Archive of Our Own

Hey Rean.

First off – feel like I should start this with an apology. I know I told you guys I was going, some time, to figure myself and this whole ‘being alive round two’ thing out. Guess it just slipped my mind to say when. You know how it is. Gelica actually wanted to throw me a party. A big shindig, the same sort of thing we did for Randy when he peaced off back to Crossbell to go be with his favourite people again. Really didn’t want to deal with all the sentiment that comes with stuff like that, especially when I’m not even leaving for good.

So… Yeah. Sorry about that, heading off without saying goodbye to you properly. The last time we talked about me going you said it was alright, but you sounded kind of hollow and you still looked so drenched kitten at the thought that I just didn’t know how to bring it back up. Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m real bad at saying no to you. If you asked me to st to come with me, big purple puppy dog eyes and all, I’d probably cave. You know that, right? Actually, yeah, you totally do. You’ve abused it, to my face. I’m onto you, you sly dog.

Anyway. I know you’d let me eventually – after a whole speech about how bonds trump all and that deserving love is a right not a price (yes, you sound like that and no, nobody has ever disagreed with me in the history of ever). I couldn’t risk that this time. Not when I need to do this for me.

Just be glad I gave you some warning this time around. Guess I really am a little too old for the daring-do of midnight escapades. Don’t think I have that kind of rebellion in these bones anymore. You better keep that a secret from Ash or he’ll say I’m boring, and then I’ll feel it like a disturbance in the fabric of reality and come right back to remind him how much he’s still got to learn.

The letter’s pretty old school, right? It was Towa’s idea. Don’t go all Instructor on me and grade me on my handwriting or anything – I haven’t written this much since highschool. We were chatting about it, me and her, when I was putting Ordine through some final tests. I was trying to foist my responsibility, as you do, but then she looked at me with all sorts of sadness on her fac her big brown eyes, going on about how you deserved more than just that, and I… Man, I couldn’t say no. You two’re terrible apart but even worse together. Consider this compromise, just for you. Feel special yet?

Didn’t really feel right, either, leaving you high and dry. That really was a dick move on my part, way back when. Did I ever properly apologise for that? I feel like I won’t I know you’ve forgiv I’ll try, next time I see you – because I’ll be back. Maybe even before you know it. Depends on how shit it is travelling by myself again.

Before you bother asking around, I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. I’m smarter than that. You’d track me down in a heartbeat – and don’t pretend you wouldn’t. You’re probably already calling people to check if they’ve seen a weirdo on an orbal bike go peeling out of town. Put that ARCUS down, Schwarzer. You’re not slick. Focus on your students and all that. They’re good kids, but they’ll need a good instructor too.

Don’t worry about me. I’m in good hands. My own, for once.

Later.

Crow.

3 new messages from: AshenLeaves.

AshenLeaves: Towa gave me your letter.
 She said you might be headed West first.
 Any plans to stop off at Trista? You might be too early for the Lino flowers.

Delivered.

AshenLeaves: I wish you could’ve at least given me a chance to say goodbye.

Delivered.

Would you like to recall this message?

YES.

Read, 02:01 AM.

Yo Rean.

If the fancy commemorative stamps didn’t immediately give it away, I’m writing to you from everyone’s favourite holiday spot turned political hotbed turned holiday spot again. How much practice do you think the average guy gets at saving the world? A hell of a lot less than you do, I’m sure. Decided to do a little sightseeing since I’m in the area – had enough of Mishelam Wonderland by now, but the Arc en Ciel’s just as good as everyone hyped it up to be, if not even better than that. Armorica, too, seems like the kind of place people settle down and grow old in. It’s idyllic out here. Barely a month into spring and the flowers are already blooming, all warm honey and sunshine. Still not sure how the logistical nightmare of the hospital being way out in the middle of nowhere works, but everyone seems used to it so who am I to burst their bubble.

Honestly, it’s… Almost kind of weird, seeing it all be so normal and everyone be so happy. The same kind of weird that got me out here in the first place. Sure not bad, though – Crossbell deserves better than to be another little piece in country chess. Makes me wonder if Jurai’ll get there one day. Emotionally, I mean. People don’t forgive and forget over there nearly as easily as the Crossbellans do. We’ve started fixing things, but it’ll be a long time until we patch it up enough for it to be somewhere my Gramps would be truly proud of. Still, can’t help feeling like I kind of got the easier job. At least I don’t have to contend with a whole bunch of almost-wars to see my folks smiling again.

You’ll never guess who finally got the chance to properly sit down and catch up with Scarlet. We got coffee, in a café. Can you imagine that? Two ex-terrorists, enjoying the good life. She seems to be doing well, even if the squire gear is still weird as all hell to see on her. She’s getting used to it, though, and I’m getting used to calling her Sister – which she seriously hates hearing out of my mouth. Wazy, her head honcho, is a riot. I asked her if she’s handling him alright, especially if he’s off chatting up strangers when she’s left doing his dirty work, but she just laughed and said that she’d had more than enough practice from dealing with me. Guess you two have that much in common.

