Archive of Our Own

“If you don’t hurry up, I’m leaving you behind.”

Miklan knew the threat was empty, for a couple of reasons. One, Glenn was dragging his feet just as much as he was, looking over a table of weapons on offer at the blacksmith’s stall, while the burly woman tending it watched him carefully like he was about to grab one of the swords and run for it.

(It wasn’t hard to tell they couldn’t afford anything she had on offer— their armour was viciously beaten, their clothes dirty and tattered, and they had most of their belongings strapped to them. Every bit the look of mercenaries, and not especially successful ones.)

Two, Glenn had abandoned his entire family and life for him; it would take a lot more than Miklan getting distracted in the middle of the marketplace for him to leave him behind.

(And three, on a less sappy note, Glenn was clingy as fuck; Miklan was sure if he stood around for long enough, he would find him migrating back to loop their arms together, or wrap his arm around his waist, or any number of different ways he could get his hands on him without inviting a cold bucket of water over the head.)

“Yeah, yeah.” He said that, waving his hand dismissively, and starting to follow after Glenn, but he was almost— reluctant to pull himself away from the stall he’d stopped at.

The simple, burnished rings almost seemed to stare back at him.

It had been— more than a year since Glenn and Miklan had taken off from Faerghus and set out on their own.

Miklan tried not to think about it too much— and at the same time, some days it was all he could think about.

They were past the point where they worried much about getting hunted down by soldiers and either dragged back home or thrown into jail, but they still tried to avoid Faerghus as much as possible— the depths of it, at last. Right now, they were deep in the heart of Alliance territory.

Their last job had involved some idiot highwaymen who had been harassing merchants on their trade routes, the kind of guys who were only just one step above your average drunken idiot who decided that assaulting folks was the best way to make money— they at least had enough intelligence to set up in a good area. It had been an easy enough job, even though they had been outnumbered.

Considering the kind of training they had both been put through since before they could even write their own names, a bunch of ogres with rusty weapons trying to badly hide themselves in some bushes really didn’t pose any kind of a threat.

The downside to it having been easy was that it also didn’t pay well— but it had been hard enough to get paying work at all for a long time, considering their youth and relative inexperience. It was a bit easier now that they had the look of proper mercenaries rather than just spoiled noble kids playing with swords— and now that it wasn’t just the two of them.

Their tent was set up at the far end of the little ramshackle campsite they’d made just outside of down. Their fellows always let them set up first and then built up the rest of the camp around them, since none of them ever wanted to set their tents up too close to them.

The less crude of their group called them a disturbance, but at least once they’d been called ‘louder than a pair of breeding hounds in heat’.

Miklan didn’t really feel sorry at all about that.

Right now, though, the only ‘disturbance’ in their tent was Glenn’s grumbling from the floor.

“Wish we could have spent the night at the inn,” he said as he tossed around, probably making himself even more uncomfortable than if he just laid down and shut up and went to sleep.

Miklan didn’t say that. Not that he wouldn’t have normally said that; he would, and then Glenn would probably throw something at him, and they’d laugh. He was just too distracted, perched on a crate near the entrance of their tent and peering out the opening at the lights of the town.

“Even if we had the money for it, they didn’t have room for everyone,” Miklan reminded him patiently… Which was more from the distraction thing than because of his actual level of patience.

“That sounds like everyone else’s problem,” Glenn grumbled again, even though Miklan knew he didn’t really mean it.

Glenn didn’t really bond with people the same way Miklan did— their little ragtag band was mostly people Miklan had stumbled into unlikely friendships with, and then they’d all decided hey, people will take us more seriously if we work together like a real mercenary band. But Glenn wasn’t the spoiled brat people thought of when people thought of the Fraldarius golden boy…

Not that most people knew where either of them had come from.

Point being, Glenn wasn’t the sort of guy who would just leave their group to fend for themselves, even if they weren’t really a normal merc group, in the conventional sense.

He was the sort of guy who would bitch and moan and complain at any given opportunity, on the other hand.

“Ah, c’mon. It’s not so bad.” He turned to grin at Glenn, half trying for comforting, half going for fond mockery.

“It’d be a lot better if you weren’t over there.”

Glenn stuck his head up at him. He was half glowering and half pouting, an expression Miklan had discovered was pretty unique to him, since it was hard to look properly annoyed and adorable at the same time— and yet Glenn managed to pull it off.

Miklan let the flap of their tent fall shut and hopped off his crate perch, crouching down next to where Glenn had wrapped himself up in their shared bedroll.

In the same vein, Glenn glared up at him while at the same time reaching for him; with Miklan just out of his reach he had to resort to making grabbing motions like a child asking their parent to give them something off a high counter.

Glenn had always been a study in contradictions… A well-behaved beloved son of Faerghus, golden child of House Fraldarius and apple of his uptight father’s eye, who had the foulest mouth Miklan had ever heard on someone, even when they’d been kids; who had more than once gotten into a fistfight with someone that Miklan had to break up; who had always been the first to suggest sneaking away from lessons so they could climb trees, or play fight, or nick horses from the stables and go for a ride…

Who had dropped everything he ever knew, including the cushy position he’d been born into that would have guaranteed him everything he’d ever wanted, so that they could be together.

And who right now was proving that a man could look like he wanted to kill you and be damned adorable at the same time.

