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Caspar tagged along for the ride to the kingdom to get rid of a bunch of bandits because Edelgard told him to, but every minute he spent in the Blue Lions’ company, he was actively questioning this decision. Apparently the leader of the ring of bandits was Sylvain’s older brother? Who was disowned within the last couple months? And he stole the house Relic and that’s why he was on the run, not to mention making himself a terror in the surrounding countryside??
“Yeah, my dad’s being getting a lot of complaints about pillaging, murder, and rape,” Sylvain said so casually it made Caspar’s brain take an extra second to process what was being said. Because what. It made Caspar long for Edelgard if only because she usually had some common fucking sense that it appeared most of the Blue Lions were missing, because they were all riding silently in the rain with the full fucking intention of killing Sylvain’s older brother. Caspar didn’t even know where to start with this.
“Are you sure you wanna do this?” Caspar asked Sylvain, nudging his horse to slow down so he could ride at the back of the line with Sylvain, who didn’t have his hood up properly, like an idiot. “Because if it was my brother, I’d at least want to stop and talk to him about it before I kill him.” Caspar squinted at Sylvain, the rain getting in his eyes and making the world turn gray and washed out. Yeah, okay, sure, maybe him and his older brother weren’t the very best of friends, and if it was Edelgard sending him to do it Caspar would have a real hard time deciding between his leader and his brother, but Sylvain didn’t even seem bothered, and that bothered Caspar more than it probably should.
For a second, Sylvain’s face was as unmovable as stone. Caspar fought a shiver, wondering what was wrong with his oiled cloak that it was letting in the cold like that, and then it was like someone flipped a switch and Sylvain smiled, easy with it, his brown eyes sparkling in the damp.
“It’s cool, dude,” Sylvain said, “You don’t have to worry about me.”
And Caspar stared after him as Sylvain nudged his horse to go a little faster, wondering. Is that what I was doing? He asked himself. Worrying? Because it seemed so normal to him that Sylvain’s reaction made him feel slightly off balance, like he’d put his foot out, expecting land, and stepped on thin air.
Caspar stared at the back of Sylvain’s head, wondering, What the hell is wrong with you?
It turned climbing the crumbling tower that used to be used for defense against the Srengi was one thing, and actually fighting the bandits camped out at the top of the tower was another thing altogether. The professor stuck Caspar with Ashe so he could protect the archer from any return fire while Ashe darted out to fire a shot at the archers leaning through the holes left by missing bricks. Ashe was ducking back under Caspar’s shield, his upper lip beaded with sweat, his eyes wide and scared, when Caspar heard the clip-clop of iron horseshoes on cobblestone. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Sylvain riding past on his nightmare-black mare, casual as you please, and it made Caspar’s heart lurch in chest.
“Hey!” Caspar yelled, and Sylvain barely spared him a glance, that smile slipping into place like it was reflexive, and Caspar swore he was going to go to Manuela and ask her what to do about the way his heart seized in his chest, the way his chest felt hot. “Where the hell d’you think you’re going, you bastard?” Caspar called, listening to the way iron-tipped arrows clattered as they bounced off his shield and fell down to the ground. “Are you crazy? Are you trying to get your damn fool self killed?” Caspar watched, incredulous, as Sylvain’s smile widened a hair.
“I’m just riding a little ahead to see what we’re dealing with,” Sylvain said, like they weren’t dealing with the damn archers trying their darnedest to turn them into dead pin cushions. Even as Caspar watched, an arrow streaked past where Sylvain was standing, leaving a line of red opening up on Sylvain’s cheek. Sylvain’s horse whinnied and shifted from foot to foot, but Sylvain got her in line and smiled at Caspar cheerfully as he nudged his horse forward, out of the direct line of fire. “Don’t worry,” Sylvain said, something glittering in his eyes like he was having a personal joke at his own expense, “I’ll be fine, you’ll see. If getting here hasn’t killed me yet, nothing will.” And then Sylvain laughed like he’d said something that was absolutely fucking hilarious and off he went.
Caspar stared after Sylvain, torn. There was that word again. Worry. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ Sylvain said, said it like the beginning words of a prayer, and Caspar felt a little like he wanted to shake the man until something vaguely resembling sense started to fall out. You seem like you need somebody to worry about you, Caspar said in his head, watching Sylvain’s back retreat, biting his lip to stay in place.
Ashe darted in and out again and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand once he was standing close enough that Caspar could count the individual strands of hair in the mustache he was trying to grow. “I think that’s the last of them,” Ashe breathed, just as the professor ordered:
“Caspar! Forward march! Follow Sylvain! Don’t let him get too far from the group!”
“Will do!” Caspar shouted back. He rattled along the stone floor like a barrelful of crushed tin cans.
Sylvain looked up as he rounded the corner, having just put down one of the bandits they were fighting. Caspar frowned. There was a splash of blood across Sylvain’s face, stark against his hair and fair skin.
“Did the professor send you my way?” Sylvain asked.
Caspar nodded shortly. “She said not to let you go too far on your own,” he grumped. Caspar looked around, frowning, trying to see if there were more enemies to crush or if Sylvain had gotten them all. Goddess damn it. It looked like he’d gotten here a second too late. There was no one left to fight.
Sylvain smiled. “Well, if the professor said so, then I should probably wait here for her,” he said. Caspar was really starting to hate that smile. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up straight at attention.
Asking about the brother hadn’t gotten him that far last time, but Caspar couldn’t help but blurt out, “Are you really going to kill your brother, if it comes down to it?” because he just couldn’t wrap his head around it, okay? He was trying to picture his brother doing something so despicable their father sent Caspar to put him down like a rabid dog, and he was coming up blank. Yeah, sure, okay, maybe his brother should lay off the strawberry liquor before he got found out and got laughed out of the barracks, but that wasn’t anything really bad so much as it was actively embarrassing.
Abruptly, Caspar wondered what it would feel like, to have a brother so odiously cruel that you couldn’t go to him for anything. He knew if the dice was thrown and Caspar was in trouble, his brother might sigh and tell Caspar he was being an idiot, but he’d step in and help Caspar out, if their father didn’t get there first. The distance between the two, the idea of a brother Caspar’d always known and the reality of the brother they’d been sent to kill and the way Sylvain was very carefully not reacting the way he was supposed to, it made Caspar feel flat-footed.
Sylvain shrugged like it didn’t matter. “If it comes down to it, then yeah, I’ll do it,” Sylvain said, as if that wasn’t several different kinds of messed up wrong with that statement. “If the professor tells me to do something, I’ll do it, you know what I mean?” And then Sylvain did this eyebrow thing and looked like he was hinting at something but Caspar frankly didn’t have a clue, still stuck on how awful he’d feel if his was the blade that put his older brother down into the wet earth, and Sylvain cottoned on fast. His smile turned crooked. “Not your type, then?”