Oh, yeah – Randy says hi. I dropped by the SSS building not that long after I got myself settled in the hotel here. He showed me around the place – the best food, the greatest drinks, all that kind of stuff. We hit up all those bars that I never got a chance to check out, given that the last time I was here we were busy saving the country from political annihilation and the time before that I was technically dead.

Don’t get mad at him for keeping it hush-hush – or if you do get mad at someone, let it be at me, because I asked him not to tell you. Made him promise to only post this once I was at least a week out too, so there’s no point in you high-tailing it over here when I’ll be long gone by the time you even make it halfway. He gets it. You might not, I think.

Hope nothing’s giving you too much trouble back hom on campus. Wanna hear something crazy? The lino flowers were already blooming when I zipped through Trista on the way here. Seems they started early this year, or time just flies when you’ve got nowhere else to be. Really takes me back, the smell of them in the wind as I breezed on past. Nostalgia’s a hell of a drug. Had me feeling like I should maybe put a bandana back on or something. You think I could still rock it?

Just a heads up: I’m planning on breaking off the beaten path a little for the next bit, maybe camp out in the wilds for a while. ARCUS signal can be pretty unpredictable way out in the middle of nowhere so don’t hold your breath if I blip off. Don’t hold out for another one of these either. I don’t really know if I’ll have that much more to say.

Be seeing you.

Crow.

Randy picks up on the second ring. He normally takes at least four (not that Rean’s counting (he’s not)), which means he either just coincidentally happened to be on his ARCUS or he’d been expecting it. Based off how his brow ticks up in tandem with the corner of his mouth, Rean would bet money on it being the latter.

“Well,” he says, sounding far less manic than Rean feels, “look what the cat dragged in.”

“Randy.” Rean does his very best to sound normal. It only kind of works. “You,” he swallows, tries again, “how’s,” wets his lips because he can’t figure out how to finish, “is he…”

Randy laughs in the way he does when he sees through someone without really meaning to – which means Rean has failed, completely, to be cool about anything.

For the literal Ashen Chevalier, Rean’s finding that to be a humiliatingly regular occurrence whenever Crow’s involved.

Randy bites his grin back into something that a more charitable person might call a teasing smile. “You wanna give me a little more to work with there, Rean, or am I going to have to fill in the blanks myself?”

“Crow.” Rean blurts it out so fast he almost shocks himself, a rush of more air and breath than anything closer to consonants. “I got his letter today,” as his eyes stray off-screen to where it still lies open on the table, “and I wanted to see if you knew where he’d be going next.”

Randy rolls his eyes, not unkindly, and mutters something Rean doesn’t quite catch over the buzzing of his own thoughts in his ears. He thinks he makes out what might be a beleaguered ‘Aidios, these idiots’, and a vague sigh that could potentially be understood as ‘being unable to see the forest for the trees’ – but Randy ultimately holds fast, shaking his head. “Sorry, Rean. You’re a good guy – like, really good – but telling you anything would go against the bro code. What happens in the backstreets stays in the backstreets, that’s the Orlando philosophy.”

Rean does his best to not look as crestfallen as he feels. He’d been expecting it, knowing all too well just how loyal Randy can be to anyone he considers worth the risk, but it still stings. “Fine,” he eventually settles on, and Randy at least has the decency to look apologetic, “but just... Tell me. Did he look happy?”

Randy hums at that, the camera oscillating as he tips back in his seat. “Crow?” There’s a fondness to it, like he’s been utterly trounced by Rean’s worry. He said, once, joked about how he’s always had ‘a soft spot the size of the sun for guys like you and Bannings – folks born with way too much love and nothing else to do but weaponise it.’ “Not sure about all that, but… Yeah,” he murmurs, looking pleased as punch, and Rean’s never been more grateful to Lloyd and his hard-fought war of attrition against Randy’s better judgement. “He looked like he was getting there.”

1 new message from: FineAndRandy.

FineAndRandy: Guess who just got off the phone with a certain someone.
 This guy.

BadCrowmance: wow. he held out for even less time than I thought he would.

FineAndRandy: Yeah, well – can you blame him?
 He spent two years making sure you were okay and
 then you bounced out of town without so much as a text.
 That’s cold, Armbrust.

BadCrowmance: touche.

FineAndRandy: Hey, I’m not saying it to breathe down your neck.
 I get it. You need time.
 Been there, done that. It’s just how it is.
 He’s pretty worried about you though.
 So’s everyone else.

BadCrowmance: I know.

