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"Will you go to my funeral?"
Illuga startled at the unexpected question. Slowly, he turned his head and his eyes narrowed at the man standing next to him.
Lohen was already looking at him, staring expectantly with lips that formed into the slightest smirk despite his grim inquiry.
"Don't say that," was the only response Illuga offered as he broke eye contact.
Lohen leaned forward, inserting himself into Illuga's space, clearly displeased at the dismissive answer and unwilling to let the subject go.
"Why not? I'll die sooner rather than later at the rate I'm going. We both know that. It's only a matter of time until I finally break beyond repair."
"That's not something I'm trying to think about right now, Lohen," Illuga couldn't think of a more inappropriate time or place. Standing in the middle of the Lightkeeper cemetery honoring his fallen comrades while swathed in a blanket of moonlight was not where he wanted to picture Lohen's death. He didn't want to picture it at all.
"Oh c'mon birdie, you're acting like I'm already on my deathbed," Lohen was weirdly insistent, more than usual. "It's hypothetical. I'm just curious on whether or not you'd miss me."
Illuga frowned, "That's not what you asked."
"Isn't it?"
"No. You asked if I would go to your funeral"
"Hmm… it's close enough."
"It isn't. Not at all." Illuga didn't elaborate—not right away.
Silence permeated throughout the cemetery. Nature itself remained silent around them, as it always did when the moon hung high in the sky. This wasn't the comfortable kind of silence that often enveloped Illuga in the presence of the knight. Lohen was uncharacteristically quiet at his side while he patiently waited for the explanation he knew would eventually come.
"…I would miss you," Illuga finally whispered. Gaze flickering to the moon above before falling and settling on the graves that surrounded the pair as he continued, "But I'm not sure I could handle seeing you like… that."
"Like what?"
"Unmoving, silent… peaceful. Dead bodies always look so peaceful. They seem grateful for the chance to rest. I couldn't be there as you were laid to peacefully rest forever. It's just…" Illuga's voice trailed off with the hope that Lohen understood, so that the conversation would finish and he could push it to the back of his mind forever.
Lohen hummed, acknowledging the unspoken meaning behind Illuga's words.
"Not my style at all. Is that it, birdie? The idea that you'd never be able to see me fight again? Am I really so unimaginable without a battle crazed smile and a weapon in hand?" Lohen's tone was teasing, but his heart fluttered at the lightkeeper's surprisingly honest admission. Illuga knew him. He knew what made him happy. Even while being forced to imagine his eventual death, the sweet nightingale wanted him happy. Lohen suddenly felt very exposed. He needed to stop this weirdly deep conversation that he brought upon himself before it could get worse.
"I wouldn't want you there anyway," Lohen let the words hang in the air while he appreciated the dismayed look Illuga threw his way, "What? With everything I've already lived through, whatever kills me will have to end up being horribly gruesome and disfiguring. And I'd much prefer my birdie remember my unmarred, pretty face whenever he thinks of me."
Lohen had shifted uncomfortably closer while talking and his face hovered mere inches from the now very flustered lightkeeper who quietly asked, "…Your birdie?"
The knight's sharp eyes reveled in the faint flush that had already settled at the tips of Illuga's ears and was slowly creeping its way up his neck. Lohen's gaze lingered on the scar that had been carved there and continued lower; disappearing beneath the other man's sweater. The urge to touch the scar, follow its path and see how far it traveled down Illuga's body overcame Lohen.
But the knight decided to be merciful for today, and pulled away with a slight cackle, "You're too easy, birdie!" Lohen's eyes were filled with mirth and a wide smile that broadcasted the amusement, and pride, he had gotten out of flustering Illuga, "Have you never been called a nickname before? Is a harmless petname really that bad?"
"It's not usually- It's… different if its coming from you!"
It was Lohen's turn to be caught off guard by Illuga's words, but he hid it well and his smile grew impossibly wider, "You shouldn't talk like that, my dear Lightkeeper. You're going to make me think I'm special," Lohen practically purred.
The implication behind Lohen words, that he wasn't special, seemed to harden something in Illuga's resolve. He set his jaw and straightened his back; trying his best to compose himself from the previous embarrassment before meeting Lohen's teasing gaze head-on, "You are. You are special to me."
A puzzled look briefly crossed Lohen's face at the admission, but his eyes grew fond and his previously manic grin had shifted into something that could almost be considered soft. The softest Illuga had ever seen the knight. Lohen's sudden switch in demeanor emboldened Illuga to continue. He let their hands lightly brush before he continued with a warm, affectionate voice that was barely louder than a whisper, "So please, Lohen, don't ask me to consider your funeral arrangements. I don't want to have to think about losing you, not anytime soon."
The silence that followed was deafeningly painful.
Lohen was silent. Illuga was staring. Lohen remained silent and Illuga remained staring. He needed to say something. Illuga was waiting for a response. Lohen always had something to say, but right now? The knight was completely lost. He needed the other man to stop staring so intensely. Lohen hadn't intended for this conversation to become so… intimate. Intimate. Illuga had just been very intimate. Had admitted something intimate. Lohen didn't do intimate.
So, he was left with no choice but to incredulously stare at the lightkeeper as if his tongue had been cut off in the time since he last spoke.
"You okay?" Illuga's concerned voice was too soft, too genuine.
Lohen liked it.
Lohen couldn't stand it.
He finally replied, if only to ease the concern that was making itself apparent through Illuga's expression. His face didn't look as pretty when he was worried, "Yeah, I'll keep the thoughts about my impending doom to myself next time, birdie."
Illuga frowned at Lohen's joking tone, but accepted the answer with a nod while stepping back, wondering when they had gotten so close to each other. Did he cross the meager distance or had Lohen?
"You care too much," Lohen managed to mumble out as Illuga stepped away and their makeshift staring contest came to an end.
"You're right. I do care about you."
"Stop saying it like that."
"Like what?" Illuga was smiling, tilting his head in a way that was reminiscent of a curious bird. The bastard knew what he was doing. It wasn't often that he got to be the one doing the teasing, after all.
"Like it's something you really mean," Illuga's honesty was apparently wearing off on Lohen and he despised it.
"I do mean it. Everything I've said."
"Ugh." The noise of disgust was the last thing that graced Illuga's ears before the knight turned to take the path out of the cemetery.