard was not quite paying attention to him, her head lowered to a sketchpad she had on her knees. She had a piece of charcoal in her hand as well, moving swiftly over the page. The sound was actually soothing, in its own way, but Ferdinand tried speaking.

His throat was raw, and whatever question he was going to ask came out only as a shapeless croak. Edelgard looked up and laughed softly at the dismay in his expression, setting her sketchpad aside on the nearby table.

"Not quite up to declaring yourself yet, are you, Ferdinand?" she asked, teasing.

Ferdinand huffed, too tired and wrung out to engage in any meaningful repartee, much as he would wish.

But then Edelgard rose from her seat, and filled a glass of water from a carafe, and helped tip it to Ferdinand's lips. He drank greedily, and the water passed three times through the expanse of his dry throat before it no longer felt like a dessert. After he polished off the glass, he slumped back against the pillows, as though the task of drinking had taken all his strength.

"The healers say you are recovering well," Edelgard remarked, retaking her seat in the incongruously pink chair. "But that you must drink and replenish your liquids."

"I hope I have not caused any worry," Ferdinand said, his voice still a little thready. He was tangled in the sheets of his bed, but he pulled on the fabric to cover more of himself. It felt somewhat improper to be seen in this condition by a lady, much less the Emperor. He wore only a long nightshirt, and even that had clearly been soaked through with sweat several times over.

"Of course we worried about you," Edelgard replied, quirking a smile. "Do we seem so callous we wouldn't care about your health?"

"What? No!" Ferdinand blurted out, clutching tighter at the bedsheet. He didn't know which 'we' she was referring to, except that maybe he did, and the notion that he had had others sitting like Edelgard at his bedside, and he had missed it only for the timing of his waking--

"I'm teasing," Edelgard replied. "I'm sorry, I can see you're still not completely back to yourself, and I'm not very good at it."

She rose to her feet, smoothing down the red velvet expanses of her skirt as she did. It must have been late at night, after a full day of running court, and here the Emperor was taking precious time out of her hours of rest to visit him. He felt guilt churn in him, but he was also touched to know that Edelgard would see him as such a valuable subject that she would come see him personally.

"You do not need to leave," Ferdinand assured.

"You need to recover your strength," Edelgard said more sternly. "I expect you to put all of your effort and determination into recovering."

"Of course!" Ferdinand declared, despite the fact that she may well have been teasing again. "I am Ferdinand von Aegir, I am not to be laid out by a simple illness!"

But laid out he was.

Even after his fever broke, Ferdinand found himself relegated to bedrest until somesuch time in the future as the healers saw fit to unshackle him. Metaphorically, though only by dint of the fact that he was too weak to leave the bed by his own volition anyway.

He was maybe only a little bitter. He knew he should have been appreciating this time of reprieve, but boredom began creeping in very quickly, enough that he began to fantasize about the work that was no doubt piling up in his office while he was stuck in bed, staring at a window which showed nothing to him but the flutter of fat, feathery snowflakes against the glass.

His sheets had been changed, he'd taken a scalding hot bath, and even managed to eat all of the soup brought in for him. He felt much better, despite a persistent aching fatigue in his muscles. But the days stretched before him, empty and interminable.

He began to think... well, it was only a silly thought, really, but he began to think he was feeling well enough for tea. But he did not request any from the servants.

Instead, when his secretary came to keep Ferdinand up to date with the work the Prime Minister's office had done even in the absence of the Prime Minister himself, Ferdinand managed to convince the man to bring him some work to do in bed. Despite showing clear apprehension about it, the secretary did bring him the latest reports so that Ferdinand could catch up.

Pleased by this small victory, Ferdinand propped himself amidst a comfortable nest of pillows, and proceeded to read the latest reports about the deicing efforts around Enbarr, and the impact on traffic going in and out of the capital.

It was not the most stimulating read, granted, but Ferdinand's recent illness had left him more weakened than he estimated, because he fell asleep not one third through the report.