FineAndRandy: Good. Keep checking in. I think he’ll lose it if you don’t.
 He’s already done it once. Tough job, caring about a guy like you.

BadCrowmance: you’ve got no idea.
thanks, randy. for not ratting me out.

FineAndRandy: Don’t mention it. I know your bad decisions like the back of my hand.
 And hey, if you’re ever in Crossbell again – hit me up.
 I’ll take you to the Casino next time. We’ll milk ‘em dry.

BadCrowmance: you betcha.

To Rean.

Hope this letter gets to you in one piece. I was passing through some of the roads around Bareahard when I spotted this weirdly familiar head of spiky red hair down one of the side roads. Slowed down to get a better look and what do you know – Agate Crosner, in the flesh.

He balked hard when he saw me from a distance. Couldn’t stop staring at my hair and face. You’d think he’d seen a ghost – which is kinda funny, because I have technically died at least once. He warmed up pretty quick once he recognised me for me. Apparently he’s out here on some errand from Tita’s ma. No clue what sort of wild-goose chase it’d have to be to take him this far out of the way. Now I might be no Lechter in terms of hunches, but I get this… Sneaking suspicion, shall we say, that, and I quote, ‘that crazy old hag’ just wants to make sure Tita sees as little of him as physically possible – but you obviously didn’t hear that from me.

He ended up doing some bracer stuff since he was in the area, picking up a couple of random favours from city folk. I have no idea where the hell he got them from, either. You think it’s just a bracer thing, that inherent need to help out? I feel like the Bright kids have that syndrome in spades. Then again, you’re not a bracer and you still ended up just like them. Hey, if you ever get tired of being the walking definition of condensed kindness and all things good, maybe you should give it a crack. I threw my lot in for a while, helped with some of the trickier monster exterminations. Gotta say – it’s way better doing it by choice and not survival. Got him to promise to bring this back to you in return, so I think it’s a pretty sweet deal.

Ordine’s holding up fine, still putting in the work to get me from A to B. Haven’t picked out where I’m headed next yet, but it’s real nice, just getting to go where I want when I want, sleeping under the stars and sleeping in if I don’t feel like getting up. Glad it’s warming up, though, or I might’ve had a couple of nippier nights than I’d like. What can I say? Been a long, long time since I’ve had to do it all alone, but I’ve been managing just fine. Old habits die hard when you’ve spent as much time getting by as I have.

Pretty sure I’ve done more fishing in the past two weeks than I have in the past three years. I mean, not that that’s super hard and all, but I think I might be starting to get why you have so much fun with this. It’s real relaxing to just toss a line and wait it out. I caught a real big crab too – my very accurate measurements put it at a healthy 43cm. What’s your record again? Bet I’ve got you beat. Better up your game, Rean, or I’ll be outfishing you before you know it.

Still out here and still alive,

Crow.

1 new message from: BadCrowmance.

BadCrowmance: this is profiterole.

ATTACHED: A blurry, somewhat out of focus selfie of Crow, one arm around a big husky puppy with the barest sliver of Ordine’s fuel tank visible in the background. He’s laughing, grinning from ear to ear, and the dog seems to be doing its absolute best to knock him over out of nothing but sheer enthusiasm.

AshenLeaves: I thought you said you didn’t have signal.

BadCrowmance: I don’t.

‘Sup Rean.

Bet you never thought you’d be getting a letter with such nice paper, huh? I sure never thought I’d be writing on it, either, but your mother kind of insisted. Yeah, that’s right, your mother, Mrs. ‘Just call me Lucia!’ Schwarzer herself. No prizes for guessing where I am now. Play it cool, man, I can hear your shock from here. Ignore any smudges by the way – I decided to write this while in the footbath and one of the pages may or may not have fallen in.

Ymir’s… Nice. I can see why you like it so much, growing up here. Got that clean smell to it, snow and winter air. Seems like the kind of place that’s always a little piney, all year round. I had to leave Ordine parked at the base of the mountain to get up here. A tarp’s probably good enough camouflage, right? Not being able to fly is kind of a pain. Now I have to do this like everyone else. It’s the first time I’ve been here by the orbal car proper, even if it’s not the first time I’ve been here alone.

Weird how that works out.

I thought it’d be bad here, that it’d just… Remind me. Of everything. All of it, you know? Like ‘hey, how’s it going, remember that time I totally almost broke everything and then actually did break everything for real?’ But it doesn’t. Mountain air must be getting to me because I almost caught myself thinking that none of it broke in the first place. I walked up the path to the town square and by the time I turned back around the snow had already covered up whatever footprints I left behind.

Wow, look at me – waxing poetic. You sure get a lot of time to think when there’s not much else to do.

Do feet get pruney? They’re gonna match my brain in a minute.