Caspar was staring at Sylvain, uncomprehending, trying to figure out what the hell he meant by that, when the wall behind them suddenly fell away and oh fuck that was a lot more fighters than Caspar had been expecting. Then there was no thinking, just slash, slam, duck, bam, until Caspar was breathing hard and they were surrounded by dead bodies, the floor slick with fresh blood. Caspar heard running feet and looked up in time to see Mercedes and Annette show up, Annette with her hands over her mouth. Mercedes had a grim look in her eyes and a sadness about the way she walked slowly past the dead bodies, her eyes darting down to faces and stab wounds like she still thought they were people.
“What happened?” The professor asked as she showed up next, flicking blood off her blade.
Caspar noticed it was the bone blade that Edelgard had sent him here to keep closer tabs on in the first place, to try and get down to the heart of what had happened in the mausoleum, because apparently Hubert had gotten the story out of a couple runaway soldiers and Edelgard wanted confirmation. Why she sent him when he wasn’t exactly the picture of subtly, he’ll never know. Maybe it was because she thought he was the least likely to die? He had been doing a lot of training recently, trying to get himself ready for battle. And, well, okay, yeah, if you sent Linhardt or Bernie it just plain wasn’t gonna happen, but what exactly did Caspar have going for him that Dorothea couldn’t do, too? Then Caspar remembered the arrows raining down on them, and wondered if Edelgard had kept Dorothea close out of desire not to lose her, rather than picking Caspar because he wasn’t exactly gonna die easy.
“There was a fake wall, we got ambushed,” Sylvain said just as Caspar exclaimed, “How the hell should I know! I turned around and boom! Enemies everywhere!”
There was a pause as the professor looked between the two of them with a raised eyebrow, taking them in. Caspar looked over at Sylvain. “Dude,” Caspar said, put out. “C’mon.”
Sylvain looked like he was swallowing back laughter. He nodded to the professor, his smile gentling at the corners, becoming more genuine the longer he looked at her. Caspar felt that weird prickle again.
“I guess it’s a good thing you sent Caspar to come and grab me,” Sylvain said. He winked. “I would’ve preferred if you’d come yourself, professor. You could’ve come rushing to my defense!”
Caspar felt like he’d bit into something bitter. He hefted the haft of his axe in one hand and the shield that was almost as tall as him in the other. “If you’re finished, let’s get going,” he grumbled.
Sylvain laughed. He turned that glittering smile on Caspar and he wondered if this was how trout felt when you fished them out of the river. Unmoored. “That wasn’t enough fighting for you?”
“We’re here to defeat the bandits and then go home,” Caspar said. He winced as he rolled his shoulder and felt a muscle in his back complain loudly. He was gonna need the sauna when they got back.
There was a flash of emotion that went across Sylvain’s face faster than Caspar could interpret, before that phony smile was back. Caspar was gonna hit him, just see if he didn’t.
“Then by all means, lead the way,” Sylvain said. Caspar eyed him dubiously for a moment, but it appeared Sylvain really was content to let Caspar take the lead. That was… weird.
Whatever. Caspar shook it off. He tromped up the stairs, keeping an eye out for any other archers he might need to be worried about. Not for him, of course, never for him – his armor was tough enough that he’d dented a wall when he got thrown into it by Dedue during a tourney last month – but if Sylvain was giving him point, then he was damn well going to do his job correctly.
There were a couple other bandits loitering close to the door bordering the topmost room, big as the whole floor itself, but Caspar made quick work of them. He’d been blooded before. This was nothing. He wasn’t Mercedes, who walked up to each of the dead bodies and said a quick prayer over them.
Right makes might, Caspar reminded himself, pushing forward.
The door was quite heavy, so it took Caspar a second, but once he had the door opened, he found himself face first with Sylvain’s older brother. They had the same shade of feathery copper orange hair, and the same brown eyes, but that was where the similarities ended and their differences became startlingly apparent. Where Sylvain was lithe, Miklan was bulky. There was a certain studied affect to Sylvain’s handsomeness, as if he got up in the morning and preened in the mirror, practicing poses and telling himself how beautiful he looked, how much the girls would fall over him. In contrast, Miklan had a deep scar crisscrossing his face, barely missing both his eyes, and his scowl was menacing. Caspar didn’t realize how much effort Sylvain put into coming across as nonthreatening until he had his brother for comparison, who looked as if he ate babies for breakfast.
“That’s your brother?” Caspar couldn’t help but ask Sylvain, who was riding up slowly behind Caspar.
Sylvain quirked him a smile. “What? Don’t see the family resemblance?”
Caspar stared at Miklan some more. “No,” he said, brutally honest. “I really don’t.”
Sylvain paused like he hadn’t been expecting that. Then he said, gentler, “You should step to the side. It’s my job to clean up my brother’s mess, not yours.”
Caspar stared at him like he’d gone barmy. “Wouldn’t it hurt?” He blurted, “to kill your only brother?” Yes, he knew he kept asking this question, but he was hoping the third time the charm, that Sylvain would tell him seriously now.
Sylvain frowned at him like he didn’t understand the words coming out of Caspar’s mouth, like he’d suddenly started speaking a whole different language. It made Caspar’s heart hurt. “Why would it?” Sylvain asked. Caspar was left staring at Sylvain while Sylvain stared back, trying to bridge this unimaginably huge gap between them that Caspar hadn’t expected to find, when Miklan called out to them.
“Why have you come, you Crest-bearing fool?” Contempt colored his tone. Caspar felt taken aback. He tried to imagine a time his older brother had talked to him like that, and came up blank. Sylvain stepped forward like it didn’t matter how he was addressed, like it was used to it, like this was par for the course. Caspar stared at Sylvain, looking between him and Miklan, feeling a little like a giant’s hand was clenched over his heart.
“I’m here for the Lance of Ruin, Miklan,” Sylvain said.
Was it Caspar’s imagination, or was there a hint of a sigh in his voice, a sag in the set of his shoulders? No, it must be Caspar’s imagination. Surely. “Hand it over. I don’t want to humiliate you, but I will.”
“Hmph!” Miklan sneered, unsheathing the Lance of Ruin and holding it aloft. Caspar started. This was his first time seeing a Relic up close. His father didn’t take it out of its container none too often. Said it was more valuable as a trophy on the wall than broken on the field of battle. “Hurry up and die already,” Miklan spat, hatred and anger and anguish roiling together into one foul glare. “If not for you… If it hadn’t been for you…”
Caspar didn’t know someone could have that much hate in their heart. He was about to speak up, not his place to meddle or no, because Seiros this couldn’t be happening right now, when he saw Sylvain bristle out of the corner of his eye. “Shut up!” Sylvain barked, and Caspar blinked. He felt his heart rate start to slow down. He’d been worried, yes, but now he felt like that maybe had been an overreaction. He was still worried, granted, but not as worried as he had been before. “I’m so tired of hearing that. You’ve always blamed me for something that isn’t my fault. That ends now.”
Sylvain pulled his killer lance off of his back and rode forward at full speed. Caspar realized belatedly that he was maybe supposed to keep up with Sylvain and make sure he didn’t get stabbed somewhere really inconvenient, but also Sylvain was on horseback, no way was he gonna be able to keep up, and then before he could really do anything, Sylvain had plunged the tip of his lance into the open spot by Miklan’s neck where a helmet should be. Caspar could hear a terrible gurgling sound he realized was coming from Miklan as Sylvain pulled his lance back, his hands stained a bright ruby red.