Even though he was distracted by his own sappy thoughts, Miklan was never one to deny Glenn, especially such a pleasant request; the only thing he did before succumbing to Glenn’s needy desire to have his hands on him at all times was extinguish the lantern that had been giving him enough light to see by, since he wasn’t fond of the idea of the tent burning down around them in their sleep.

That taken care of, he slipped into the bedroll— or squirmed into it, more like. It definitely wasn’t designed to accommodate two people, especially when one person was Miklan’s size, but pretty early on in their time on the road Glenn had gotten outrageously clingy and refused to sleep without clinging to Miklan like he was going to float away if he didn’t. It had just gotten easier, and less wasteful, for them to share a bedroll when it was needed.

Not that Miklan was complaining. Unlike Glenn, he could fall asleep anywhere and didn’t need to be clinging to his lover to do so, but there were few joys in his life quite as consistently joyful as falling asleep and waking up with Glenn in his arms.

There were a few elbows and knees in unfortunate places as they both got comfortable, but that was standard fare for them and they were both used to it; once they had settled in, it felt like fitting together the pieces of a puzzle, Glenn’s back against Miklan’s chest.

He had no idea why he was in such a sappy mood, but Miklan couldn’t resist the thought of how perfect and right this felt; Glenn was the perfect size for him to fold up in his arms, their legs tangling together, his chin able to rest perfectly on the top of Glenn’s head.

He angled himself to press a kiss to the crown of his head, his arms pulling him in so tightly against his chest it was probably uncomfortable, not that Glenn seemed to be complaining at all. Except for the small whine he let loose as he tried to kick Miklan in the shin, which was really more of a gentle nudge since there wasn’t any room for him to actually kick him properly.

Miklan didn’t doubt he would have if he could have, though. He didn’t think that was what people meant when they said ‘love hurts’, but that was his reality.

He wasn’t about to trade it for anything.

Glenn grumbled more as Miklan nuzzled him, but melted against him nonetheless. Miklan knew Glenn’s hair was probably going to start irritating him soon, getting in his mouth and nose, but he kept his face buried there as he started to fall asleep anyway.

“Love you,” he murmured.

And even though he didn’t need to hear it to know it was true, he fell asleep that much more at peace when he heard a sleep-syrupy, “Love you too.”

If someone asked Miklan why he was so distracted and he told them it was because he was thinking about Glenn, he would probably get a roll of the eyes and a ‘what else is new’ for it.

Miklan got distracted by Glenn pretty much constantly. He would get distracted by waking up Glenn slowly and softly with kisses when they were already late and were supposed to be hurrying up. He would get distracted from his own training because he would end up with his eyes glued on Glenn dancing around his sparring partner with a wooden sword, laughing and acting like an overexcited child with his hair flying around his face half the time since he never tied it up properly and it would come loose in exactly the right way to distract him even more, which always landed him flat on his ass.

Just that morning he’d gotten distracted by Glenn’s ass while Glenn was going through his morning stretches and solo exercises, right where anyone could see him, and ended up burning breakfast. Which Glenn wasn’t going to let him live down any time soon.

Right now, though, his mind was distinctly out of the gutter— at least, as much as it ever was.

It was highly unusual to see Miklan and Glenn apart for long at all— on the battlefield they stuck to each other like glue, watching each other’s backs, and off of it they were clingy with each other in a way their fellow mercs often referred to as ‘disgusting’.

But right now, Glenn was off procuring one half of their supplies— their weapons— while Miklan was in charge of the more boring stuff, which was exactly what he wanted. Glenn wasn’t exactly the most diplomatic guy, despite all of that education and training Rodrigue had put him through, but he knew weapons. Miklan hadn’t known Glenn’s mother too well before she passed, but he seemed to have gotten it from her, since Rodrigue didn’t care about much except licking the king’s boots.

“—and ten sacks of flour,” he finished, reading from the list he’d made up while doing through their inventory the night before, figuring out what supplies they’d need once they set out on the road again.

It would be soon, most likely; there was no more work to be had for people of their ilk in this sleepy little village, but the long journey meant they needed some time to rest and restock before they set off in search of the next job.

“We can have it ready for you to pick up first thing tomorrow morning,” the elderly shopkeep said with a nod, taking the list that Miklan handed him. “Normally I’d offer to have it delivered out to you, but I’m afraid my assistant quit recently, and a delivery that size and that far out of town is just too much for me at my age.”

“We can pick it up, no problem.”

He was about to ask a few more questions when another customer entered the shop— they weren’t that important, so he was content enough to look around while he waited.

He ended up in front of a glass display case on one side of the store, staring at that same set of rings he’d seen on display the other day.

“Ohho. I thought I recognized you.”

Miklan practically jumped, cursing himself for it; he was so absorbed in looking at the rings that he hadn’t even noticed the old man coming up behind him.

Some kind of mercenary I am, he grumbled to himself, but rather than call attention to it, he turned to the shopkeep.

“You were looking at those at the market the other day,” he said with a knowing nod, and Miklan couldn’t exactly deny it, so he just nodded. “Have someone special you’re looking to give one to?”

That was the understatement of the year— but Miklan also knew a sales pitch when he heard it, and laughed as he shook his head. “I was just lookin’,” he said. “I’ve got more important things to spend my coin on.”

“Mm. A mercenary’s life certainly doesn’t leave much room for luxuries,” he said, knowingly, so Miklan wasn’t surprised when he followed it up with, “I certainly don’t miss those days myself.”