The hot springs are nicer than I thought they’d be. I almost fell asleep in one and almost stabbed my eye out with a spike of my own frozen fringe. I was looking forward to wiping the floor with your snowboarding record, but then your dad said it’s too late in the year for that now. Too dangerous with the snowmelts or something.

Speaking of your parents again – you been talking about me to them or something? Better Why woul Because I bumped into your mother when I was gift-shopping and as soon as I said I was one of your friends, she looked me up, down, smiled like she knew me, and forced me back into your house without another word. Forced hot drinks on me, too (which – sidenote: what in Aidios’ name does your mother put in her hot chocolate because this stuff? Liquid. Gold), and some extra nice hospitality with a side of really sweet and really well-catalogued Baby Rean Photo Albums. (There were like. Eight full ones. I’m as impressed as I am terrified.) She looked personally affronted when I said I was planning on staying at the tavern, insisting on making up and dusting down one of the spare rooms, and even promised she’d see this letter personally and expressly delivered herself whenever I finished picking out the words I wanted to say.

No wonder you turned out like you did when your parents are the warmest thing around in this little snowy village.

They miss you. Everyone does. Even Badeaux, who’s at least ten times cuter than you are (factual) (I can prove it). You should come by when you can.

You’ve got people who look out for you, Rean.

Don’t waste it.

Back I go to freezing my ass off,

Crow.

1 new message from: BadCrowmance.

BadCrowmance: hey bunny.

BlackRabbit: Crow.
 Is something the matter?
 I believe I was instructed to only attempt contact during emergencies.

BadCrowmance: everything’s fine.
don’t freak out.

BlackRabbit: I will endeavour to do so.

BadCrowmance: that’s my girl.
how’s
is every
everything okay over there?

BlackRabbit: In which parameters are you speaking?

BadCrowmance: yknow. just… generally.
how’s school, how’re your studies, how’re your friends.
that kind of thing.

BlackRabbit: Things are well.
 We are all in good spirits despite it being exam season.
 I am working on a new combination with Claimh Solais.

BadCrowmance: oh? yeah? you’ll have to show me next time I see you.

BlackRabbit: Will you be coming back soon?

BadCrowmance: not just yet.
sorry altina.
think I’ll need a little more time.

BlackRabbit: Okay.
 I understand. I sought clarity from Musse about your situation.
 She told me that some people feel better when
 they’re around others while others feel worse.

BadCrowmance: that’s the long and short of it, yeah.
she’s a smart one, that musse.

BlackRabbit: She is.
 Instructor Rean is doing well.
 He spent a lot of time staring out the window the first week you were gone.
 He seems better now though.
 He’s always rereading your letters.

BadCrowmance: I wasn’t looking for rean updates in particular.

BlackRabbit: I know.

BadCrowmance: oh.
thanks.

BlackRabbit: I assume you would like to keep our correspondence confidential?

BadCrowmance: geez, you learn how to read minds while I was gone too?
but yeah, if you wouldn’t mind.
I’ll treat you to pancakes when I get back, as many as you want.

BlackRabbit: Understood.
 Goodnight, Crow.

BadCrowmance: sweet dreams, bunny.

Rean,

Gonna have to keep this one short because postcards just don’t have the same real estate. Cool pic though, right? I don’t really recognise any of the scenic photos they’re using for these anymore. Maybe that’s for the better.

Jurai’s good. Better than good, actually. Everyone’s in high spirits because the fishing season’s starting up again. All you hear are nets and all you smell is salt. It’s still chilly, but in a different way to how Ymir is. We’re seaside. There’s no land or growth to buffer whatever sweeps in from the ocean. When it’s cold it’s wet, and when it’s dry it’s still pretty breezy, even in the sunlight.

I miss Hope you’re Maybe we

Think I’ll bring you here, one day. Nothing like the local ghost to show you all his favourite haunts.

Kind of wish you were here,

Crow.

P.S. Check with Stark. He weaselled lunch out of me, the bastard. The least he can do is play errand boy for me in return.

P.P.S. If it got to you damaged it’s absolutely his fault and none of my responsibility whatsoever.

Stark’s in his room. He smiles as soon as Rean comes knocking, almost like he’d been expecting it, and vanishes into the depths of his closet for the briefest of moments before coming back with a box tucked under one arm and a helping of goodwill in the other.

Rean chuckles when he takes it with both hands. “I thought it’d be in much worser shape.”

Stark laughs. “No kidding. I think he forgets that I’m very careful about things when I want to be. Besides,” as a hand drifts to his neck in a motion so like Crow that Rean is floored by the strength of pure déjà vu, “it’s Crow who asked me. Of course I’d see it through.”

Rean smiles. He reaches out, pats Stark once on his right shoulder. “Thanks, Stark. It means a lot.”