He woke up to the sound of paper. Slumped on his side on his pile of pillows, Ferdinand only had to open his eyes to see where the sound was coming from. Hubert sat in the same chair that Edelgard had occupied the night before. Instead of lamplight, he was bathed in the sterile gray light of a snowy day. It was day still, though so overcast that it was hard to tell what time.

Hubert was sorting through a pile of papers that Ferdinand recognized as the report he'd been reading before nodding off. The pages must have slid off his bed and fallen to the ground, scattering out of order, but Hubert was already leafing through a whole sheaf of the papers and setting down page after page to the neat pile on the table next to him.

Ferdinand observed Hubert for a few minutes this way, watching the elegant motion of his long fingers, the slight stitch of a frown in his forehead as he concentrated on the task. Hubert had always had a sickly complexion, but right now, especially compared to Ferdinand, he looked as hale as a milkmaid. Ferdinand imagined tracing a finger across that creamy expanse of skin, following the sharp jut of his cheekbone, sliding a palm against his cheek, brushing the black hair from his face--

Then he cut off this thought with impunity. An improper thing to ponder about a married man. A base impulse, unworthy of anyone, but least of all of him.

Hubert, with his instincts for sniffing out weakness, chose that moment to turn his golden gaze on Ferdinand. He faltered for a moment, as though surprised to see Ferdinand looking back, and that allowed Ferdinand to gather himself as well.

"I'm told you're doing well," Hubert remarked, setting aside the papers. "You certainly seem more alert than last time I was here."

"Ah... you have been circling my bed like a crow over a battlefield, then? Waiting to pick at my bones, no doubt, " Ferdinand said, with more levity than he felt. If he rifled through his disconnected fever memories, he could recall the presence of people, but the details had apparently dissolved in the heat which had scorched through his body. There was no reason to think Hubert was lying, but Ferdinand sorely wished he could remember, all the same. Gratitude swelled like tears in his throat, to know that he was not alone in his hours of need.

"You must be feeling better, if you're already accusing me of being a scavenger," Hubert replied.

He rose from his seat to approach Ferdinand's bed. He had removed his gloves at some point, and left them on the table, and Ferdinand found himself watching the motions of Hubert's hands as he approached--that small tug on his cuffs that he did sometimes when he was nervous. Those graceful fingers. The band on his ring finger.

Ferdinand almost shrank back when Hubert reached up and pressed a palm against his forehead. His hand was pleasantly cool and dry, and Ferdinand could almost imagine he felt the press of the wedding band against his forehead, a weight bearing him down with guilt. But his eyes still fluttered closed at the contact, and he found himself inadvertently clutching a pillow to his chest, because he could not clutch at Hubert.

Hubert made a satisfied sound, and then, instead of withdrawing contact, his hand slid up into Ferdinand's hair, smoothing back some stray locks. Once, twice, slowly, before the contact ceased.

Ferdinand's eyes opened, but instead of looking at Hubert, he looked to the far wall, tracing the shape of the minutely detailed flowers in the wallpaper as he willed his face to not be so red as he felt it must have been. He would not like to give the impression that his fever had returned.

Apparently oblivious to his effect on Ferdinand, Hubert sat down on the edge of the bed instead of retaking his chair. The bed was firm enough that Ferdinand barely felt the dip of Hubert's weight on the mattress, but even so the proximity sent Ferdinand's heart hammering in his chest.

"Where... is the Professor?" Ferdinand asked.

"She will be along shortly," Hubert said. Then, with a twist of amusement, "And she has asked you to call her by name numerous times."

"I know. It is only that..." Ferdinand's voice hitched, as he thought of how to phrase this. "It would feel as though I am being too familiar."

"Oh?" Hubert's eyes glinted, and he leaned closer. "So when you use my name, you are being familiar?"

"Hubert!" Ferdinand protested, "I have known you for my entire life! It is not the same thing at all!"

It was not, though Ferdinand did not know how to explain. Perhaps if the Professor had asked him to use her name before she had that ring on her finger... there were times, when she took her gloves off, that Ferdinand would see it and his heart would skip in recognition, before reality crashed down on him again. In another world, she would be wearing the same ring on her finger as a different man's wife. And Ferdinand did not regret his decision to give Hubert the ring. In some perverse way, he was glad for a token of his own esteem to have ended up in the Professor's possession.

