Work Text:
Ingrid glowered into the bottom of her mug. She couldn’t see her face because the wooden mug was empty at the bottom, no liquid—liquor—to show her how miserable she truly looked. She tapped her mug against the bar, half trying to summon the barkeep, half trying to decide if she really needed another.
She didn’t. Need another drink, she meant. Ingrid couldn’t even lie to herself the reason why she should get another. She had already had a drink for Felix, a drink for Sylvain, a drink for Dimitri. Three shots for them and an additional three drinks to forget them. Except, she couldn’t forget them. They were her friends and she had helped kill them.
“Another,” she slurred, holding out her mug for the barkeep to pour her another.
The barkeep watched her coolly, her eyes following the way Ingrid’s mug listed from one side to another.
“I’d pour ye another but I don’t think ye’d be able to hold it. Why don’t you go home, celebrate the end of this five year war with someone who fancies yeh.”
Ingrid laughed at that. No one fancied her, no one here really even liked her. She didn’t have a home to go to. Not one with people, anyways. A cold, lonely life. That’s what awaited her when she went back to the mountain peaks that separated the Daphnel region from the rest of the world, a metaphor for the gulf that would always separate her from what was left of her world.
“Another,” she slurred again, this time tapping the mug insistently against the bar.
“Go home,” the barkeep said, her weathered face furrowing into a look that made Ingrid feel ashamed down to her toes.
“Thanks for the service.” The words that came out were an approximation of the thing she was trying to say, but to emphasize that she held no grudge, she dropped an extra few copper coins with her tab. What she hoped covered her tab. Counting was difficult.
She stood and the whole bar spun. Scrunching her eyes closed help; when the dark spun, it was like it was standing still but wrong. It didn’t make sense, but it didn’t make sense that she was here alive either. Between long blinks that were more closed than open eyes, Ingrid stumbled out of the bar. The sky overhead was too open, too bare of familiar constellations even thought the stars were the same ones she watched at home in Daphnel. Nothing would be the same after tonight, Ingrid was certain of it.
She didn’t think about where she went. She just put one foot in front of the other and followed wherever her wandering legs took her. When she stopped, Ingrid found herself outside a familiar door. One she had never crossed the threshold of. Before she could think about the consequences, she knocked. When her thoughts caught up with her, she realized what she was doing and turned to stumble away but a moment too late.
Warm candlelight spilled across her exposed skin and she realized how cold the night was and here she was in a short-sleeved tunic and leggings. She looked up, holding a hand in front of her face to shield her eyes from the too-bright candlelight.
“Well, well, well. If it isn’t Ingrid here to see me. Took you long enough,” Claude teased, winking at her. For a moment, she imagined Sylvain standing there, saying the same thing. Her throat closed as she tried to scream, leaving her gagging and sobbing as she fell forward. Claude caught her, ever the gentleman, and pulled her into his room. He closed the door and leaned back against it so she could lay on his chest as she sobbed.
“Hey, hey,” he said, stroking her short hair.
“I’m sorry, I don’t—I don’t even know why I’m here. I just don’t have anyone else left, Claude. I’m so alone. We killed them all, and now there’s no one but me and I can’t be alone tonight. I can’t, I just can’t, please—” Ingrid kept babbling, not caring that her tears and drool were soaking into Claude’s sleepshirt, not caring that his hair was tousled meaning that she had roused him from lounging at the least, not caring that he was holding her closer than she had ever been held before in her adult memory.
To his credit, Claude never interrupted her once. He let her cry and ramble as he stroked her back and her hair. He didn’t complain as she fisted her hands in his shirt and no doubt pinched his skin in the grasp. He didn’t try to stop her from talking about the childhood memories that kept mixing with images of her friends dead on the battlefield. Claude just held her. Even after she finally went silent, just sobs and hiccups punctuating the quiet peace of his room.
As she came back to her senses, Ingrid wiped her face and then looked up at Claude. He was looking down at her with such kindness, or maybe that was pity in his green eyes. She had to do something; she had burst into his room and sobbed for at least a half hour now. She tried to lean up and kiss him. She wanted but she didn’t want, and the feelings were so mixed up; at least this way he might let her stay the night.
Claude turned his face at the last moment, her unpracticed, sloppy kiss landing on his cheek.
“Ingrid, you’re drunk,” he said, letting her down easily.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean, I just—I’ll sleep on the floor, just please, don’t make me be alone tonight, please Claude. I’ll do anything.”
Claude shushed her, drawing her over to his bed. As she sat on the edge of it, it was like all the alcohol in her body settled, and she felt like she was going to pass out right there. Claude chuckled quietly, holding her steady with one hand as he pulled off her soft boots with the other. With practiced ease, he licked a finger to smudge the candle light out so the wick didn’t smoulder and stink up the room. Ingrid flopped back as Claude crawled in bed next to her, making sure she was turned on her side and her neck was supported by the pillow in case she threw up during the night. Very kind of him. She didn’t want to barf on him, he’d never be nice to her again. And she liked Claude. Liked when he was kind to her.
Ingrid closed her eyes.
When she opened them, her head felt like it had been smashed with a maul. That was the first thing she noticed. The second thing was that she was laying on top of a body. A man’s body. A man who was her commanding officer and good friend Claude von Riegan. And—worst of all—the edge of her mouth was crusted to his shirt, a puddle of drool pooling between his pectorals.
She sat up as quickly as her dizzy head would allow, looking around, trying to figure out why she was here, and how she could leave without being spotted.
Claude groaned under her, stretching and pulling her eyes to his emerald gaze. Not emerald, more like the green of fresh clipped grass on a late spring morning.
“Morning beautiful,” he said, a grin splitting his boyish face.
Ingrid self-consciously wiped her mouth, trying to get the crust off of it. She had never been so embarrassed before.
Claude’s grin turned from one of mischief to a kind smile. “Would you like to go to town and get breakfast with me? My treat.”
Ingrid shifted to her knees, trying to keep her head down. She smiled back at him, the least she could do to thank Claude for his kindness. He liked jokes, if she teased him, that would set them both at ease. “Sounds like a date.”
It wasn’t a great tease, but it was the best she could come up with feeling like she had been dropped from her pegasus mid-flight.
“It is.”
Claude’s voice was serious, a rare emotion from him. Ingrid scowled at him, trying to suss out the trick he was playing.
Claude sat up, raising his arms into the air. “I’m serious. I’d like to ask you on a date.” He waited a moment, then grinned again. “This is the part where you answer.” His voice shifted to a falsetto that was way too high to be an accurate representation of her own voice. “Thanks so much, Claude, you are so kind and handsome, I wouldn’t dream of saying no!”
Ingrid rolled her eyes but shocked both of them with what came out of her mouth. “Yes.”
Shocked, she covered her lips, and then laughed as Claude’s surprised expression split into a grin and then a cackle.
“Yes, Claude, I’d like that.”