“It suits me,” Miklan replied, and meant it. Even he and Glenn had only really become mercenaries because it was something they knew they could do that would let them move around and avoid getting caught and sent back to their families— well, he was good at it, and Glenn loved it, and anything that made Glenn happy made him happy.

His eyes drifted back to the rings before he could stop himself.

The old shopkeep laughed again. “You don’t have much of a poker face, do you,” he said, not quite a question, but before Miklan could take offense, he continued with, “You know, It’s been quite some time since I’ve had an order this large… It will take me some time to get everything put together, and I still have other customers to help, and no one to help me.”

Miklan raised an eyebrow at him, curious as to where he was going with this. The old man chuckled, stroking his beard contemplatively.

“If I had some help, it would certainly put me in a generous mood— generous enough to give a substantial discount on those rings there. Say, quarter cost?”

The other eyebrow went up to join its brother; maybe the old man was right, maybe Miklan didn’t always have the best poker face, but it was hard to keep one in the face of an offer like that regardless.

“What’s the catch?” he asked, figuring there had to be one with an offer like that.

“No catch; product like that doesn’t exactly move quickly, and given the amount of work that goes into keeping this place running, my weary old bones will thank me for giving them some time off. The work certainly won’t be easy, but if you’re beating up thugs for a living, I can’t imagine some heavy lifting will do you in. What say you?”

He looked down at the display case, at the price tag of the rings. They were hardly the most expensive thing he’d ever seen— no matter how much his father had tried to keep him out of politics, he had still been born a nobleman’s brat— but the price might as well have been infinite for how much he could afford it, when they were only barely scraping by as it was.

But at a quarter of the price? It would still be tight, but with his and Glenn’s personal savings, he could definitely manage it without cutting into their supply budget.

It was probably not the most responsible use of their money, especially without telling Glenn about it beforehand, but…

Well. Miklan had a feeling Glenn wouldn’t exactly mind.

He sighed and rubbed the back of his head, trying to make it seem like he was still thinking about it, when in reality he had already made up his mind and just didn’t want to look too eager.

“Alright, old man,” he said, turning to the shopkeep. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

“Excellent! Come with me; I’ll show you where I’d like you to start…”

Miklan sighed and followed behind the shopkeep, wondering exactly what he had gotten himself into; but mostly, he couldn’t stop thinking about his prize at the end of it all.

“Glenn, sit down and eat something. You’re making us all dizzy.”

Glenn’s head whipped around so he could level a glare at Sadia, who was completely unfazed by it; in fact, despite her comment, she wasn’t even looking his way and as soon as she’d made her smartass comment she’d gone back to talking with Samira between mouthfuls of stew. The two women, who had been travelling with him and Miklan for longer than anyone, who had known them since they had packed up and left their entire lives behind and stumbled blindly around doing whatever they could to avoid staying in Faerghus, should have known better than to think something like that would work on him.

“He should have been back hours ago.”

He immediately went back to pacing, and ignored the groans and rolled eyes he got from Sadia and Samira, while the rest of their troupe went back to just ignoring him.

Well, fuck all of them, Glenn thought, because if any of them thought he could just sit and enjoy a meal while Miklan was missing, they must have been delusional.

“What are you so worried about?” Samira asked, folding her hands behind her head and leaning back against the log Sadia was sitting on. “Exactly what kind of trouble do you think Miklan is going to get into somewhere like this?”

“We’ve already cleared out anything that could even remotely be a threat,” Sadia reminded him.

“Then why is he late?”

“Who knows? Maybe he got caught up with haggling,” Samira suggested, unhelpfully.

“For flour and salt?”

“There’s a reason we don’t trust you with that stuff.”

Glenn rolled his eyes. “Fine. You guys can sit around and stuff your faces all you want. I’m going into town to find him.”

At the very least, Sadia and Samira knew better than to try and stop him; he could practically hear them rolling their eyes in turn right behind his back, but he had more important things to be concerned with.

He started on the path from their camp back down to the village, the anxiety buzzing under his skin already travelling up to his brain and filling it with all sorts of ideas of why Miklan could be so late, what had happened to him, was he okay—

And then, when he was halfway down the path, just far enough that he could still see the light from the campfire but too far away to hear the other mercs’ voices, the sight of a familiar mop of red hair dragging itself up the hill banished all those thoughts immediately.

“Miklan!”

Like a giddy child, Glenn went racing down the hill; he would have tripped over his own feet if he wasn’t so good on them, but he was still moving fast enough that he crashed into Miklan more than anything.

Miklan stumbled, but caught him, lifting him off the ground with practically no effort— but even then, Glenn could tell something was wrong from the slight quiver in his arms as he set him back on the ground.

“Where have you been?” he demanded, his arms still wrapped around Miklan’s neck as he glared at him.

“It’s… A long story,” Miklan replied, and Glenn was just about to launch into an extended scolding about making him worry, he finally took a good look at his lover’s face.

It was hard to tell since it was dark, the distant light of the camp and the stars overhead not quite enough to see clearly by, but it didn’t need to be very bright for Glenn to see how tired Miklan looked. That, combined with the way his muscles felt tense and shaky—

“Sorry, babe.” Miklan’s hand came down on the back of his neck, pulling him back in so he could press a kiss to his forehead. Glenn made a disgruntled noise at the way his prickly stubble rubbed against him, like the feeling of a cat’s tongue on bare skin. “Things got a little out of hand with the supply run. It’s all good, though.”