But that ring on her finger let him imagine circumstances which had not come to pass, and he suffered for it as fiercely as he found pleasure in it.

Taken by a sudden impulse, Ferdinand reached across the distance between them for Hubert's left hand, lying on the bed's edge. He took it in his, Hubert allowing this with a curious look on his face, and he brought it closer to inspect the band on Hubert's finger. 

It was a subdued thing, simple silver and amethyst. It suited both Hubert and the Professor better than the ring Ferdinand had selected. They both gravitated towards a certain style. Dark and cool colors. 

Ferdinand recalled a certain painting he would pass on a hallway of the palace, a stark monochrome landscape of a forest in winter, the black trees like the bars of a prison as a pack of wolves emerged from the shadowed recesses. He never liked it as much as the neighboring painting of summer, showing a cheerful woman on a swing in the middle of a verdant garden, but if one were to plop Hubert and the Professor into a painting, the one of winter would suit them best. 

But if Ferdinand had been less a coward, there may well have been a different ring on Hubert's finger at the moment. His decision at the time, to choose one love and close his heart off to another, had felt rational in the moment. Had felt... proper. But it had landed him in this insufferable situation of both his loves being simultaneously out of reach and tantalizingly close, and this felt like a punishment for the convolutions of his fickle heart.

Ferdinand discovered that he had been absentmindedly caressing Hubert's knuckles with his thumb, and released his hand abruptly.

He stuck his own traitorous appendages under the pile of pillows, and considered pressing his face into it as well until he managed to smother himself. It would only serve him right.

"Ferdinand," Hubert began.

"Yes?" Ferdinand's voice came out high and panicked.

But Hubert was silent for a long time, long enough that Ferdinand risked a glance at his face. He was frowning, but did not look angry so much as thoughtful.

"Do you recall... the ball back when we were still students? The night when we crossed paths at the Goddess Tower?" Hubert asked.

Ferdinand in fact did, though he had wanted at times to forget. He had been trying to catch the Professor for a dance all evening, yet either through circumstance or her own effort to avoid any such invitations, she had eluded him. He saw her slip outside at one point, and, not one to give up quite so easily, he had followed.

In retrospect, he had acted terribly boyish the entire time. In his head, he had constructed an entire conversation he would have with her, and seeing her head towards the Goddess Tower, he had even thought of sprinkling in a romantic legend he had heard once and half-remembered now. 

But he had dawdled so much on the way, practicing in his head what he would say to her, that by the time he'd reached the Goddess Tower, Hubert was coming from that very direction. Their paths crossed in just such a way that it was evident where Hubert was coming from, and where Ferdinand was going towards, and even in the darkness, it was hard to tell which one of them bore their dismay more visibly.

'So,' Hubert had sneered, 'the Professor had a tryst planned after all. With you. She is a better liar than I would have credited her for.'

Ferdinand had instantly bristled, not only at the notion that the Professor would be a liar, but at how Hubert was impugning Ferdinand's own character.

'Outrageous! You think the heir to House Aegir would be skulking in the dark for some-- some illicit love affair?!'

'Skulking, indeed,' Hubert had scoffed back, every word dripping with contempt.

They would have traded more barbs, undoubtedly, if they hadn't heard the sound of gravel crunching underfoot as someone approached. They fell silent both at once, not so much at a desire to keep their conflict private, but out of a shared sense that anyone witnessing this exchange would find them immature.

The Professor was the one who approached. Both he and Hubert had simultaneously made the same erroneous assumption back then, that she had been there to meet with the other. Thus they both whirled around towards her, filled with indignation and brimming with disapproval.

They were stopped from saying anything only by the slightly puzzled look she bore in response, looking from one to the other the way she would size up a battlefield, and then the look of epiphany that followed.

'Ah,' she'd breathed out, as if she had figured something out. She waved at them as she strolled past. 'I'm sorry I interrupted, please proceed.'