“It’s time for the nightmare to end,” Sylvain said so softly Caspar barely heard it.
Miklan put a hand over his neck, gasping like a fish on land, as he crouched low, using the Lance of Ruin to remain upright. His hands were red, too, and he was staring at Sylvain like he’d never seen him before. Caspar wanted desperately to know what the look on Sylvain’s face looked like, if he was sad or jubilant or that same scary cold hard face that he’d had when he’d come in, like he’d cut off all of his emotions, leaving nothing behind but his hands, hands that could still be lifted for the killing blow.
There was the sound of running feet and Caspar jerked around in time to see Dimitri and the professor and everyone else come running up. Ingrid went stark pale. “Did he–?” She cut herself off before she could finish asking the question. Dimitri looked uncomfortable, Felix looked pissed. Dedue was standing with his hand on Dimitri’s shoulder like he was offering comfort, and Mercedes had turned around and put her hands over Annette’s eyes so she couldn’t see anything, to her squawking confusion.
Only the professor looked unrattled, her face as stiff as the mountain peaks.
It occurred to Caspar that, in all the excitement, he’d forgotten to watch the professor do battle. He was going to get yelled at by Hubert for getting distracted, he could already tell. The idea of going back home, to his house and his friends, where nothing strange at all ever happened, left him feeling relieved. This house that was so obsessed with nobility and duty over family, Caspar wanted nothing to do with. He knew Edelgard at least would never ask him to kill his older brother in cold blood.
The professor took a step towards Sylvain like she was going to offer him comfort, but before she could, something black and sleek and wet-looking came out of the Lance of Ruin, spiraling down like a worm and opening its mouth to devour Miklan’s nearly bloodless face before he could properly scream. Sylvain jerked back, the tip of his lance coming up from where it had dipped low to the floor, and Caspar took a step forward, matching the professor, his heart beating in his throat.
“What the hell – ” Caspar said, and all hell really did break loose. The loose stone bricks of the shattered dome threatened to topple down on them as the black goo convalesced into something, something that looked oddly familiar… was that a demonic beast!?
The professor leapt forward, her strange sword made of bone called the Sword of the Creator coming undone like one of Petra’s braids. The professor swung and the demonic beast roared in pained fury as her bone sword cut through its hide like a hot knife through butter. Sylvain was just standing there, stupidly staring up at the monster where his brother used to be. Caspar could see his lips move as if in prayer, but the din and crashing sounds of the Blue Lions mobilizing as the monster slammed its tail against the walls, sending masonry and dust shaking down around them, was horrific and too loud for Caspar to hear anything over save for the sound of his heartbeat.
“What the actual fuck,” Caspar shouted, grabbing his axe and barreling forward just in time to put himself between Sylvain and that nasty thing’s tail. He gritted his teeth so he wouldn’t scream in pain. Fuck, but it was like half the mountainside had landed on top of him. No matter how easy the professor was making it look, Caspar was under no delusions about his ability to fight a demonic beast. Bandits? Yeah, easy street. Demonic beasts? Caspar would really like to have another Relic on hand, please.
“Move, you asshole,” Caspar heard someone shout, and then Felix was launching himself overhead, landing with his sword aiming downwards like a shooting star. His blade didn’t sink more than an inch, and then Caspar had a blinding second to swear really filthily at Felix in his head before the tail moved again and then all three of them were crumpled against the wall.
“Would you please not do that again,” Caspar whined, plaintive with it.
Felix snorted like he didn’t particularly care what Caspar thought and then leaped back into the fray. Caspar stared after him for a minute, feeling like his bones had turned to goo and wondering how the hell Felix didn’t feel it. He heard a rustle to his right and looked over to see Sylvain pushing arm-length stone bricks off of his horse. Ah. Well. Caspar was no expert, but that horse looked very, very dead. He checked the look on Sylvain’s face, and it was disturbingly vacant. Caspar fought not to shiver. “Hey, uh,” he said, awkward with it, “I’m sorry about your horse – ”
“Watch out!” Ingrid yelled from the air above them and Caspar had just enough time to grab Sylvain and roll away from the tail coming flinging their way again. Caspar cursed viciously under his breath. He looked down at Sylvain, who he was trying not to crush with the weight of his armor.
“You good, man?” Caspar asked seriously. “’Cause we gotta go.”
Sylvain was still staring up at him with that curiously vacant expression that made dread pool in Caspar’s gut and his arms freeze up stiff, not sure what the fuck to do. Wildly, for a second he wished Edelgard was here, if only so she could tell him how he was fucking things up this time.
There was a terrible, horrific scream that only became more terrible the longer it went on, because it went from a hideous guttering growling sound that filled the room and left no room for silence to the dying throes of a man cut down in his prime, silence seeping in to fill the cracked-open citadel like the Goddess was in the room, layering handfuls of rose petals to fill up all the places where sound used to be.
Caspar looked up and sucked in a breath. The black ooze was melting off Miklan in sloughs, dripping down to the ground and burning holes into the age-old stone before it spooled around the haft of the Lance of Ruin, entwined over itself, and became nothingness once more. The transformation was fast, but not fast enough for Caspar to see the wounds in the flesh that went all the way down to the bone, strange black ichor dripping from open wounds as steam rose from the flesh.
“Is it over?” Caspar heard Sylvain mumble so quietly he knew he was the only one who heard it.
Caspar looked down. Sylvain was staring at the corpse his brother had left behind, the one twisted and ripped apart like a dog had been chewing on it, all the wounds his demonic beast form had borne, transmigrated into Miklan’s weak and meagre flesh, because that was how things rolled, apparently. There was a hint of desperation under all the chilly nothingness, and Caspar wondered at this, wondered at Sylvain.
Wondered if he would’ve ever gotten to see this side of him if Edelgard hadn’t sent him on this mission.
“Yeah, man,” Caspar offered, feeling like the words were too little and yet they were all he had, “Yeah, it’s over.”
And Sylvain closed his eyes like a priest had put a hand over his head at the Sunday service and said a prayer in his name. There was relief there, and Caspar didn’t know what to do with that, nor with the emotions that stirred up inside of him, a protective kind of rage that he didn’t know what to do with. “It’s okay, you can relax. It’s all over now.” Caspar wished he was making up the way Sylvain seemed boneless with relief.
What did your brother do, he wanted to ask, feeling the words clog his throat. What did he do that made you look at him like that?
When they got home, the very first thing Caspar did was grab a change of clothes and head to the sauna. He was aching all over, bruises dotting up and down his arms like a garland of flowers, purples and greens and yellows. If anyone but Caspar had gone on that mission, they wouldn’t’ve come home. That was a simple fact. Caspar could accept that now, though he didn’t think Edelgard had anticipated the level of fuckery that had been on the menu at Conand Tower. No one could’ve predicted a demonic beast.