“You’re barely keeping on your feet, Miklan.”

“Yeah, I’m beat.” Like he was trying to emphasize that, Miklan let out a jaw-cracking yawn that forced him to let go of Glenn so he could stretch. His shoulders popped in a way Glenn hadn’t heard since before they had left home, when Margrave Gautier would run him through so many drills and rounds of sparring that he would barely be able to move afterwards.

Glenn remembered having to half-carry him to his room as soon as the Margrave was out of sight and Miklan would actually let him, and then he’d spend the rest of the night massaging his burning muscles with the soothing ointment he used after his own training sessions.

So sue him for being a little paranoid.

“I need some dinner and a good night’s sleep,” Miklan said, or at least that was what Glenn was guessing he was saying, since it was hard to understand through another yawn.

“Don’t think I’m not gonna yell at you about being this late without telling anyone,” Glenn said sternly, even as the tension melted out of his body as Miklan slung an arm around his shoulders and leaned his considerable weight into him. “And I’m not carrying you up this hill!”

“You couldn’t even if you wanted to.”

Glenn gave him a shove— but when Miklan nearly tripped and stumbled, he still caught him anyway.

When Glenn woke up, it was with the unpleasant sensation of being in an empty bed.

He could count the number of times he’d woken up in an empty bed over the past year and some odd on one hand. None of them had been pleasant occasions. So when he woke up and had plenty of room in the bedroll, Glenn felt a sharp pang in his chest and suddenly couldn’t breathe.

Then, memories rushing back to him of the day before as his mental fog dissipated, his heart rate returned to normal. He and Miklan had gone to bed as normal after he’d stuffed his face with a double helping of Sadia’s stew. He’d been so exhausted that he had passed out as soon as his head hit the pillow.

None of that explained why he woke up alone, though.

He sped through getting dressed so fast he was still struggling to get his shirt on the right way and he didn’t even have his shoes on when he all but fell out of his and Miklan’s tent. He smoothed his hair down, looking around wildly for—

His boyfriend, who was standing right at the far end of the camp overseeing the unloading of a supply delivery.

Still rubbing sleep from his eyes and more stumbling than walking, he slouched his way over to Miklan, who was discussing something with an old man he assumed was the shopkeep while directing their fellow mercenaries to unload their order.

He came up behind Miklan and leaned against his broad back, his arms coming up loosely around his waist. Even though he was busy, Miklan had probably seen him coming from a mile away, and didn’t so much as glance at him as he buried his face in his back.

Of course, Glenn couldn’t have that— he was not going to put up with being ignored after waking up alone. So he made a grumbling noise as he squeezed Miklan tightly around the midsection, nuzzling against his back.

“Good morning to you, too,” Miklan deadpanned, finally turning to at least look at him with a dumb smirk that Glenn wanted to kiss off his equally dumb face. “About time.”

“And who’s fault is that?”

“You’re constantly giving me shit for not letting you sleep in, and now you’re getting annoyed with me for letting you? Wow.”

Glenn didn’t feel like dignifying that with a response, so he just buried his face further in Miklan’s back and tried to bite him. It didn’t exactly work since there wasn’t exactly anything loose or angled for him to get his teeth on, and Miklan was wearing a thick shirt, but he thought he deserved points for trying.

Miklan didn’t give him points; Miklan went right back to what he was doing, until finally Glenn got tired of gnawing fruitlessly at him and sidled around so he was leaning against Miklan’s side instead of his back.

As his arm went around Miklan’s waist, Miklan’s went around his shoulder, not even breaking his stride as he kept going through the delivery order. A few times Glenn thought he saw the old shopkeep giving him a funny look out of the corner of his eye, but he ignored it. He was used to it, after all. There wasn’t a chance in Hell he was ever going to let anyone’s opinion of him or Mik stop him from having his hands all over him at every given opportunity.

“How long is this going to take?” he asked, only half-intelligible because a yawn caught him mid-sentence. He dragged his hand down his face, probably doing nothing to help the fact that he hadn’t even bothered to make himself not look like a half-asleep mess.

“Exactly how long it always takes,” Miklan said like a parent talking to an impatient child, with another one of those dumb smirks. “If you’re bored, go get some food. You missed breakfast, but I told Sadia to save some for your lazy ass.”

Glenn pinched Miklan hard in the side, making him hiss and wince and try to squirm away from him before he leaned up and kissed the side of his jaw.

“Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone,” he said, waving lazily and swaying his hips as he walked, knowing Miklan would be staring at his ass as he walked away.

He always had the last ‘word’, after all.

By the time he’d scrounged up something edible— which was the remains of everyone else’s breakfast slapped between the last two pieces of vaguely stale bread— he migrated back to the center of camp, making vague noises of greeting between a huge mouthful of sandwich in the general direction of the other mercs.

At the edge of camp, the supply delivery had been fully unloaded, and Miklan was going over the last few details with the shopkeep. The old man was laughing and gave Miklan a pat on the shoulder; Glenn wasn’t close enough to hear what they were actually saying, but they looked strangely casual for people who had only met the day before to Glenn’s knowledge, especially since Miklan— like him— was usually wary of people that he’d just met.

You never knew who would be willing to sell you out at a moment’s notice to your vindictive father; they were in the Alliance, far enough away from their homeland to not feel like they constantly needed to be looking over their shoulder, but without the same comfort they had when they left Fodlan entirely.