Ferdinand and Hubert remained rooted in place with shock as they slowly pieced together that the Professor had just assumed that they had both been there to meet each other, and by the time they were shaken from their mortification and capable of sputtering any protestations, she was already out of sight.

"I remember," Ferdinand groaned, pressing his face into a pillow. Smothering himself was starting more and more to look like a valid course of action, but he restrained himself for now. "The truth is, I spent years envying you for meeting the Professor that night instead of me."

"But not anymore?" Hubert asked, strangely soft.

"Not anymore."

"What changed?"

"You married her."

Hubert blinked. He may well not have been expecting this answer.

"Perhaps the legend of that tower was true, after all," Ferdinand chuckled, "and you had a fruitful union blessed by the Goddess."

At this, Hubert pulled a face.

"Firstly, don't let Edelgard hear you say that sort of nonsense about the Goddess," Hubert said, "and secondly... that was not the legend about the Goddess Tower."

"...It was not?"

"No," Hubert said emphatically.

Ferdinand flipped over, turning his back to Hubert and pulling a pillow to his face so he could smother a groan. He had been such a silly boy back then, of course he would have gotten this wrong as well. Looking back, he had been such an eager pup, nipping at the Professor's heels for attention, that many things had flown over his head completely.

"If you will forgive me," Ferdinand said stiffly, "I must surely rest to recover. The healers have said so, yes? I will sleep now."

Then he closed his eyes and willed himself to fall asleep. Willed it. Any moment now.

"Ferdinand," Hubert spoke after a time, sounding almost hesitant. He was still sitting on the edge of the bed, and though Ferdinand was intent at pretending to be deep in slumber, there was something in Hubert's voice that convinced him not to.

"...Yes?"

But the silence extended between them, and as Ferdinand waited for Hubert to say anything, it seemed that Hubert was waiting for something from him as well.

"Nothing," Hubert said eventually. "Only that you are infuriating, but you are well aware of the fact already."

Ferdinand did not understand, and it appeared he would not be getting an explanation either. Instead Hubert leaned down and pressed a kiss against Ferdinand's temple, sending his train of thoughts stuttering into not only an abrupt stop, but also a five carriage pile-up.

Then Hubert rose smoothly before Ferdinand could get his bearings again, and departed the room without another word.

Ferdinand was starting to feel faint.

"I... do not understand," he said, and took several steps backward so he could slump down onto the sofa. He had taken too many shocks for the day.

"I'm sorry, Ferdinand," the Professor said. She pulled the shawl tight around her shoulders, and approached to stand next to the sofa he occupied, though she did not sit. "We didn't know how to bring it up to you."

"We ought to have put it in a letter," Hubert muttered.

"Is your marriage not doing well?" Ferdinand asked, as concern began bubbling up through the shock. "Am I... Am I to blame for--"

"No!" the Professor said, horrified.

"For pity's sake, Ferdinand," Hubert growled. He stalked closed as well, looking a fair bit wilder than the Professor. His hair was disheveled, the locks he had brushed back now falling over his face in disarray. 

He sat on the sofa and took Ferdinand's hand in his--Hubert's grip was strong, belying the fact that he was a magic user and not a more physical fighter--and he clutched at Ferdinand with a desperation that the latter did not expect.

The Professor sat down more gingerly on Ferdinand's other side.

"We're in love with you," Hubert stated.

Ferdinand's free hand went to his mouth, and he gazed wide-eyed at Hubert.

This had to be some kind of dream. Perhaps his fevers had never really abated, and now he was in the midst of some hallucination.

"But--" Ferdinand looked wildly between Hubert and the Professor. "But you are married! To one another!"

"Evidently," Hubert said with exaggerated patience.

The Professor sighed, and took Ferdinand's other hand in her own. Ferdinand had gone limp with surprise, at least enough that he did not fight it. The handholding was going to his head, perhaps, but he would be lying if he claimed he had not fantasized about experiencing this exact scenario with both Hubert and the Professor.

Just... not both at once.

Was that even allowed?

He was going to faint. He was dizzy. Oh, he needed to put his head down before he fell over.