Caspar sighed and let the heat do its magic, working its way through muscles that tinged wrong when he moved, really feeling all the pounds of stone and monster he’d put himself in front of Sylvain to spare the guy from. Why did I even do that? Caspar wondered. He tried imagining doing the same thing for Ingrid or Felix or hell, even the professor, and it just wouldn’t go. There was something about Sylvain, something about the way he talked about his brother and people worrying about him, that made Caspar feel all the more like someone ought to be looking out for the guy.
Caspar supposed he shouldn’t feel surprised when he heard the door open and it was Hubert, dressed in a towel, angrily pushing his bangs out of his eyes. “So?” Hubert asked. “What did you find?”
“Hello to you, too,” Caspar grumbled. He sighed. “How much did you already hear?”
“I heard you found a demonic beast in the woods on your way back,” Hubert said neutrally enough.
Caspar stared up at the ceiling of the cave they’d carved out to hold the sauna and tried to think of a way to phrase, Well, that’s not exactly what happened, in a way that didn’t sound completely insane. “Did you know that Sylvain’s older brother didn’t have a Crest?” Caspar said instead.
Hubert stared at him. Caspar could practically hear the gears whirling behind his midnight black eyes. “Yes,” Hubert said slowly, and Caspar believed him. There were a lot of things Hubert knew that Caspar didn’t.
Caspar stared down at his hand and clenched it into a fist, then released it, staring at the white crescents standing out against the warm red flesh of his open palm, the lines criss-crossing the surface, the callouses on his hand. One of his callouses had burst open. He dug his fingers into it, absentmindedly peeling the thin skin away. “If I picked up my brother’s Relic,” he said softly, so softly that he felt like the words might disappear into the steam if he wasn’t careful, “Would the same thing happen to me?”
Caspar could tell from Hubert’s sudden intake of breath that he got it. Caspar let his hand drop and then rested his head against the stone wall, closing his eyes. “My head hurts,” he complained.
A dry chuckle. “Yes, well,” Hubert said, “You’re not exactly known for using your head. All this thinking must be taxing you greatly.”
Caspar opened his eyes enough to shoot a glare Hubert’s way. Hubert was unphased. He was looking at Caspar like Caspar was a particularly interesting bug he’d found under a rock that he hadn’t meant to find. “Something else happened,” Hubert said, and Caspar wanted to turn away and hide his face, because he knew Hubert could read too much into him.
“Nothing happened,” Caspar tried, wanting to keep this fresh new feeling trapped between his ribs, where he could try to make sense of it on his own, without others weighing in and changing it.
Hubert didn’t even have to say anything. The dark look in his eyes said enough. Caspar ducked his head and ruffled the back of his head, trying to put into words the smallest iteration of this feeling.
“I don’t think Sylvain liked his brother all that much,” Caspar settled on. The words felt too small compared to how Sylvain’s face had looked when he’d fought his brother, but Caspar couldn’t figure out how to put it another way.
A pause.
“Yes,” Hubert said delicately. “I had gathered.”
Caspar looked over at him. Hubert was frowning. That meant nothing good. “You knew?” Caspar asked, incredulous.
“I knew that they were not close,” Hubert countered, his eyes oddly veiled.
Caspar chewed on his lip some and went back to staring at the ceiling. Abruptly, he asked, “If Edelgard ordered you to kill your younger siblings—” but he already knew what Hubert’s answer would be.
“I do it without question, for Edelgard,” Hubert said, a note of reverence in his voice that made Caspar feel oddly uncomfortable. He shifted in place, trying to find a good spot to lean against the wall.
“Yeah, okay,” Caspar said quietly, and answered Hubert’s remaining questions about what the Sword of the Creator could do to a demonic beast that steel simply couldn’t do, without thinking any more of it.
I don’t think I could do it, Caspar admitted to himself, somewhere in the back of his brain. Not without losing something I couldn’t get back.
Edelgard wanted to go over everything again with a fine-toothed comb the next day when Caspar saw her in class, which was its own kind of grueling. Caspar wondered what his face was doing that made Edelgard stare at him after and ask, “Is there something else you need to tell me?”
Caspar shook his head. “No, that about covers it,” he said. And then, the words coming out of his mouth faster than he could rethink them, “Can we bring Sylvain over to our side?”
Edelgard stared at him. She put the quill she’d been using to take and refer back to her notes down on the table and crossed her arms. “What brought this on?” She asked, gentle with it.
Caspar shrugged his shoulders, uncomfortable and he couldn’t say why. “He just.” Caspar paused, frowning. “He told me not to worry about him. While we were on the mission together.”
“And?” Edelgard asked, raising one eyebrow.
Caspar stared off into the middle ground, seeing a shadow of Sylvain’s face before they walked into the topmost chamber of the tower, how oddly resigned he’d been, and how relieved, after. “He said not to worry about him,” he said, “But I think he needs someone to worry about him.”
When he looked up, Edelgard was smiling. “Are you saying you’re that person?”
Caspar shrugged. “Somebody’s gotta do it,” he muttered. “He’s… weird.”
“Weird how?”
Caspar searched for the words for a minute or so. “He doesn’t react the way I expect him to,” Caspar settled on finally. “If I’d been sent to kill my brother, I don’t know if I’d be able to do it.”
Edelgard’s smile had gone sad and she was leaning her elbow on the table, her chin cupped in her hand. “Yeah,” she said. “I think I know what you mean. It’s a good thing he’s got you to worry about him, huh?”
The corners of her eyes crinkled when she smiled like that. Caspar stared. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Edelgard look like that, unguarded and young, so unlike the young leader he followed.
“I’ll talk to the professor,” Edelgard promised. “I’ll see what I can do.”
And Caspar had to leave it at that. It was officially out of his hands.
Sylvain came and found Caspar at the dining hall one night, sliding in easily next to him on the bench like he belonged there.
Caspar gave a start. Linhardt, on his other side, picked his head up off the table. Aw, hells, Caspar thought. He recognized that look in Linhardt’s eyes. This wasn’t gonna be pretty.
“I overheard Edelgard asking the professor if I would be willing to switch houses over to yours,” Sylvain said neutrally enough, mashing his scalloped potatoes with the back of his fork. When he looked up, Caspar almost forgot to breathe, because oh shit, Sylvain was angry with him. Linhardt might tell him he was as thick as the castle walls sometimes, but Caspar could tell when someone was feeling right proper pissed off at him.
Caspar swallowed thickly. He didn’t know what to say.
Edelgard, who was sitting a couple seats down, said, “Yes, I did,” drawing Sylvain’s attention away from Caspar. Sylvain smiled. It wasn’t a very nice smile. It had too many teeth. “You would be an asset wherever you ended up,” Edelgard continued coolly, taking a sip of her roast asparagus soup. “Why you think my decision had anything to do with Caspar, I’ll never know.”
Sylvain stared at her, and then stared at Caspar, who really didn’t know what to say, so he just kinda stared back? How do you put into words this nameless wondering that kept running through his veins, that kept turning his head towards Sylvain whenever he walked into a room, no matter what he was doing. Sylvain could be laughing at dinner one night, sprawled out in the courtyard with his friends or talking animatedly with his girl friends in the Grand Hall and Caspar would look at him and remember what his face looked like when his brother died, and feel his heart seize in his chest.