The grin that lights up Stark’s face makes him look years younger, boyish in its brilliance but no less charming in just how clever it makes him look. “Any time Instructor!”

Rean waits until he’s back in his room to open it. It’s light, barely weighing anything at all, so logically there can’t be all that much in there but… Hm. Strange. It barely rattles when he gives it an experimental shake or two. He works out why pretty quickly once he lifts the lid, peering around it to find reams and reams of tissue paper packed around whatever’s inside.

There’s a magnet on top, a garishly ugly “I HEART JURAI” in bold black and white; it’s horrific but it nonetheless goes straight onto Rean’s shelf, leaned up against the radio with a fond eyeroll. Then there’s a curious pack of dried seafood snacks, mixed fish and some kind of octopus if the ingredients are anything to go by; he saves that one to share with Celine next time Emma comes to visit, or maybe even to use as punishment (?) for the losing team next combat tactics class. A new type of fishing lure sits halfway down, all blue and silver and glittering in the light; it’s like nothing he’s ever seen but it’s clearly high quality and he already can’t wait to give it a whirl next time he has a free day. An eclectic gathering of trinkets it may be, but there’s clearly still thought and intent behind each and every item – in short, it’s the sort of cobbled together, ‘devil may care while caring too much’ attitude that fits Crow to a T.

Rean digs around a little more. It’s probably just tissue paper at the base now but some part of him still holds out for another letter, maybe another page or two of hard-won facts about whatever Crow’s gotten up to in the time he’s been out of Rean’s life. Rean’s never been to Jurai. He’s sort of surprised that Crow didn’t write more about it as the place he grew up in.

Then again, he muses, balling up the top layers and setting them to one side, it’s never really easy to talk about things you actually love.

How’s that saying go again? A picture’s worth a thousand words? The postcard makes up for it.

He’s just about to call it quits, toss the rest of the white paper into recycling and shelve the box to be repurposed another day, when the tip of his middle finger bumps against something smooth and shockingly cold in the bottom left corner. His fingers flinch back on instinct, made tense by surprise, but a careful shifting of contents and tilting of the box reveals…

Rean frowns. He scoops it out a little more carefully, settling it in his palm and turning it in the light. No doubt about it – it’s a shell. A tiny, perfectly intact conch shell, two fluted points on either side of a spiralling end. The inside of it is this rosey salmon pink, fading to a beigey white on the edges, and the outside is run through with band upon band of pale orange and cream. It’s beautiful, as firm as it is fragile, and he picks it back up between middle finger and thumb with nothing short of the utmost care.

He leaves it on his desk, right next to the photos he’s got propped up of Class VII, Old and New alike – and right on top of a glinting 50 mira coin.

Hey again, Rean.

It’s been a bit, huh. Guess I didn’t quite know what to send. After Jurai, I’ve just been tripping down the coast – taking in the ocean sights, you know? Didn’t realise how much I missed the sea until I saw it again.

You probably already know where this is going.

Kind of hard to miss it if you’ve got even the barest grasp of Erebonian geography.

Say what you want about the asshole who ran it for a while, but Ordis… Sure is pretty here. Always has been. Nothing will change that. The blue and the white really work, especially against the sky and the clouds, the sun and the sea.

People like it here, I think. Other people. Fancy folk, the type who spend more in a day than I do in a year. Good for them, but… It’s not for me. Never has been. Not really. Felt like I was overstaying my welcome as soon as my poor-person boots touched capitalist cobblestone. Worse, somehow, because I don’t have the rest of you to buffer it this time.

Ordine was here. He isn’t anymore. No-one here remembers me, or him, or if they do they just lie to themselves and pretend they have no idea who the hell I am. Everyone tries to forget Cayenne too, like he doesn’t even exist to them wherever he’s rotting away. They shove it back and down with the rest of the war and what happened then, and it’s really…

Gonna be honest, not sure where I’m going with this anymore. It’s just a lot.

Glad I came though. I know, I know – after I said I’d never be back and everything. Maybe I’m going crazy, but some part of me felt like Ordine Mark II deserved to find out where it all started. Mark III I guess, with the Tyrfing and all, but you and I know better than anyone that they're just not the same. Better I pass that legacy onto someone new and leave the X to shine in her own right. What do you say?

Anyway. Been… Thinking. About where to head from here. There’re more places in Erebonia I could go, but I feel like I need a real change of pace. Hey, who knows – maybe I’ll take a trip down to Liberl next. Agate said the weather there’s pretty nice this time of year.

Think I’ll stop by Leeves first though. If Altina’s had a growth spurt in my absence I’ll never recover.

Think you could slot in some time to show your face?

I’ll shout you dinner – think of it as interest.

Crow.