It intrigued him even more when he saw the old man go to shake Miklan’s hand, and then immediately press something into it. It was small enough to be completely obscured by Miklan’s big meaty hand, and Miklan immediately shoved it into his pocket…

And then looked around, clearly checking to see if anyone was looking his way, prompting Glenn to hide behind a nearby tent.

He poked his head back out a moment later, but whatever Miklan was up to, he had gone right back to work like there was absolutely nothing amiss.

Glenn wasn’t sure whether the feeling in the pit of his stomach was intrigue, nerves, both— or maybe just his breakfast disagreeing with him.

“But what would he be hiding from me?”

“How do you even know he’s trying to hide anything from you? Have you actually asked him about it?”

“Well— not yet, but he’s been avoiding me all day!”

“We’re packing up camp; he’s not avoiding you, he’s just busy. Like you should be, instead of moping.”

“Hey! I’m helping!”

Glenn stuck his tongue out at Sadia, not caring that he looked like an obnoxious child. Sadia gave him a hard look, but even though most people would have been intimidated by a giant Duscan woman glaring at them like that, Glenn knew better, and also wasn’t a racist fuck like everyone else from Faerghus, apparently.

When her glaring did nothing, Sadia sighed deeply and went back to sharpening her axe. Glenn had been given the job of oiling weapons from their reserve before packing them up for transport, mostly because Sadia had gotten tired of him hovering around complaining and asking questions she didn’t have the answer to while she was trying to actually get some work done and had told him to either sit down and help or stop bothering her.

“He disappeared all day yesterday,” Glenn continued, ignoring the ‘moping’ comment entirely. “Didn’t tell anyone he was going to be gone, and came home completely exhausted. And today he’s joking around with the shopkeep like they’re old friends, and hiding some mysterious… Thing from me. You don’t think it’s all just… Weird?”

The constant scrape, scrape of Sadia’s axe against her sharpening stone stopped as she reached out and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Glenn,” she said, the hand giving him a firm squeeze. “I’ve known you two longer than anyone else here, yes?”

“You don’t beat Samira by much,” Glenn said. “But yeah.”

When they had been freshly on the run from their family territories, knowing that at any second they could be captured and dragged back home— Glenn back to the life his father had carefully laid out for him, betrothal to a frighteningly younger woman and all, and Miklan back to imprisonment and probably death at the hands of a father who had been not-so-subtly trying to kill him for a long time anyway— they had headed out of Faerghus as fast as they could, and had found themselves in Duscur.

There they had met Sadia. They had clicked with her instantly; she had never left the village she’d been born in, eagerly wanted to see the world and escape the feeling that she had never quite belonged, and on top of that she was an absolute bitch who never had any hesitation about speaking her mind. Exactly their sort of people, so it was no surprise that they had been able to convince her to pack up and pursue her own mercenary career, and when they’d met her on the road months later after picking up a few more stray mercenaries she’d happily joined their little band. Being from Duscur, she needed the protection of numbers just as much as they needed a six-foot-something warrior goddess in heavy armour wielding an axe that probably weighed more than Glenn did and was never afraid to smack either of them upside the head and tell them they were being idiots, who could scrape together an edible meal from just about whatever was put in front of her, and who was just in general that sort of baseline competent that Glenn really couldn’t even pretend to be with most things that weren’t related to fighting or swords or sex.

Sadia had met them at probably their lowest point, when the adrenaline of running away from home and finally having their freedom had started to run out but the anxiety of being on the run from the most powerful families of Faerghus still hadn’t settled yet, so. Like it or not (and Glenn was very much on the side of not), Sadia probably knew him and Miklan better than anyone, excluding each other. And even though she was better friends with Miklan than she was with him, he liked to think he knew her pretty well as well; they’d been travelling together for almost a year, after all.

So when he looked him dead in the eye and said, “Then believe me when I say you’re being an idiot, and if you don’t go and talk to your boyfriend I will shove that sword so far up your ass you’ll be able to taste it,” he did believe her, and very suddenly he was remembering he had somewhere else to be.

Once he had hastily finished up the sword he was working on and scurried off with his tail between his legs, though, Glenn went right back to worrying. Which he thought was perfectly reasonable, no matter what Sadia had to say.

It’s not like I don’t trust him, Glenn thought as he meandered through camp, watching everyone tearing down their campsite as they got ready to move on in search of more work. They were mercenaries, after all; they had to follow Fodlan’s troubles so they could profit off of them. I just worry that he’s in trouble. That doesn’t make me crazy, does it? Why else would he be trying to hide things from me?

Sadia did have a point, though; if he wanted to figure out what was going on, the easiest way was to just talk to Miklan about it. Even if he was trying to hide something from him, he wouldn’t lie to him… Right?

No, no. He was being stupid. Of course Miklan wouldn’t lie to him. He probably wasn’t even hiding anything from him. Glenn was just on edge because he’d been gone for so long, and they’d hardly seen each other for two days except in passing. He just needed some quality Miklan time. That was it.

Either way, finding Miklan would solve his problem.

His best bet for where to find him was that he would be helping load the caravan and the horses with the supply delivery, so he headed in that direction. On the way, he spotted Samira packing up her own tent— reminding him that he should probably be doing the same, but that could wait until after he’d found Miklan.