“What did you tell her?” Sylvain asked, his eyes narrowed.
Caspar shrugged.
“I said you needed someone to worry about you,” he said honestly enough.
Sylvain blinked at him. He looked like Caspar had slapped him across the face, and Caspar didn’t know what to do with that. “Why?” He said, softer. More honest. A little less defensive.
“Beats me,” Caspar replied. Linhardt coughed like he was trying not to laugh. Caspar glared at him. “What? It’s the truth!”
“Oh, Caspar,” Linhardt said, shaking his head as he broke his bread to dip in the soup. “You have no idea, do you?”
“About what?” Caspar yelped, indignant.
Linhardt exchanged a look with Edelgard over the table.
“You just made my point,” Linhardt said.
Sylvain looked around the table as the side chatter started up, Linhardt and Caspar snipping at each other like children while Hubert sighed into his mashed potatoes and pretended he was above it all, Edelgard watching on with fond amusement, and Dorothea giggling into the palm of her hand while she whispered something in Petra’s ear, whose eyes were very big.
Sylvain didn’t leave, and somehow that was very important. It made Caspar relax a little, like he could breathe easier with Sylvain there.
What did your brother do to make you hate him so much? Caspar kind of wanted to ask, except he was a coward in the worst way possible, because he didn’t think he’d like the answer.
He ate his bread instead.
Caspar was walking home from the small town crowded at the base of Garreg Mach when he saw something that made him slip into the bushes, worried. There was a man creeping about, looking this way and that, with a scorpion tattoo displayed prominently on his bare bicep that made Caspar feel like the back of his brain was itching, like he’d heard Hubert say something and he’d forgotten precisely what.
“What’re you doing?”
Caspar must’ve jumped a foot in the air, but when he turned around, it was just Sylvain, staring at him with one eyebrow raised, his arms crossed.
“Don’t scare me like that!” Caspar hissed. He motioned for Sylvain to crouch down in the bushes next to him, and bizarrely, Sylvain humored him. Caspar gestured towards where the man was sneaking around the entrance to Garreg Mach.
Sylvain followed his sweeping hand motion and then looked back at Caspar. “What exactly am I supposed to be looking at,” he asked, dry as dust.
Caspar scowled. “I think he’s up to no good,” he said, his hands clenching into fists uselessly at his side. Sylvain was staring at him oddly, like he’d never seen him before. Caspar turned back around just in time to see the guy dart down a path he knew led to where the kids were.
“I gotta go, man,” Caspar said, his voice tight as he marched forward, driven by the need to stop the pain before it could get that bad. “There’s kids down that way, man, they didn’t do nothing wrong, I gotta stop him – ”
“Wait, Caspar, lemme – ”
They got caught, of course. And the man with the scorpion tattoo got away while Caspar and Sylvain got yelled at for breaking curfew.
Caspar tried to defend himself, but he got shut down. It surprised him when he heard Sylvain agree that the guy was suspicious as all heck and shutting it down early was better than finding out late that they’d been onto something, but they still ended up mucking out the stables for a month as penance. Maybe it would’ve meant something different if they’d been able to catch the guy, to confirm that he was up to no good.
In the meantime, Caspar got to see what Sylvain looked like with his hair askew, autumn sunlight pouring in through the open windows, a slash of dirt marring his pale freckled cheek, got to see Sylvain with horses nudging his pockets for treats like they knew he always had some.
Why do you need to worry about me? Caspar imagined Sylvain saying, and like this, it was harder to justify it to himself. When Sylvain looked at ease with himself and the world, laughing as a chestnut mare nibbled on his hair, a broom held loosely in one hand. On days like today, it was harder to remember the Sylvain who’d walked into Conand Tower, looking pale as death and likely to puke at any minute. Harder still to remember the way his face had closed off the minute he heard his brother’s voice, the way he’d laid under Caspar after they got thrown into a wall, dazed and confused, asking if it was really over in a small voice. It made Caspar doubt his own instincts, the instincts that had started screaming at him around the time that he saw Sylvain trot forward like a rain of arrows was nothing to be afraid of.
What does scare you, Caspar wanted to ask. Why were you so relieved your brother was dead? They were words too dark like tar to pour on days like today, so Caspar left them unsaid.
They ended up in the sauna together at one point after a particularly annoying tourney. Caspar was on the top step, enjoying the heat sinking into his bones, and when he cracked his eye open, Sylvain was staring at him, wide-eyed. “I can come back later,” Sylvain said abruptly, even though that made no sense. It was an hour before dinner, and after dinner the sauna was closed. Caspar shifted so the towel slung low over his hips was covering everything. He rubbed a hand up his arm, rolling his shoulder as he squeezed life back into the muscles near his neck.
“Nah, man, it’s fine,” Caspar said and gestured for Sylvain to come closer. Sylvain almost tripped on the box of hot stones because he wasn’t looking where he was going, and Caspar had to reach out and grab him so he wouldn’t hurt himself. The towel fluttered down to the ground.
Caspar colored when he realized Sylvain was staring at his dick, and then reached down to grab the towel again.
“Sorry,” Caspar mumbled. “The knot always comes undone.”
Sylvain swallowed thickly. “That’s fine,” he managed, and then sat down next to Caspar, close enough to touch. It was nice. Caspar could feel him sitting next to him, just two inches to the right, and it made something worried inside him climb down, like maybe he didn’t need to worry so much.
“Do you ever talk to Ingrid or Felix about your brother?”
The words were out before Caspar knew he was going to say them, bouncing around the stone cavern braced with pine wood like a particularly foul oath. Caspar winced. When he looked over, Sylvain’s face had gone carefully blank, although his mouth was trying to do something like a smile.
“No,” Sylvain said. “I don’t.”
Caspar stared at the corner of Sylvain’s mouth that was struggling valiantly to stay tilted upright and wished he could take the words back. “You can talk to me about it, if you want,” he offered.
Sylvain stared at him. Caspar blushed. “Why would you want to?” Sylvain asked.
Caspar could feel his heart hammering in his throat. “I don’t understand,” Caspar said, plaintive.
“Understand what?”
“You?”
An odd look passed over Sylvain’s face and then he laughed. “You don’t understand me, so you want to talk to me about my brother?” He clarified, sounding amused. When he put it like that, it did sound kinda off, like there was something Caspar was missing, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
Caspar thought about watching Sylvain laugh with Dorothea at lunch, the way he always left the green beans on his plate untouched, the way he avoided the training hall like the plague. Sylvain had been sitting with them more often at dinnertime. Caspar had caught Felix scowling at him once or twice. It felt a little like he knew the mundane things, like how much butter Sylvain would scrape over his toast before he was satisfied with it, but he still didn’t really know the big things. Caspar couldn’t get that image out of his head, the way Sylvain had stared up at his brother as he transformed into a literal monster.
“Yeah,” Caspar said, embarrassed and not sure why. “Why, is there a problem?”
And Sylvain stared at him for a long minute like he was trying to decide how serious Caspar was. Caspar stared back, because he didn’t know what else to do. Eventually, Sylvain huffed on a laugh and pretended it didn’t shake on the way out. “What do you want to know?” Sylvain asked.