Dear Crow,

Disclaimer: I’m probably going to get maybe ten minutes to get this written before you come back, so you’ll have to forgive my atrocious penmanship. I swear I’m usually much more put together than this.

Hopefully you’ll be well on the way to your next destination by the time you find this. Do you know how difficult it was to get this into your pack? You watch that thing like a hawk. I don’t think you even realise that you’re doing it. It probably helps you when you’re on the road, but it’s annoying when I’m trying to exploit it. I let Musse do me her definition of a favour to get me enough time to write this, and you know how poorly that kind of thing can end.

Sorry about everyone else. I know you didn’t want to make a big deal about it, and I know you didn’t want to have a whole welcoming party when you’d be setting out again so soon, but Towa’s been more worried about you than anyone so I figured I at least owed it to her to let her know you were coming. But then Altina overheard somehow and Ash wouldn’t stop giving me flack for my good spirits and you know how hard it is to lie to either of them – especially when they all care about you as much as I do.

I’m glad you’ve been having fun on your travels. Your letters have been wonderful, every time I get them. I’ll admit, I… Maybe could have handled it a little better when you left. I even got Michael worried about me with how much I was spacing out. I guess I just got it in my head that we’d, that I’d, done something to make you think that you weren’t welcome, or that you didn’t deserve to stay. You know that’s not true, right? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Crow. You always have a place with us, no matter how far you go.

Sorry. That’s… Probably too much, isn’t it. You know me – I never do leave well enough alone. Besides, you didn’t let me say any of this the first time around, so think of it as yet another round of interest.

There’s so much more I want to write but I think my time’s up, so – stay safe out there. I'll be waiting for your return. We’ll all be looking forward to the day you’re ready to come back to us.

Yours, forever and always,

Rean.

Rean wakes up to a knock at his door.

He blinks, bleary, and frowns at the ceiling. One glance at the silhouette of the moon through his curtains is enough to know that it’s… Late. Really, truly late, the kind of midnight quiet that’s only ever disturbed by people who definitely should not be awake or can’t bring themselves to fall asleep.

The knock comes again, a little louder and a little more determined.

Rean flips the covers back, bare feet tamping across the wooden floorboards. “Coming.” They’ve all been through it, confusing dreams and nightmares for reality. Maybe it’s just a lay-over from saving the world. Some nights are better than others, and some of them deal with those better than others too.

Doesn’t mean that they can’t always do with a little help.

He’s expecting someone far smaller when he opens the door, gaze already lowered to where he usually finds green eyes under a white fringe, so when he’s greeted with nothing but navy cotton and bluer sweater underneath it takes him a second or two of half-awake processing before he’s got enough of his faculties together to drag his eyes up.

Unfortunately, that… Doesn’t make it make any more sense.

Rean blinks once, twice, rubs at his eyes with the pad of his index finger, and only trusts himself to speak once he’s sure that the person on the other side of the doorway isn’t going to disappear. “Crow?”

He looks… Kind of terrible, actually. His eyes are darting every which way, usually messy hair looking even worse for wear – like he’s run his hands through it a dozen times already, the flippy tails of it dislodged from where they’re usually gathered over one shoulder to spill about the collar of his coat.

Crow grins – or tries to. It creaks at the edges and doesn’t reach his eyes. “The one and only.”

Rean keeps his voice pitched low, glancing either way down the hall. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be halfway to Liberl by now?”

Crow’s hands twitch at his sides. “Yeah, well, I got a little… Side-tracked.”

Rean’s surprise switches track right onto concern. “Did you forget something? You could’ve just called. I would’ve brought it to you tomorrow. I know your ARCUS works even if you don’t want to admit it, and it’s dangerous to be travelling this late at night.”

Crow huffs, aggrieved, and smears across both eyes with his fingers before propping index and middle up against his temple, thumb hooking around his chin. He sighs into a palm. “Aidios, do me a fucking solid.” Mumbled as it is, it’s still probably the most sacrilegious prayer ever said on these school grounds – but then Crow’s eyes are on him and Rean loses the ability to think in favour of just how much he wants.

Oh. Oh, this is… This is really, really bad, because far too many weeks of far too much distance has apparently caused every bit of practice he’s had with keeping his feelings in check to go up in smoke. Maybe it’s visible, the last vestiges of his sanity spiralling away with the seconds that drag on.

Rean doesn’t know how long Crow watches Rean watch him. He doesn’t know how long they stand there, either, or how long it’s silent, or any of those probably important and real things – but what he does know, intimately well, is just how hard it is to keep his eyes up when Crow opens his mouth and Rean’s first instinct is to close it. With his. Together.

It takes nothing short of a monumental force of will to stop his internal screaming from breaching externally too.

Crow’s dropped his hand back down now, plucking at the leather of his gloves with idle fingers. “I’m gonna ask you something, alright, Rean? I need you to be absolutely honest with me.”