"This is too much for you," the Professor remarked, filled with regret. She tried releasing the grip she had on Ferdinand, pulling back, but he snatched her retreating hand before it could get too far.

"No!" he all but wailed. "Please wait-- I must-- I love you!"

A stunned silence fell over the von Vestras, even though Ferdinand did not see why they should be so surprised, when moments ago they too were confessing their affections.

"Both of you," Ferdinand continued, "I love both of you. Quite ardently, in fact."

To make his point, he drew up the Professor's hand, planting gentle kisses along her knuckles. Then he did the same to Hubert, planting a kiss on the back of his own hand.

"Oh," the Professor breathed out, relief and wonder compacted in that one little sound.

Even Hubert, who did so much to conceal any trace of vulnerability behind a stony facade, squeezed Ferdinand's hand as though it were a lifeline.

This only made Ferdinand's job harder, but he swallowed and continued,

"Which is why I cannot possibly disrupt your marriage, or come between you in any way. I am sorry."

A beat passed, utter stillness in the wake of his pronouncement. As much as it hurt Ferdinand to say so, it was clear it also cut deep into them to hear it.

Hubert ripped his hand away, and rose to his feet, his countenance as perfectly icy as when he addressed one of Edelgard's enemies at court.

"Well, then," Hubert said, cold and distant in ways he hadn't been towards Ferdinand in years, "we are sorry to have intruded upon your peace of mind as we have. Good night to you."

He turned on his heel and stalked out of the parlor and into the sanctuary of the bedroom. He did not slam the door behind him, but the click of the door closing was as resounding as the toll of a bell in Ferdinand's head, and all the more damning.

"Hubert," Ferdinand whispered, stricken by the man's violent repudiation. 

He made to rise and follow, but the Professor held him in place, fingers tightening on his hand. She shook her head decisively. Ferdinand felt a shame without a tangible source. The Professor's presence always felt like a balm, the way it would in the old days when he had still been competing with Edelgard and feeling frustrated by his lack of results.

But now, he was afraid that he had caused great damage to the Professor and to Hubert in some way. He averted his gaze, looking instead to the ornate rug on the floor and tracing the whorls in the pattern.

"Ferdinand," the Professor sighed, and she reached up to push a lock of hair behind his ear. It was a brief gesture, practical and straightforward, but then her fingers traced a path from the shell of his ear, down the line of his jaw and to his chin. Here her touch became more firm, and her fingers against his chin pressed until he turned his face towards hers.

"Why do you believe you'd have any negative effect on our marriage?" she asked.

It was such a direct question, that Ferdinand sputtered for a few seconds, embarrassed.

"I-- it is not-- it is not right! For anyone to come between two spouses, whatever the reason!"

"Do you truly believe you could cause conflict between me and Hubert?"

"Not intentionally," Ferdinand said, and looked away again. "I would never do so on purpose. But... you are both so very..."

"So very what?"

"Happy," he said in a small voice, and he was afraid that perhaps he revealed his longing for that happiness. "You are so beautiful together, that I am not certain any change to your relationship could ever be an improvement. Please do not allow me to be the reason either of you lose your happiness."

"Oh, Ferdinand," the Professor laughed soundlessly. She leaned her forehead against his shoulder. "You say these things, and then you're surprised we're madly in love with you."

Ferdinand felt a jolt go through him at the Professor's words; not only that she would mention being in love with him, but that she would do it so casually, as one might state the sky is blue--

Not for the first time, Ferdinand wished the past had been different. But then, if it had, perhaps it would not be him unwedded, and the thought of either the Professor or Hubert alone and missing out on the marital bliss that they now enjoyed seemed wrong. It felt bitter in his mouth. Better that it was him the third wheel, because he had borne it and knew for certain he would bear it a hundred years more for them.

"Do you... understand what we're really asking of you?" the Professor said after a while. She was still leaning her forehead against his shoulder, perhaps having discovered, as Ferdinand did, that this conversation was easier without eye contact.

"I..." Ferdinand considered for a few moments, before admitting, "No. I do not understand why you would... why you would tell me..."