And just like that, the door was open.
There was a day when Caspar had just sat down to lunch when Sylvain appeared at his elbow, smiling like it hurt his face, pinching the skin between his thumb and forefinger with his blunt nails. Caspar stared at him. “Hey, Caspar,” Sylvain started, “I ever tell you how easy you are on the eyes?”
Caspar blinked at him. “What.”
Sylvain’s smile got bigger and he laid it on even more, ignoring or oblivious to the way Caspar’s stomach was tying itself up in knots, and the way his throat was closing up like someone’d put a hand around his throat, strangling him. Eventually, Linhardt wandered into the dining hall and set Caspar free by asking, “What on earth are you doing to Caspar?” The truth came out, and it turned out Sylvain had been planning to ask for help, only he’d chosen to do it in the most bizarre fashion possible.
Caspar stared at the bare cobwebby boards above his head in the dorm that night, restless even though he knew he needed his sleep for the journey ahead, and tried to reach down and put in words this feeling Sylvain had given him, like his ribcage was filled with rabbits jonesing for more space. He stared at the back of Sylvain’s head when they hit the road the next day, and Sylvain smiled at him and didn’t tell him not to worry about him, and that was better, okay, even, because it meant Sylvain was letting him worry about him, or at least something like that, except this idea of Sylvain flirting with him made everything inside his head go topsy-turvy, like he didn’t know the whole world all over again.
They were almost to the town where the remnants of Miklan’s band of bandits when Caspar overheard Edelgard and Sylvain talking at the back of the convoy and it made something inside stand at attention.
“It’s unfair of your father to make you do this with no support,” Edelgard was saying, a frown creasing the lines of her face, making her lilac purple eyes stand out even more against her silver-white hair.
Sylvain laughed like it didn’t matter. Caspar was starting to hate that sound. “It’s fine,” Sylvain said, rubbing the back of his neck like it didn’t matter and this was why Caspar needed to worry about him okay. Sylvain kept doing things that were worrisome like they were nothing, and Caspar didn’t know what to do, he’d never had a problem land like this in his lap before, so he’d dragged Sylvain back to Edelgard and Hubert and Linhardt because they were smarter than him, book-smart in a way that he just plain wasn’t, and he’d been hoping someone would hand him the answers. Instead he’d observed the way there was this weird tension between Sylvain and Hubert, nothing he could put into words even if he wanted to, how Sylvain smiled but it was nothing like when he’d had a horse hunting for a cube of sugar hidden in his back pocket, and Caspar didn’t know what to do, okay.
He was so screwed it wasn’t even funny.
It took a second for the words to sink in, but once they did, Caspar pulled hard on his reins, feeling like his insides had been turned into ice. Dorothea gave him a weird look as she and Petra guided their horses around Caspar, still talking about something from Brigid. Caspar and his horse sat like a giant lump in the middle of the road until Sylvain and Edelgard came up to him, Edelgard giving him a bemused look. Caspar tried to pretend the lines of Sylvain’s face didn’t ease when he saw Caspar in front of him, like the grip on his reins didn’t loosen until his knuckles weren’t white anymore.
“Your dad told you to do this alone?” Caspar asked, and Sylvain blinked before he nodded.
“Yeah,” Sylvain huffed. “It’s another one of his ridiculous tests to make sure I’m ready to be margrave or whatever.” He shrugged like it didn’t mean anything. “It’s not something to be worried about.”
Edelgard cleared her throat like she had something to say about that, but before she could say anything, Caspar blurted out. “I do. Worry about you, I mean.” Sylvain was staring at him again. Caspar turned towards Edelgard, hoping she could help him sort out this messy feeling in his chest.
“I think what Caspar is trying to say is that none of us expected you to do this on your own,” Edelgard started diplomatically enough. “Picture if Petra or Caspar’s father had asked them to do the same thing on their own. Would you stand idly by and do nothing?”
Sylvain looked like he’d bit into a lemon. “No, I wouldn’t,” he said thickly.
Caspar felt like he could breathe easier as Edelgard continued, softer, “You came to us for a reason, right? You know that what he’s asking you to do is too much for one person to do alone.”
Sylvain was staring down at the reins in his hands like they held the answers to life’s questions and Caspar ached in ways he couldn’t put a name to. He wanted to put his hand on top of Sylvain’s and tell him that it would all be okay, that Edelgard had a plan, that he was standing right there and he had no intention of going anywhere anytime soon. It was like sitting in the bushes, watching that guy with the scorpion tiptoe through an unattended gate, feeling his intuition screaming at him in wordless worry.
“Let us help you,” Edelgard said, and after a moment, Sylvain nodded his assent.
“Yeah, okay,” he said like it didn’t matter, but he was looking at Caspar when he said it, like Caspar was the one out of the two of them that he believed in. It made it hard to breathe. Caspar felt the weight of what Sylvain was pressing into his hands and decided he wasn’t going to throw it away needlessly.
My brother decided that I was an obstacle to be removed by any means necessary, Caspar could hear Sylvain saying between the hiss of water on hot rocks, a studied nonchalance that made Caspar’s skin itch. The way Sylvain hadn’t been able to look at him, his hands clenched into fists on his bare knees, it said more than Sylvain probably meant to. It took Caspar’s breath away. He felt like he’d been entrusted with something so precious, so delicate, that he’d break it if he breathed wrong.
He was going to make damn sure he was worthy of this gift.
They fought and they won and afterwards, they met Margrave Gautier in the flesh. They’re brought to the estate and given a room to sit and rest in while the margrave finishes up something in his office.
Caspar kept craning his head around, taking in the tapestries lying flush against the stone walls, adding a flash of color to an otherwise featureless square building, looking at the sea blue vase with irises quietly blooming in it and hearing Sylvain talk about the time his brother beat him so badly on the training ground that Sylvain had to spend a week in the infirmary afterwards, his broken bones numbing his brain to anything but the pain, and how it had been the most peaceful week of his life.
It wasn’t all bad, Sylvain would say when Caspar rather violently needed to go punch something to stop the way his vision had gone red and his heart was bleeding on the inside, palms open, staring at Caspar like he was a bomb about to go off. Caspar didn’t know how to tell Sylvain that that slightly apprehensive look in his eyes like he couldn’t predict what Caspar was going to do next doused his inner fire in ice. He never wanted Sylvain to look at him like that. I had my friends.
Did your friends do anything? Caspar thought and didn’t say, and he’s stupid, he knows it, his test scores reflect it, he’s nothing like Linhardt and doesn’t want to be, but there’s some things that just make sense, a steel bar of clarity in the back of his brain, and he knew, right down to his bones. The way the truth fell out of Sylvain in shivering heaps, unpredictable. They’d be brushing their teeth in the morning, getting ready for practice, and Sylvain will absently mention the time his brother bashed his head against a mirror and he had a fear of seeing his reflection in mirrors ever since, stuff like that that made Caspar feel gutted, like something had sliced him open and was now studying his insides with the intent of deciding what part to chew on first. Sylvain would say shit like that, and then he’d look over at Caspar, who was trying so damn hard not to snap his toothbrush in half or something equally dumb, feeling anger boiling in his veins like a second heartbeat, and Sylvain’d look relieved, like he’d never said anything of this aloud before, and Caspar getting mad on his behalf made him feel better.