“Hey Samira,” he called out as he strolled up, trying to look and sound casual so she wouldn’t give him the same hard time that Sadia had been giving him. “You seen Miklan around?”

“Sure have,” she replied, pausing in her work to turn to him with one hand resting on her hip. “He was looking for you, actually.”

“Oh?” Had they just missed each other, then? “Where is he?”

Samira shrugged. “How do I know? I’m not his keeper. I’m not his messenger, either. I told him to go find you himself.”

Samira wasn’t the sort to mince words— it was why she and Miklan had hit it off so well when they’d first met her in Sreng, even though there was absolutely no love lost between any of the Srengese tribes and the Gautier family, and unfortunately there was no mistaking Miklan for anything but a Gautier. All you had to do was take one look at his lion’s mane of red hair…

Things probably wouldn’t have gone nearly as well for them early on if Samira hadn’t taken one look at the two of them and decided they were a couple of scared idiots and not a threat that needed to be ‘taken care of’. She could have easily left them to their own devices, or turned them over to the chief for the crime of being a Gautier and someone in the company of a Gautier in Sreng territory… Unfair, maybe, but knowing Miklan’s father as well as he did and the reputation of the Gautier family in general, it was probably well-earned by the past generations.

Instead, when Miklan had groused about being called a Gautier and she had demanded an explanation, once they gave it she had invited them to sit and drink with her, and the rest was history. In fact, without her, they probably would have never gotten as far as they had as mercenaries; even though they’d all started out at the same time, she knew what she was doing a lot more than they had, when they were still spending more time looking over their shoulders for Faerghus soldiers than trying to make ends meet. She was cunning, knew how to drink and talk turkey with the best of them, and took absolutely no shit from anyone.

Still, she wasn’t the sort to be nasty for no reason, either. Just like how Sadia, despite being big and intimidating and plenty of people just by being from Duscur, was not the sort of person to threaten someone for no reason.

...Which meant Miklan must have pissed Samira off just as much as he’d pissed off Sadia.

“Alrighty then!” He grinned at Samira. “Good talk. Guess I’ll go find him. Thanks a bunch!”

He wasn’t about to poke a second sleeping bear in the same day. Glenn liked to pick fights, but he wasn’t stupid. And he wasn’t about to press his luck.

He continued onward in the same direction, figuring it was still as good a place as any to start his search. He wasn’t sure whether the fact that Miklan was looking for him made him less nervous, or more. At least he wasn’t hiding from him like he thought… But if he’d been bothering Samira about it so much, it had to be something serious, because Miklan wasn’t the sort to worry himself half to death over nothing like he was.

He found Miklan exactly where he’d first thought to look— by the wagons and makeshift horse pen, double and probably triple and quadruple checking the supplies and the horses themselves to make sure they were ready to take off.

For a minute, Glenn just stopped and watched, leaning against a tree. Miklan was clambering all over the wagons and packed supplies, his lips moving as he talked to himself, probably counting; then he climbed down and went to the horses, giving each one a quick once-over but stopping by his own mount to coo at her. She was a young, feisty mare that Miklan had always been excited to ride every time he had come to Fraldarius territory, since his father had never given him a horse of his own even though the Gautier family were known for their animal husbandry and for training as mounted soldiers. Sylvain, on the other hand, as heir of House Gautier and future wielder of the Lance of Ruin, would almost certainly get his own horse.

Sylvain had named her Daisy. Miklan had let the name stick.

It hadn’t been as easy as just grabbing the first two horses he could find, but Glenn had made sure to grab her and his own gelding when they had fled from Fraldarius with as many of their things and as much of their families’ gold as they could carry. She had always been Miklan’s horse, as far as he was concerned. No one in Fraldarius could deserve her as much as Miklan did.

Watching his lover feed his horse pilfered treats and basking in the feeling of how enamoured he was with him was almost, almost enough to distract Glenn from that paranoia that had been bothering him since he’d spotted Miklan with that shopkeep. Then it came rushing back to him all at once and Glenn wasn’t entirely certain he could keep his hastily scrounged breakfast down.

Of course, that was just him being dramatic; he had a stronger stomach than that. He was a mercenary, after all.

“Hey.” His stomach gave a little flip that prompted him to step forward and grab Miklan’s attention, and seeing the way Miklan jumped and looked at him with wide eyes like a startled deer was almost worth it. “Heard you were looking for me?”

“Yeah—” Miklan double and triple checked Daisy’s lead to make sure she wasn’t going to wander off, but it was obviously more a product of nerves than genuine concern. “I got something I wanna talk to you about.”

Glenn felt his lungs seize up in his chest. It was a familiar feeling. Every time his father or Count Galatea had mentioned his and Ingrid’s engagement, every time he and Miklan had narrowly avoided being discovered being… Too comfortable with each other while he was visiting the Fraldarius estate, every time he had any reason to believe he or Miklan had been recognized…

But he smiled and folded his hands behind his head in a perfect display of nonchalance, perfectly practiced. And that was when he realized Miklan really had to be dealing with something serious, because he didn’t even notice it was fake.

“Well, here I am,” he said faux-brightly. “Talk away.”

“Mind if we… Go somewhere else?”

You know I would follow you anywhere, was the first thing that jumped to Glenn’s mind, but it seemed pretty heavy for a guy who was pretending he didn’t have a care in the world, so instead he just said, “Sure.”