Rean nods. It’s impressive that he manages that, especially when he’s still mentally stuck at the screaming stage.

“Did,” Crow starts, then stops, then starts again, “did you mean it?”

Rean’s mind goes abruptly quiet. “What?” Mean what? Aidios, did he say what he was just thinking out lou—

“Your letter,” Crow says, and Rean’s internal freak-out machine calms back down to a usual baseline of anxiety. “When you signed it off, you wrote…” A flick of the wrist. “Did you mean it?”

Rean goes from very confused to very awake to very, very mortified in about half a second. “Oh,” he says, and his panic meter blasts all the way into apocalyptic.

Right. The letter.

Crow stares at him. Rean swallows.

“Of course. That. I… Guess I got a little carried away…?” Considering how he’d basically word-vomited his very non-platonic stream of consciousness out onto the page, that’s likely the understatement of the century. He tries for a casual laugh; it dies, very uncasually, halfway up his throat. “I kind of didn’t expect to have to deal with the consequences of that for a while longer.” If ever, really. Forgive and forget, live and let live, all that sort of thing. His hand drifts to his cheek. “Sorry about that. I made you uncomfortable, didn’t I. I just… I had a lot of time to think, when you were gone. Helped me realise some things.” He tactfully elects not to include that he’d known those things for years, maybe since before he even knew how much it would mean to love.

Given how Crow looks like someone’s just slapped him over the head with a bluefin tuna, that might’ve been a good call. “So you…”

Rean barely dares to breathe, but he’s… Well, he’s come this far, hasn’t he? Crow has too, in his own strange round-about way. He made the whole trip back, blazing back up paths he probably hadn’t expected to see again for a long while, just because he got Rean’s letter and read it and didn’t decide to run even further away at the sight of a patched-together heart on one sleeve.

Maybe that means something. Maybe it could mean something in this dark, half-light hallway, Rean on one side of the threshold and Crow across the way on the other; maybe it will if he just lets it, if he invites it in and offers it someplace to stay.

Rean decides, then and there, that he’s going to try.

He straightens, bolstered by decision, and a flicker of almost-panic darts across Crow’s face. Rean stares him straight in the eyes, takes a breath to steel himself: “Yeah, Crow. I meant it. I think I have meant it, for a very long time.”

There’s no heavenly choir once he says it. There’s no wondrous birdsong, or clouds parting beyond the heavens, or much of anything at all – but there is a weight off his chest, one that cascades apart like water to roll down his back. The night spins on, the world doesn’t end, and Crow…

Crow doesn’t pull away either. Rather, he’s just gone back to staring at Rean, eyes wide and expression nothing short of shell-shocked. The tuna must’ve struck him again, somewhere between then and now, and Rean’s just beginning to think that he’s really truly broken him for good when Crow makes this wounded, pained kind of sound, lurching forward and into motion to shoulder his way past and into Rean’s room.

Rean spins with it, jostled by surprise. He’s not sure if the reaction’s good or bad but it certainly hadn’t been one he’d expected. “Crow? What—”

“I’m staying.” Crow’s jacket comes off, hastily thrown over the back of Rean’s desk chair; then his gloves and his belts and his boots, all unceremoniously dumped at the end of Rean’s bed. “I’m—I’ll figure it out in the morning, just—” He clambers into Rean’s bed, then, resolutely squirming his way under the covers even if he’s still got his necklace and his socks on and generally just way too many layers to be comfortable. He drags the blankets up to his chin, adjusts the pillow so he’s only half on it, and goes still as a mummy as he fixes his eyes on some random corner of the ceiling. He huffs his fringe out of his face. “Let me have this, alright?”

Rean knows his mouth has fallen open. It can’t be attractive, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, but he’s not quite sure how to go about fixing it back up when his heart is preoccupied enacting a rather complicated interpretive dance routine in his chest. This… Wait, does that… He battles, valiantly, between laughing, crying, and simply dissolving at how unbearably cute this all is for long, long seconds – seconds that Crow spends entirely still and entirely silent. He ends up settling for none of the above, instead closing the door and making his way back over to the bedside. “You’re so…” He sighs, sitting on the edge of the mattress. “Goddess, what am I going to do with you.”

Crow glares at him meaningfully over the edge of the quilt. “If you kick me out, Rean, I’ll cry. You will break my heart and then I’ll be sad.”

From anyone else, Rean would have no trouble brushing it off as the joke it is. From Crow, it’s almost embarrassing how much every fibre of Rean’s body rebels at the very thought. “I’m not— Crow,” he says, turning around a little better so he can meet him face on, “I’m not going to kick you out.”

“Good.” Crow burrows deeper. “I live here now.”

“That… Also isn’t going to work.”

