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They walk side by side through the dark, cold corridor, temporarily wreathed in silence. Six scarlet ovals reflect many times in the broken glass of the windows. Shards of glass and debris crunch beneath two sets of boots, and wind whistles through the caved-in wall.
“If I close my eyes, I can hear the children singing carols in the halls, at Year’s End,” Chrom whispers. His hand trails along the dry, dusty garland that hangs along the wall. “Do you remember?” He hums a few notes of one of the more popular tunes, his deep voice resonant in the hall.
“No.” Grima tosses Chrom a dark look, and Chrom falls silent.
Grima knows this melancholy mood has come up because of the old decorations lining the walls, the dead evergreen branches wound around the crumbling banisters. Memories lie in every darkened corner of the castle where he and Chrom used to reside. The trappings of the Year’s End celebration - a ritual meant to bring happiness and hope as they passed through the darkest, coldest time of the year. It was an Ylissean holiday that he celebrated with his companions for years and years, before he killed Chrom and took over his current body.
Chrom’s words creep into his mind, despite his snapped response.
When he blinks, he can almost see Morgan, her little face full of light and joy as she raises her sweet voice to the hymns she’d practiced for days. He can practically feel her arms around his neck as she leaps into his arms, begging him to join them. And beside Morgan stands the ever-serious Lucina, a few years older than Morgan, adding her off-key voice to the mix. Owain and Inigo stand on Lucina’s other side, their light, airy voices untouched by puberty. The rest of the Shepherds’ children gather around them, some more focused than others.
Grima sees Chrom’s crestfallen expression, and for once he tells the truth. “Yes, I remember.”
“Good,” Chrom says, and puts his hand in Grima’s.
Grima glares down at their clasped hands. He has lost his mind, he realizes… because Chrom doesn’t exist. Grima killed him, struck him down to claim his powers uncontested - but yet here he is, as real as Grima himself, and Grima can’t recall how he got here.
The blue-haired prince leans in, his gloved hand brushing Grima’s cheek. He is grimy, and his uniform is covered in dirt and soot. When Chrom touches Grima, he feels it, and tears build up in his eyes.
He doesn’t want to be alone.
“Don’t cry,” Chrom whispers. “I’m here.”
Those words infuriate him, incite him into action.
Grima reaches up a sharp-nailed hand and grips the prince’s chin. The man winces, his eyelashes coming down over his eyes in pain. Grima wants to get rid of him, but he can’t. Can’t, or won’t. So after a moment he releases Chrom. He allows the prince to kiss him, there in the abandoned, lonely hallway, and it feels so real that he just gives in to it.
That melancholic mood surrounds Chrom still, though, even as they move away from the great hall.
Grima doesn’t know why, but he feels compelled to do something about it.
When Chrom goes to rest, Grima collects unused candles from the stores in the basement.
At the beginning of his release into this form, he used to worry that Chrom would kill himself when Grima left him alone - but now, the fear is all but gone. He can roam the world away from Chrom if he wants, confident that Chrom will wait for him to return. Grima doesn’t leave him alone very often, though. He feels… better when he is there, and his host is more calm.
Thoughts of the host, still lingering deep inside, bring his awareness closer to the surface. Grima hates the way it feels, for it reminds him of his waiting imprisonment deep within, only able to whisper suggestion into his host’s mind. What are you doing? the host asks, curious.
Grima curls his lip at the question, but he doesn’t want the host to start screaming again, as he did at the beginning. Show me that last Year’s End celebration, he demands of the host, and the memories flood him with their intensity. Part of him is surprised that the memories are still so clear.
He allows himself to experience that last Year’s End celebration, taking mental notes as to how it was organized. He arranges the candles across the table and on stands behind the empty throne, mimicking their location in the vision. With a flicker of magic, he lights the candles, and the destroyed room starts to fill with that glow and warmth. He clears out the debris from the damaged wall with his magic, and then turns, looking around the hall.
His host pushes, and the memory of watching Chrom come down those stairs, decked out in that ridiculous fur cloak, overwhelms him. Chrom looked radiant then, smiling and waving to the Ylissean elite, those lucky enough to get an invitation to the palace festivities… but that smile - that smile - was all for him.
He catches himself on the table’s edge with a gasp. He feels a little bloated and sluggish with all the emotions these memories bring up - a little like how he’d felt at that feast, when Stahl had challenged him to an eating contest. He can hear the children’s shrieks of delight as they dash around the table and through the dancers. Morgan's pleased giggle echoes around him as she climbs into his lap, setting a crown of evergreen and tinsel on his head.
He feels Chrom’s hand upon his shoulder, drawing him out onto the parquet tiles with a knowing smile at Robin’s embarrassment. The music folds and circles around, drawing him and Chrom together. The touch of Chrom's hand at the small of his back, the secret swirl of fingers against his spine, the press of Chrom’s cheek against his hair as Chrom expertly leads him around the dance floor.
The host quivers within him, and Grima realizes this is the first time in ages they have been present together in this body. I miss that smile, the host says, and Grima's chest warms with the phantom memory of it.
He remembers sitting out on the balcony with Chrom, waiting for midnight, the pair of them drunk on spiced cider ale, the sloppy kisses and the touch of heated skin as the snow fluttered down around them…
It hurts, and he hunches around his core, pressing a fist against his chest. I did this. I… ruined this.
“Robin?” Chrom is standing behind him, and he spins. All that pain he let out hovers around him, obvious in his tear-filled eyes, the slump in his form, and he can’t put it away fast enough. Chrom steps up beside him, staring at the display, and then those heavy blue eyes fall on Grima.
Chrom’s frown deepens, and he smoothes a hand across Grima’s brow, as he used to do. It is a comforting gesture, and Grima wants to push him away, but instead he moves to him. He wraps his arms around Chrom, pressing his cheek against that warm chest. Chrom’s hand is gentle on his hair as he pets Grima, and Grima takes that comfort from him.
After all, if he is a construct, Grima created him for comfort and pleasure.
They stand together in Grima’s silence for a few moments, until eventually Grima pushes against him and steps back. The once-prince lets him go.
Chrom looks at him, not at the decorations, for a long moment. “You did this… for me?”
Grima sees no malice in Chrom’s blue eyes - just sadness. He nods, taking Chrom’s hand. “I did.” And then, because the host wishes for it... “I want to see you smile again.” He can’t force Chrom to smile - he hasn’t smiled in months, years maybe… since before he stabbed him.
Chrom comes closer, his eyes catching the multitude of candle flames. Grima feels so stupid, all of a sudden, and doesn’t look up at Chrom - but he is right there, so close that Grima can feel the heat off of his body. Chrom tilts his chin up, and that touch feels so real.
“Thank you,” he says, and smiles. Grima’s knees feel weak, but he locks them in place. That smile… he’s forgotten how it makes him feel, like his legs are made of jelly and he would do anything for this man. In an instant, that feeling is gone - but the residue of it remains, sticking to his insides like one of Gaius’s taffy candies.
Love. For a dead man.
Grima huffs, and turns away. He’s in love with a construct, a figment of his imagination. But when that construct wraps his arms around him, and presses his larger body against the back of Grima’s, he sighs, and relaxes into it.
The man who used to control this body… loved your father, he’d told Lucina, before he killed her. It was a lie - well, not exactly. That man did, but the current being who inhabits this body loves him too.
Maybe that is enough. There in the flickering lights of celebration, for a holiday that only Grima knows… for a few moments, he just lets himself be held and comforted by this man, who may or may not exist.
It doesn’t really matter if he exists. Chrom is smiling again, and that makes Grima happy.