He strode up to Miklan and slipped their hands together. Their fingers fit together perfectly— Glenn’s long and slender, Miklan’s meaty and thick, both of them heavily calloused from years and years of weapon’s training that had started before they had even learned how to sign their own names. Miklan gave his hand a squeeze.

It was nice, and comfortable, and reassuring— Right up to the point where Miklan turned and literally started dragging him off.

“Miklan, what—” Glenn was startled enough that he almost stumbled a few times, partly because of the surprise and partly because Miklan almost immediately dragged him away from their camp and pretty much into the woods.

It wasn’t like there was really a path to begin with— they’d just found a place outside of town where no one was going to run them off for camping on their land, and which they didn’t have to clearcut. But if there was anything that passed for a path, Miklan quickly took him away from it, until Glenn was having to stare at his feet to keep from tripping over tree roots more than looking where they were going.

“It’s just up ahead,” Miklan said, answering a question Glenn hadn’t even asked.

“What is up ahead? What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?”

Miklan didn’t answer; it was like he hadn’t even heard him.

At the very least, he wasn’t exaggerating about their destination; a moment later Miklan pushed back some bushes and tugged him through what could vaguely pass for an opening.

Glenn wouldn’t quite call it a clearing, but it was definitely a gap in the trees, featuring a small pond that was fed by a trickle of a stream. It was probably where they’d been getting their water since making camp, if he had to guess. But since Miklan wasn’t carrying a waterskin or a bucket, Glenn had a feeling that wasn’t why they were there.

“Alright,” he said, looking around for a few seconds to avoid looking Miklan in the eye, worried about what he would see. “We’re out here in the woods now. Nice and private. So what is it you wanted to talk about?”

“It’s…” Miklan took a deep breath and a step back, his hand slipping out of Glenn’s.

Glenn knew he was being irrational, stupid even, but he barely held back from making a wounded noise when he lost the comfort of Miklan’s hand in his own, and didn’t resist the urge to reach out and try to grab for his hand again. His hand only found air as Miklan turned away from him completely, not even noticing he was reaching for him…

The more his nerves started acting up, the clingier he got, and the more his clinginess wasn’t indulged, the more on edge he started to feel. A vicious cycle…

“I… Kept going back and forth on whether I should do this now or wait until there was a better moment, but it might be a while before we get to where we’re going and get a chance to get settled in and everything, so…”

Miklan was rambling. Normally, Glenn would have made fun of him for it— lovingly, of course— but he was too preoccupied trying to figure out what in the Hells he was talking about, and whether he still needed to be worried or not. It didn’t sound like Miklan had brought him out here to give him bad news or anything, like he’d been worried about, but… He did sound nervous, which was unusual for Miklan. Normally the only things that unsettled Miklan enough for him to show it— even to Glenn— were when people tried to flirt with him, and when some seriously bad stuff happened…

And suddenly his nervous stomach was back full force, and he just hoped that whatever happened, he wouldn’t end up throwing up all over Miklan.

Still, there was one tried and true method Glenn had used his entire life to get through situations like this— whether it was forcing his way through talks of politics or etiquette training, or forcing a smile through his father discussing his engagement, Glenn had always lived by the motto that if someone couldn’t see that he was nervous and upset, then he wasn’t, really.

“You’re awfully worked up about whatever this big secret of yours is,” he said, working his usual magic to keep his voice light, almost sing-song, like he was teasing him instead of trying to keep his stomach from flipping inside out. “You didn’t get into some kind of trouble while I wasn’t looking, did you?”

He took a step forward and put his hand between Miklan’s shoulder blades— and instantly he could feel how tense his muscles were, like he was wound so tightly he might explode at any moment.

His nerves only ramped up at that, wondering at what could have gotten Miklan so worked up— while at the same time his instincts jumped to attention, wanting to soothe Miklan however he could, however he needed.

Glenn had always found it easy to ignore his own problems by focusing on others, and since Miklan was the centerpiece of both, maybe he could kill two birds with one stone.

“Mik—”

“I had this whole— speech thing. I was thinking about it all day. And all day yesterday. And… For a really long time, if I’m being honest.” Miklan sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. He pulled something out of his pocket, and Glenn tried to peer around him to see what it was, but Miklan was just too damn big; he couldn’t see it without making it painfully obvious he was trying to look over and around him. “But I keep forgetting half the damn words, and you know I’ve never been good at that sort of thing, so just… Here.”

And then he didn’t have to even try to get a peek, because Miklan turned around and held it out to him.

It took him a second to realize what he was even looking at; by the time his brain was able to process the concept of a ring, he was already starting to tear up.

“Like I said, I had this whole… Speech thing planned, but you know me. I’m no good at talking about important stuff like this. So I figured it would just be better for me to just… Give it to you and ask you right out.” Miklan cleared his throat, looking anywhere but directly at him, and then he seemed to suddenly remember he was forgetting something and dropped down to one knee.

“Glenn, will you marry me?”

Glenn had spent a lot of time reading romance novels when he was younger, trawling through his father’s library in search of stories that matched the way he felt; he’d found a few tucked away, mostly among his father’s personal library, but most of them were your pretty typical stories of knights saving princesses or young maidens and the two of them falling in love and getting married after hardly even knowing each other. And each and every time, the knight would have some bold declaration of his love, usually about all of the things he loved about this woman he barely knew— and of course the things he talked about were always whatever the story thought the ideal woman was supposed to be. Beautiful, soft-spoken, pure, and whatever other bullshit they could spew on the page to amuse people for a short time.