“Yeah? Under who’s rules?”

Rean stares, meaningfully, at the non-existent gap between them, a stark reminder of the fact that one single bed is arguably far too small to fit two full-grown men in it comfortably. Crow lifts his head, glancing between Rean’s knee and his own shoulder, and flumps back down in what can only be called abject defeat. He still wiggles further in, like that’ll make the space situation work any better. Rean appreciates the thought.

He taps at Crow’s forehead around where his fringe has gone prickly with static. “We’re going to talk about this.”

Crow grimaces. It’s impressive how effective it is with only half his face. “Do we have to?”

“Yes. Adults communicate, Crow. We’re adults now.” Rean levels him with his most unimpressed teacher stare. “Would it kill you to talk about your feelings for once?”

“Absolutely. It’ll be deadly. You’re going to inflict grievous and unfixable damage.”

He looks so serious, half-buried by a checkered quilt, and the whole situation is just so very absurd that Rean can’t help it anymore – he laughs. A proper, full-bodied whisper-giggle, made all the worse by the hour and the fact that he can’t laugh out loud, not properly, and when he finally gets over his fit of hysteria and gets enough air in his lungs to breathe again, Crow is just… He’s just staring, unabashedly, this look of unadulterated and overwhelming feeling all over what’s visible of his face. His eyes are crimson, glinting and luminous in the dark, like he’s counting down the days and counting up all the lucky stars that aligned for them both to end up here.

Rean’s struck, not for the first time, with an all-consuming desire to kiss him.

He wants to, so very badly, but one of them has to be at least a little bit responsible between the two of them and Crow definitely does not have a good track record in that regard.

Rean looks away first. “Tomorrow.” He wipes his palms on his pyjama pants. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow – and you’re not getting out of it this time,” he says, sliding under the covers and doing his best to slot himself into what is supposed to be his own bed. All the warm blanket bits are taken by another body, but Crow shifts, again, moving onto his side, and they push and pull and make space for each other in that way they always have until they inevitably make it work. It’s not comfortable – far from it, actually, until Rean just gives up on propriety and squirms himself up so he’s half draping over Crow’s chest and their legs are tangled together, tessellating stacks of ankle bones that lock into casual place around travel pants and soft cotton.

Crow’s gone very, very still, heart racing under Rean’s cheek.

Not like Rean can talk, though – his really isn’t doing that much better behind the confines of his own ribs.

He resolutely closes his eyes. “Goodnight, Crow.”

Crow doesn’t relax for a long while, tense from his fingertips to his toes, but when he does – when he does, he unfurls, breathing in and out and opening himself up to being in the same space as someone else by comfort and choice. “Night, Rean.”

Neither of them wake until morning.

( They talk about it.

They kiss about it, too, even as Crow retreats back into the blankets and Rean has to dig him back out by force. Crow complains the whole time, cheeks and ears as red as his eyes, but he’s smiling under the affected glower to his brow and his hands never leave Rean’s waist, not even for a second.

Musse catches them coming out of Rean’s room together because of course she does, a knowing hand drifting to a smug little smile, and by lunchtime the whole school knows and at least half of the cohort are a sizable amount of mira richer.

Rean looks from table to table, Crow’s arm wound securely around his waist. “Were they… Betting on us? Have my students been gambling on me?”

Crow shushes him, idly tossing a suspiciously jingling bag towards an all too smug Stark. “Shhh shh sh Rean – just let it happen.”

Crow doesn’t go anywhere for a very long time after that. He sticks to Rean’s side figuratively and literally, worming his way into schedules and plastering himself to the Branch Campus’ walls until Michael just about throws a contract at him and Aurelia herself threatens to come by if he refuses to sign it.

When he does pick up the occasional bouts of travelling again, taking the chance to see the world or even taking the kiddos out on field trips while Rean holds the fort back home, he leaves his ARCUS on. He texts constantly, photos of the sunset or whatever he’s eating or even a shopping list when he thinks of things on the road that he just can’t risk forgetting, and he calls Rean every night until one of them remembers that they have schedules and responsibilities and can’t keep ‘sacrificing sleep just to see each other, okay? I’ll talk to you later. Yes, I love you. Yes, I know you love me t—’.

Spoiler: it’s Rean. It’s always, always Rean.

It’s not easy, learning to let yourself be loved. Rean knows that better than most, even confronted another version of himself that had given up on the very idea of that alone being enough to save anyone, let alone himself.

But, as he opens his ARCUS to an all too triumphant selfie of Crow with a teeny tiny distant city spread out below, one he casually saves to his ever-growing folder of memories he wants to keep…

AshenLeaves: Where even are you?

BadCrowmance: guess.

He huffs a laugh, nudging aside his grading to go digging through his own camera.

It seems like it’s really never too late to start. )