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“Do you yield?” There is a blade pressed to his throat, a wooden one, digging into his neck as gently as it can. He looks into the eyes above him, determined, satisfied, and anxious. Green eyes so full of life that once did not exist make his stomach churn, flutter, awaken in ways he thought impossible for a man such as him. He was supposed to be long dead, a walking corpse with a need to cover his scythe in blood. But here Byleth was, reminding him just how alive he was.
Jeritza and Byleth spar every day except the free day off, in which Byleth invites Jeritza to tea. Jeritza declines every time, but Byleth never stops asking. Every time, Jeritza thinks of saying yes. After all, Byleth indulges his need for duels every day, does he not? But instead, Jeritza promises himself that if Byleth ever wins a spar, they’ll have tea. It’d only be fair, right?
Jeritza is a monstrous man, a shell left behind by the boy named Emile when he died. He always knew he needed someone to keep him in check, keep him from going too far. He had used Mercedes’ memory to do that, so far, but he knew one day he’d need someone to physically stop him from doing something he’d one day regret. He’d been searching for that person, and when he saw the lack of emotion in the mercenary’s eyes, he had assumed that would be perfect. An emotionless person would be objective, would stop him when he needed to be stopped.
There are way too many emotions in those eyes now for that to be possible, but Jeritza wouldn’t have it any other way. He found that person and he wasn’t giving him up, emotions or not.
“I yield,” he says, quiet, shy. Byleth seems startled by how gentle it was, but the moment his grip on the sword loosens, Jeritza pushes Byleth’s arm away and reaches up and kisses him.
And for a moment, an eternity, Byleth simply freezes. Jeritza hears the sword clatter to the ground and feels a hand come to his cheek before he realizes that, oh, his eyes are closed, oh, Byleth is kissing him back, oh--
“I think… we shouldn’t do this in a public space,” Jeritza mutters, once he finally gets the self-restraint to pull away. He’s alive, he’s alive and breathing and heart beating and--
“Right. Jeritza, should we talk about this?” There’s silence.
“Emile.”
“What?”
“Call me Emile. When it’s just us. Please.” Because when they’re alone, Emile is alive. Emile is no longer a knight with death pressing at his shoulders, he’s a living, breathing, man, with the demon of ash at his side.
Byleth smiles and Emile feels his breath hitch as he commits it to memory. “Ok. Let’s go to your room and talk about what just happened, Emile.”
“... Over tea.” Emile didn’t think Byleth’s grin could get any bigger, even this small smile is a grand example of emotion, but it widens ever so slightly. “What? You beat me in a spar. It’s the least I could do.”
“I’ll go fetch the tea set then.” Byleth stands and offers his hand down to the prone professor.
In another life, months and years from now, that hand will be stretch up, calling to the Death Knight, asking him to come back with him, to stop fighting, to live again. The Death Knight will be bloody, beaten, dying, but the man that makes his heartbeat again, that makes him Emile again, his savior, his lover, will be reaching for him, holy and glowing and godly in that very moment.
And just as he will then, Emile takes it and grasps it firmly and pulls himself towards Byleth, pulls them together, ever closer.
Emile has found out how to live again, how to be Emile again, and he’s not letting go of the gloved hand that showed him the way there, not any time soon.