There’s been more than a couple times in the past months where Caspar’d wished that Sylvain’s older brother was still alive so he could go find him and punch him in the mouth, okay.
But the thing is, he’s heard enough stories where Sylvain’s father did nothing to make him hate the guy too. He no longer wondered what a brother could do to make killing him seem like a simple task to accomplish. Instead, he wondered why Sylvain had stuck around for so long, why he hadn’t run away. He kept finding himself wishing at odd moments of the day that he’d known Sylvain when they were kids, that he’d been there to put himself between Sylvain and his brother, to get angry on his behalf sooner.
When the servant came to fetch them, Sylvain grinned and managed to cajole the poor guy into gossiping about what had happened at the estate while Sylvain had been gone, and Caspar got a flash for a minute of what Sylvain would be like as margrave, smiling easily, his arm slung over the servant’s shoulders, laughing like nothing in the world could hurt him. It left Caspar feeling queerly empty inside. It was only when Sylvain shot him a smile over the servant’s shoulder that Caspar could breathe again. Edelgard stopped him before they could go into the office, shooting him a Look.
“Let me talk to him,” Edelgard said, like she could hear all the words rattling around in Caspar’s head, unsaid. He scowled at her. Hubert was standing behind her, his affect dark as usual.
“Make sure he hurts,” Caspar said, his hands clenched into fists at his side. “Otherwise, I’ll do it.”
Edelgard’s lilac purple eyes glittered strangely back at him in the torchlight. “Trust me,” she said ominously, “I have no intention of letting him get away with what he’s done.”
Having those words made it easier to stand there listening while Edelgard played nice with the bastard. Sylvain was required to be a part of the conversation because of course he was, but there was nothing saying Caspar couldn’t stand between the margrave and his son.
Caspar only realized his error when the overwhelming urge to beat the margrave’s face in nearly overpowered him. It was only Sylvain touching the middle of Caspar’s back that made it even slightly okay, and yeah okay Hubert standing next to Edelgard while she played politics sending poisonous looks Caspar’s way had more to do with his restraint than anything else. Caspar was under no delusions that Hubert would remove him if he became a problem, if he got in the way of Edelgard’s plans.
When it was done, Caspar stood outside the office for a moment, something inside lashing out at the walls of his ribcage, trying to convince his feet to move. Sylvain tugged on his epaulets, saying quietly, “C’mon,” like he was sympathetic, and that was even worse somehow.
“He’ll get his,” Edelgard promised him. “The time isn’t right just yet.”
“When will it be,” Caspar exploded, beyond exasperated.
“Patience,” Edelgard said, and then exchanged looks with Hubert. Caspar didn’t like the way she studied Sylvain then, like she was judging how risky a gambit on the battlefield might be.
“I’m getting tired of waiting,” Caspar grumped. That made Edelgard smile.
“I know,” she said. “Just give me a little more time."
Hubert came and found Caspar an hour before sunset, when he was standing at the balcony near the undecorated gravestones, watching birds fly high in the sky. “Caspar,” Hubert said shortly.
Caspar looked over at him. “What?” He asked. He was tired. He couldn’t sleep well last night. Kept waking up from dreams of blood and fire, and Sylvain staring back at him like he was a ghost.
Hubert paused. He cleared his throat. “Sylvain has requested to join the Black Eagles,” he said, the words taking a moment to register.
Caspar blinked at him. He found himself smiling, something gnarled and tied up in his chest easing. “That’s good,” he enthused. He pictured what it would be like to have Sylvain in their classroom permanently, not stopping by in the mornings to sit on the edge of Caspar’s desk and trade quips with Dorothea until the first bell rang. There would be no awkward pause before Sylvain said goodbye and slunk off to his classroom – he’d just slide into the seat next to Caspar, and Caspar wouldn’t have to wonder what was happening in the room next over, wondering if Sylvain’s friends knew even a tenth of what Sylvain had entrusted him with.
Hubert was watching him carefully. Caspar had that odd ‘bug under the magnifying lens’ feeling again. “What?” He said, defensive. He crossed his arms as Hubert narrowed his eyes.
“I didn’t say that we had accepted his transfer request,” Hubert said silkily.
Caspar’s stomach clenched. “Why ever the hell not?”
“If Sylvain switches houses, can we trust that he will stay here, come what may?” Hubert asked, watching Caspar carefully.
Caspar frowned. “What do you mean?”
Hubert’s gaze was inscrutable.
“Do you think Sylvain hates his father enough to kill him?”
Caspar stared at Hubert. It felt a little like that time he went sledding and fell off and accidentally elbowed himself in the solar plexus.
“Why are you asking me that?” Caspar said instead.
“Because for some reason he trusts you the most,” Hubert sneered.
Caspar bristled. “And whose fault is that?” He snapped back. Without really meaning to, he flashed back to the way Sylvain’s hand had trembled when he put it to the small of Caspar’s back when they were in his father’s office, about how carefully blank his face had been afterwards. Caspar thought about old scars dotting up and down Sylvain’s arms and legs, little slivers of silver flashing in the torchlight, the way Sylvain could never look him in the eye when they were in the sauna together, and gritted his teeth. “If Sylvain doesn’t kill his father, I will,” and it came out as a growl.
Hubert looked viciously pleased. “I suppose that'll do,” he said in the face of Caspar’s burgeoning anger. It felt like Caspar was full to bursting, something inside begging to bust out and break some noses. “He will be your responsibility,” Hubert said, “Or else I’ll make him mine.”
Caspar stuck his chin out. “No, you won’t,” he said, and he meant it more than anything else, meant it like an oath he’d take to the grave.
Hubert’s eyes glittered strangely in the near twilight.
“We shall see,” is what Hubert finally said.
Caspar watched Hubert stalk away. Well that definitely wasn’t ominous at all, he thought. What the hell was that about? He thought about Hubert and Edelgard’s secrecy and wondered, just a bit, about what was yet to come.
Sylvain slid into their class like it was the most natural thing in the world, but not everyone he left behind was exactly happy about the change.
Caspar found that out when he went down to the training yard one morning early before breakfast and instead of attacking the straw dummies laid out for practice, Felix turned around and attacked him. He flailed for a bit – it’d been a while since him and Petra last had a bout that was this bloodthirsty okay – and then got his feet under him and managed to weather the blows well enough and knock Felix hard enough around that Felix stopped and glared at him. “What did you say to Sylvain to make him leave,” Felix bit out.
Caspar stared at him, caught flat-footed.
“I didn’t do anything,” Caspar said, too honest.
Incensed, Felix came at him again, only this time Caspar was ready and weathered the rain of blows with more or less grace. He cautiously put the blade aside when Felix stopped, too out of breath to continue. That was the thing about swordsmen – no stamina, none. Caspar wondered if Felix knew how much he was holding back on account of surprise and the fact that he didn’t actually wanna murder Felix, Felix’s feelings to the contrary aside. “You must’ve done something!” Felix spat. “He never stops talking about you.”