Glenn knew better than anyone that big speeches like that, exactly like Miklan said, were not his forte. But he’d spent every moment they were in each other’s company from the time they’d managed to stammer out their feelings for each other until now, and maybe even before that, making sure Glenn knew exactly how much he loved him and all of the reasons why without ever having to make any kind of dumb speech.

So when he watched him go down onto one knee, holding out the ring— bare in his hand, not in any kind of a box, simple-looking but worth more to him than the fanciest and most expensive gold and gem-encrusted ring he had ever seen— he didn’t need to hear the words said out loud for it to all come rushing back to him just from the look in Miklan’s eyes, looking at him like he was his entire world.

Well, the feeling was mutual.

“Of course I will,” he said, forcing the words out before he ended up happy crying so hard he wasn’t making sense so he didn’t leave his boyfriend— no, fiance— hanging. “Is this— this is what you’ve been hiding from me all day? Dumbass.”

“Fuck off,” Miklan replied easily without an ounce of heat behind it as he, still down on one knee, slipped the ring onto Glenn’s finger. “Your dumbass, now.”

“You always were.”

“Officially, I mean.”

As Glenn held up his hand so the sunlight could catch the silver of the ring— his ring, his wedding ring— he thought that he very much liked the sound of that.

It wasn’t that Miklan had been nervous that Glenn would say no. That would have just been stupid. Glenn had abandoned a rich, cushy life of luxury with a father and brother who adored him and a crown prince who thought he could do no wrong, just to be with him.

Of course, there was the fact that he was pretty sure Rodrigue had given Glenn some kind of complex about the idea of marriage in general, and then there was the fact that despite what the Church had to officially say on the matter there were a lot of people across Fodlan who still thought people like them were wrong…

But all of that was definitely overthinking things, which was exactly what Samira had told him, rapidly going from amused to sympathetic to annoyed. He’d made a strategic retreat around the time that she looked like she was going to give him a slug to the jaw if he stood around fretting and distracting her from her work, and then she’d sent Glenn his way when he was still pacing around trying to keep busy and focus his mind on what was important— namely, getting things exactly right.

It wasn’t like he’d thought Glenn would say no even if he fucked it up completely. It was just that Glenn deserved the best. He’d always deserved the best, and since he’d picked Miklan over a life of relative comfort, he was determined to always give him the best he could.

It had probably been for the best that Glenn had shown up out of the blue like he did, not only because Miklan couldn’t really think of a time in his life when he wasn’t happy to see Glenn, but also because it had forced Miklan to stop worrying and just— do it.

‘Just doing it’ had turned out to be the right thing to do.

After they had gotten back to camp to many hearty congratulations— most of them before they’d even told anyone, which really went to show how good Miklan was at keeping a secret, or maybe their fellow mercs were just more observant than he thought— Glenn had immediately insisted they head back into town before they finished packing up to head for the Empire.

“You said it yourself,” he said as he dragged Miklan by the wrist just as efficiently as Miklan had dragged him, despite the fact that Glenn was about half Miklan’s size— the Fraldarius family were always deceptively small. “It’ll be a while before we’re back in civilization and settled down. So we should get this taken care of while we have the chance!”

Glenn, always one to wear his heart on his sleeve, was practically vibrating with excitement.

Miklan, not usually one to wear his heart on his sleeve in the least, couldn’t stop smiling and refused to let go of Glenn’s hand.

They practically tripped their way to town and straight to the church, where the dazed priest was nevertheless happy to accommodate their abrupt request.

Miklan wasn’t even sure he would call the whole thing a ceremony; he and Glenn stood in front of the priest as he read the traditional marriage rites of the Church of Seiros, barely paying attention to what was being said as they were too busy staring at each other to bother listening. When he’d handed them their marriage certificate, they’d practically snatched it out of his hands and run off to the village magistrate and have it stamped and made official.

‘Official’ didn’t matter to them any more than had before today, but the simple fact that they could— that there was nothing standing between them and getting married, no stupid tradition or politics— was a rush, so why not?

Even when they staggered back to a bare-bones camp hours later, Miklan still felt his heart and stomach doing strange flips every time he suddenly thought about the fact that Glenn was now his husband.

That night they lay in their tent, and even though they both knew they needed to be well-rested to set out on the road the next day, they were both too brimming with fresh excitement. Glenn was tucked under Miklan’s chin, nuzzling his jaw and pressing kisses all along it, while Miklan wrapped his arms around him and held him to his chest and busied his hands with idly tying braids in his husband’s long, beautiful hair.

Husband. Was that word ever going to wear out its welcome? He highly doubted it.

“You know, we could have done that a long time ago.” Glenn sounded almost like a purring cat, which Miklan supposed was fitting enough.

“You haven’t been of age that long,” Miklan reminded him, and Glenn snorted.

“They weren’t exactly asking us for birth certificates. And Faerghus never cared about any of that stuff, so why should we?”

Miklan rumbled out a laugh as he untwisted the braid he was working on only to start on another, this time going for something more complex, even though he had nothing to tie it back with.

“Love you, babe,” he said, in absence of anything else he could think to say. “Husband.”

“Love you too,” Glenn murmured directly into his throat. “Husband.”

Yep, that settled it.

Miklan was never going to get tired of hearing that.