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Despite his name, Nyx Ulric moves like a coeurl.
He dances through his training drills, every movement flowing into the next like water, precise and sure. When he flips his kukri around into a different grip, he never fumbles or misses or drops them. When he dodges an incoming strike, he twists and swerves just as much as he needs to, never more, never any energy or movement wasted.
Until the moment he warps, and then he throws his whole self into the act, slamming into his target with all the force of a hurricane, striking lightning.
It's insanely gorgeous to watch, and even though Pelna knows the hours and hours (and hours and hours) of practice and drilling that Nyx puts in, it's still not fair that he makes everything look so easy.
"Okay look," Nyx says one day, slinging his arm around Pelna's shoulders and pulling him in close. They've just finished official training for the day, and everyone else is drifting off toward the showers, chatting and laughing and glad to be done. Nyx is sweaty from running cooldown laps, he smells like musk and gym socks and Pelna feels himself flushing red despite it. Nyx seems not to notice. "Pelna, right? I know snipers don't usually need to warp, but if you keep fumbling your knives someone's going to get killed."
"I know," Pelna's flush just deepens, mouth pulling down at the corners at the sense of uneasy shame that blooms inside him. "I just get so nervous when I have to warp, it's like my fingers forget what they're doing."
Nyx just gives him a thoughtful look, nodding. "You're on the front lines so rarely, nerves are probably inevitable when you are." He sees Pelna's surprised look and grins, arm still wrapped around his shoulders, doing terrible and unknown things to Pelna's heart. "Personally, I think you're wasted trying to wade into armed combat with the rest of us, but it's still better for you to know what you're doing, just in case."
Pelna just nods. Even the mages know how to warp because no one ever knows how a battle might turn; Pelna's just super bad at it.
Nyx is still looking at him thoughtfully, like he's a puzzle to be deciphered. He finally lets go of Pelna, and Pelna tries to pretend he's not a little disappointed. "Grab a knife, let's run through some drills."
Pelna blinks hard, not sure he heard right. "Wait what?"
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He's doomed.
That's it, end of the road, might as well offer himself up to the next Imperial force they come across.
Well- no. He's not that melodramatic. But it's hard not to be, when Nyx folds him up into his circle of friends like it's the most natural thing in the world. Maybe for Nyx it is. But it's been a long, long time since Pelna had friends - splashing through the streams of his hometown, laughing and unaware of Imperial dropships looming on the horizon - and he's gotten pretty used to being on his own.
He's a sniper and a tech gadgetier, both of which usually mean spending time on his own. Missions where the rest of them are crammed together in transports, moving as a unit, relying on each other, catching each other - those are the missions Pelna spends a thousand meters away, perched on a cliff all on his own and peering through his scope, waiting for just the right moment. He listens to the comm chatter, but he's never a part of it, not really.
But now here he is, perched on a rickety railing with a beer in hand and Crowe leaning beside him, laughing as they watch Nyx and Libertus arguing over the proper way to barbecue the anak steaks Libertus had managed to find on a delightfully good sale. Luche and Axis are ignoring the argument in favor of some sort of card game, and Tredd should be showing up any minute with the next round of beers and-
And it's nice. It feels like home.
Nyx glances over at them and grins, bright and coeurl-quick, and Pelna feels his heart flip over. Maybe he's over-thinking it. It's easy to pretend he's over-thinking it, when Nyx turns back to jostling Libertus away from the grill without anything further. Maybe the smile was meant to just be friendly. Maybe the smile was meant for Crowe.
Maybe not.
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"Oh. That's it!"
Pelna arches an eyebrow but doesn't look up, halfway through disassembling his rifle for a full cleaning. "What?"
He can feel Nyx's eyes on him, burning along the lines of his shoulders and arms as he works through the familiar sequence of motions, but he refuses to let himself get distracted. Tensions are up again, they could be deployed at any moment and Pelna wants to be sure he's ready to go.
"You don't even have to think about what you're doing, do you?" Nyx sounds... a little in awe, actually, and Pelna's ears heat up with the implications of Nyx Ulric being impressed by him. He tries to play it off with a shrug.
"Not really. I've done this so often it's muscle memory." He glances up just long enough to see Nyx nodding, a look on his face like he's gotten the answer to a question that's been burning him. Pelna hurriedly turns his eyes back down to his rifle.
"So we just have to get you to that point with warping. If you can pull a knife and throw it through muscle memory alone, you won't have time to get nervous."
That's... not a bad idea, but it means a lot more repetitive knife throwing practice. Pelna groans, and Nyx grins.
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In deference to Pelna's stomach and stamina, both of which are much shakier than Nyx's, they don't actually warp much. That might come later, but first Nyx wants to make sure he can aim and throw in a moment, reliably hit a target instead of having the knife bounce off handle first. It's really not as bad as Pelna makes it out to be. It's almost calming in a strange sort of way, like being at the shooting range, drilling the same series of actions over and over (and over and over).
"Better!" Nyx says one day when Pelna manages to strike their target dead on for the third time in a row. Pelna's out of knives, so he and Nyx both walk over toward the targets to start retrieving them. Nyx claps a hand on his shoulder, jostling him with a friendly little push. "See? I told you it was a matter of practice."
"Do I get to teach you to shoot next?" Pelna stoops down to retrieve a couple knives that had bounced off, sliding them back into the bandoleer he's carrying over one shoulder. "You never know, it's not a bad skill to have."
Nyx makes a strange sound that Pelna can't identify, and he looks up quickly. There's an expression on Nyx's face that Pelna can't place, but it's only there for a fraction of a second before he grins. "The Kingsglaive firearms expert offering to teach me to shoot?"
Pelna's heart flips with a strange sort of... something, and he stands to step closer to Nyx. You never know... the tide of a battle can turn in an instant. Even coeurl can be taken down, and Pelna's no coeurl. Nyx goes still, the smile slipping off his face at the sudden charge in the air around them, and that's all the confirmation Pelna needed. It's strangely comforting to realize maybe this hasn't all been one-sided.
"Stranger things have happened," he says, trying to sound casual, but his voice comes out too soft. Nyx licks his lips, drawing Pelna's attention to his mouth and-
Fuck it.
Pelna had thought, alone at night curled between his sheets, that kissing Nyx would be like kissing a live wire. Like kissing a coeurl, wild and untamed and full of teeth and energy and enthusiasm. But it isn't.
Kissing Nyx is gentle, sweet, Nyx's hands carding into his hair to cradle him at just the right angle and-
Pelna hadn't accounted for the fact that while he might be kissing Nyx, from the other side of things, Nyx is kissing Pelna. The sudden realization that the sweetness, the tenderness, is just for him- it rises up through Pelna like a wave of heat, a rising tide, and he makes a soft, adoring sound into the kiss and leans in, chasing more. His arms are around Nyx without quite remembering how they got there, hands fisted in the back of his shirt to hold him close and tight.
Nyx chuckles, soft and warm. He breaks the kiss to breathe but doesn't go anywhere, resting his forehead gently against Pelna's. Pelna half expects some quip or witty statement, but nothing comes. They stay like that, noses almost bumping, sharing each others breath, until Pelna leans in to kiss him again and feels the way Nyx shifts and melts against him.
It's more awkward this time, breathless and messy, teeth and tongues and Nyx's fingers curling tighter in his hair, but that doesn't make it less perfect.
Eventually- eventually they'll get it down to muscle memory.