"We're not asking you to come between us," she said. "You're right to have noticed we're happy. Hubert and I... we've never been open people, but with one another, it feels as though we can share everything and never fear judgment from one another. It feels... easy to be together, the way it doesn't with other people."

It clenched at Ferdinand's heart to hear this, though it was what he has always thought when looking at them. It made him yet more certain he did not wish to interfere in this dynamic.

"But," the Professor continued, and lifted her head. There was a quiet blaze in her eyes, something compelling that stopped Ferdinand from looking away. "But you're wrong if you believe nothing could improve our happiness. The truth is, if there's one thing that is making us unhappy, it's seeing that you aren't part of what we have together. Without you, nothing feels... quite... complete."

"Professor," Ferdinand whispered, pained.

"Byleth," she corrected.

Ferdinand closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Byleth," he said, the name slipping through his lips like sin. "I do not understand how I could make you and Hubert complete in any way."

"No? It's in so many ways," she said. "You were doing it from the start, really. Hubert told me about the ring."

Ferdinand's eyes shot open, and were instantly drawn to her hand. Even in the dim light of the lone lamp, the emerald stones were beautiful, shadows settled in their depths and sharp edges glinting. Byleth touched the ring reverently, with a far-away smile on her face.

"He should not have," Ferdinand said. "It was his to propose with, and I should not have any of the credit for it."

"...Ferdinand, please. Even if he hadn't told me, you can't possibly think I'd believe this was the kind of ring Hubert would pick out."

Ferdinand winced, though from her tone this was not a reprimand. He supposed he did have... distinctive tastes. But when he had been picking the ring, he had been thinking only of choosing something that expressed his love as loudly as possible. 

"I think... it was unfair what we did to you," Byleth said. "Being concerned only with one another, and ignoring your feelings. I think we thought this was how it was supposed to be, that it was... the proper thing to do. That once married, a person isn't supposed to be in love with anyone else."

"But that is true," Ferdinand blurted out.

"No, it isn't," Byleth replied sharply. "How can it possibly be true? We didn't stop loving you just because we got married, and you didn't stop loving us. And it isn't right that we should be keeping this love all to ourselves, when you deserve it more."

"I do not deserve--"

"You do! Ferdinand, of course you do," Byleth said, almost pleading. "Say you don't love us, and we'll never bother you again. We'll pretend none of this happened. But if you feel the same as we do, why pretend otherwise?"

Ferdinand felt tears prickling at the corners of his eyes, an acid knot form in his throat as he tried not to cry. But it was so hard to not be selfish when he was being offered what he had never even dreamed of. How could he possibly resist for long under Byleth's onslaught?

"But what will people think if they find out--" Ferdinand attempted weakly.

"That is none of their business," Byleth said. 

Her naked contempt for anyone who might condemn them gave Ferdinand a dose of courage, the way he would feel reassured each time he'd see her across a battlefield. He knew now that she was not invincible, and that her protection was not absolute, but a part of him would always feel shielded by her presence. Nothing could ever truly go wrong when the Professor was close, and they would always pull through somehow.

He sniffled loudly, the sound scraping against the silence of the room, but he also nodded. He did not know what he was nodding about, but Byleth reached up and wiped a tear from the corner of his eye, and this brought back a vague memory--an impression really--of her doing the same when he was in the grips of his fevers.

He began crying in earnest, and thus being rendered unable to speak, he made his feelings known by pulling her into a kiss. It was wet, and sloppy, and undignified to the extreme, but it felt like water in the desert nonetheless. It would not be the last reassurance he would need, but a dam had broken inside him, and all the feelings he had managed to keep in check for so long had finally overspilled.

Ferdinand looked at the door with trepidation.

"It's alright," Byleth assured, patting his arm. She was holding onto it tightly enough that it warded away any thoughts Ferdinand had of running. "He's not angry with you."

"He should be," Ferdinand said.

"He isn't," she remained firm.

She pulled him along with her, and opened the door, pushing it to swing gently open. The bedroom was brighter than the parlor had been, and Ferdinand squinted against the light. It felt forbidden to pass the threshold, like infringing upon a holy place, but he went as Byleth led him.

The bedroom was slightly larger than Ferdinand's. The canopy bed alone was massive in size. The wallpaper and matching upholstery were not the pastel florals of Ferdinand's quarters, but instead a darker pattern of abstract vines on a purple background. In the far corner of the room, there was a desk, laden with papers.

Hubert was sitting at that desk, hunched over it, his elbows on the desktop and his forehead propped against the backs of his hands as his fingers laced together. He had not changed for bed, and might well have been sitting there since leaving the parlor. Ferdinand's gut lurched at the sight, because there was something decidedly despondent in the posture, and Ferdinand knew he was the one responsible.

"Hubert?" Byleth said.

Hubert turned around in his seat, motions unusually jerky, and Ferdinand could see that his eyes were red-rimmed. They hadn't been before, had they? Ferdinand felt something inside him clench again.

And Hubert was clearly unhappy with his presence there. He rose from his seat and threw Byleth a look of betrayal, as though questioning why she would bring an enemy into their safe haven. 

"We had a talk," Byleth explained, still tugging Ferdinand along by the arm and ever-closer to Hubert. "We clarified some misconceptions."

"Did you, now?" Hubert asked. He tilted his chin up, looking at Ferdinand down his nose, but there was something brittle in his voice and posture. 

It was a long time since Ferdinand had been at the receiving end of Hubert's mistrust, but beneath the front Hubert put on, there was still a man who could be hurt, with a heart that could be broken, and Ferdinand was all too aware that he had the power to do so. He approached cautiously, as one might an easily-spooked animal.

"I apologize," Ferdinand said. "I fear I acted poorly in response to your confession, and caused harm where I intended none."

Something about the stiffness in Hubert's posture seemed to dispell. His expression turned less forbidding by a few degrees, but for someone as controlled as Hubert, that difference was dramatic.

"It... was our fault," he replied. "We handled you poorly, I think. It should be us asking for your forgiveness."

Ferdinand--unable muster the words--stumbled forward, throwing his arms around Hubert's waist and latching onto him as tightly as possible. He hid his face in the crook of Hubert's neck, unable to face him, unable to speak for fear that anything Ferdinand said would shatter the delicate armistice between them.

Hubert had never had a forgiving nature, but slowly, as his tension unwound stitch by stitch, he put his arms around Ferdinand in turn. When Ferdinand did not disperse like a mirage at the contact, Hubert proceeded to cling ever more fiercely; his hands fisted in the material of Ferdinand's dressing gown.

They stayed like that for a time, speechlessly trying to convey everything they could not over the years, but eventually, reluctantly, Ferdinand pulled back and looked at Hubert, and Hubert looked at him.

"Were you crying?" Ferdinand asked after searching Hubert's face and his red-rimmed eyes.

"No," Hubert scoffed. "Were you?"

"No," Ferdinand replied, though he knew very well he had been, and his face always turned red and puffy when he cried, making it impossible to conceal the fact from anyone who knew him.

Hubert chuckled dryly, something like a smile passing over his face, before he grew quiet and intense. He stared at Ferdinand's mouth with a look on his face that suggested he was making plans of attack in his mind.

"May I kiss you?" he asked.

"In fact I insist that you do," Ferdinand replied.

"A 'yes' would have sufficed," Hubert said with a long-suffering sigh, but in spite of his feigned exasperation, he cradled Ferdinand's face in his hands, a thumb swiping down Ferdinand's cheek in an abbreviated caress. 

But it was Ferdinand who closed the distance, leaning forward to steal Hubert's lips. He swallowed Hubert's gasp of surprise and deepened the kiss with a hunger he had not known himself capable of.

When they finally broke apart, they were both gulping for air and unsteady, clinging to each other to stay upright. 

They looked to Byleth then, and she slipped into the circle of their arms. Ferdinand buried his face into her dark hair, and he felt Hubert's fingers sinking into his own blond tresses. 

They stood entangled for a long time together, in an embrace that felt like their fortress against the world.