Caspar felt his heart skip a beat.
“I don’t know,” he said, casting his mind back. “I,” Caspar thought about sitting silently side by side Sylvain in the sauna until the stories about his brother came out in drips and pieces, about how every time Caspar got so mad he felt like he was going to burst with the unfairness of it all, Sylvain would watch him, deadly silent, and something in his guard would relax.
“I didn’t do anything special,” Caspar said, thinking about putting his body between Sylvain and the things that wanted to hurt him or scared him, because he couldn’t not. He couldn’t stand idly by and pretend it wasn’t happening, because it filled him to the brim with all-encompassing rage that threatened to swallow him whole, leaving naught but ashes behind.
“I listened,” Caspar finally settled on. Felix was watching him the same way Hubert did sometimes, like every move he made was strange and new, and it made Caspar uncomfortable.
“Did you try listening to him?” Caspar threw back, wanting that feeling gone.
Felix’s scowl twisted, and just like that, Caspar had his answer. He sighed. “Look,” Caspar said, “I can’t control Sylvain any more than you can. I didn’t make that choice to switch for him. But it’s what he wants, so let him go. He’s a grown man, he’s allowed to ask for things he wants.”
Felix screwed his face up. “What if what he wants is stupid?”
Caspar frowned at him.
“Then you let him do it anyway,” Caspar said, “And you stay by his side.”
Felix’s look soured.
“I won’t be able to fight by his side anymore,” Felix admitted.
“It’s not forever,” Caspar replied, ignoring that itchy feeling in the back of his head. “We’re gonna graduate in the spring, and then we’ll all go home. It’ll be a lot harder to see each other then.”
Felix studied him for a moment.
“You really have no idea, do you,” Felix said abruptly.
“About what?”
His only answer was a sigh.
“You two deserve each other at this point,” Felix groused, and went back to hitting straw dummies like he hadn’t been aiming to separate Caspar’s head from his shoulders. Caspar stared at him, uncomprehending. He felt like he was on the verge of understanding, like his mind was dangling over the edge of a precipice, and it was a long drop down. So Caspar frowned and went to the corner to do some drills before he went upstairs to get changed, feeling like there was something missing, a big black spot of nothing where something ought to be, and wondering what it could be.
He thought about it until the first bell rang and Sylvain slid into the seat next to him, grinning toothily and flipping a quill over and over again in his hand. Caspar didn’t know what he was missing that was so readily apparent to everyone else, but it couldn’t be that bad, could it?
It turned out, it could actually be that bad.
Caspar stared at Edelgard. “You’re declaring war on the church?” He asked, heart in his throat. Maybe it was him being thick again, but he couldn’t help but ask, “Why?” like a little lost schoolboy.
The set of Edelgard’s face was hard as stone, impervious to anything he might happen to throw her way. “They’ve abused their power too much,” she said tightly. “Imagine what this continent could be without the shackles of religion binding us down. We could be more,” she breathed the words like the start of a prayer, and Caspar couldn’t stop staring at her.
It felt like maybe Caspar’d never known Edelgard at all.
Sylvain shifted next to Caspar, so close their elbows were touching. “Have you thought about the bloodshed and pain you would cause, disrupting the accepted order like that?” He asked quietly, and Caspar felt like he was grasping at straws, because yes, that’s right, what about all the people who might die in a war like this? Where would a war like this even end?
“It’s worth the price,” Edelgard said, a glimmer of something in her eyes that scared Caspar, “To set the continent free for generations to come.” Hubert was glowering over her shoulder, looking straight at Caspar.
Abruptly, Caspar wondered if this was what Hubert had been asking about, the day he found Caspar resting next to undecorated tombstones. If he thought he’d need to stop Sylvain from running to the opposite side. Caspar felt sick to the bottom of his stomach, just imagining it.
Did you ever stop to wonder if I might not like it either? Casper wondered. What if I defect?
Sylvain uncrossed his arms so he could comb his fingers through his copper red hair, staring off into the distance, away from Caspar. Caspar’s stomach clenched. “I assume you’re planning to restructure everything from the coup so that the imperial throne reigns supreme?” Sylvain continued calmly.
Edelgard smiled. “I told you you would be an asset wherever you ended up,” she said softly. The room felt oddly silent in the wake of those words.
Caspar stood up so fast that his chair wobbled and threatened to fall over. Sylvain didn’t look at him, but Edelgard did. “Did you think things would go this way from the beginning,” Caspar gritted out.
Lilac purple eyes studied him.
“I’ll admit, I didn’t expect you to fall as hard as you clearly did,” what did she mean by that, “But when I saw Sylvain looking back, I decided to take the chance and run with it.” She smiled and it was the coldest smile Caspar’d ever seen. “We could use a spy inside the Kingdom.”
Sylvain flinched like she’d struck him. Caspar turned to look Sylvain in the eye. Sylvain wasn’t looking him in the eye. What does that mean, Caspar wanted to ask. He felt like he was falling, like he’d jumped off a cliff without looking, and he didn’t know where he was gonna end up.
“Sylvain?” Caspar asked. “What does she mean by that?”
Sylvain shot him a look so filled with misery Caspar felt his stomach drop. Dorothea giggled, hiding her mouth behind one long draping sleeve of her warlock garb. “You mean you genuinely couldn’t tell?” She asked. “We’ve all known for months.” Caspar darted a quick look around the room, gauging how right she was. His stomach was clenching itself into knots.
Not even Petra looked surprised.
Only Sylvain was the one who wouldn’t look him in the eye, arms crossed, fists clenched, a muscle twitching on his jaw as he stared at the wall like it had done him personal wrong. Caspar could feel his heart beating fast in his throat. It was too much. It was all muddled in his head.
Why won’t you look at me? Caspar wanted to ask Sylvain.
Later, Caspar went and found Sylvain in his dorm room.
Caspar crossed his arms and stuck out his hip and frowned, but on the inside he was a mess. “What did Edelgard mean?” Caspar asked. “About you and me. All that stuff about her pulling you in through me or whatever.”
And Sylvain looked at him, leaning against the window ledge, the shutters open and letting in a hint of a breeze, with a sadness so deep and dark it made Caspar’s heart squeeze. “I had a funny feeling you hadn’t figured it out yet,” Sylvain said lightly. He got down from the ledge and walked across the room to stand in front of Caspar. Caspar swallowed when he felt Sylvain’s calloused hand cup his chin. “Good to know that for sure,” Sylvain said, and then he was leaning in, and his dry chapped lips were pressed against Caspar’s and Caspar felt his heart stop. When Sylvain pulled away, there was endless static between Caspar’s ears. He couldn’t think.
“Does that answer your question?” Sylvain asked, something raw bleeding in his eyes.
Caspar didn’t know what to do, what to say. So he turned around and walked away. Behind him, he could hear Sylvain start to laugh.
It didn’t sound like the sound a sane man would make.
Caspar spent the next couple weeks combing over every interaction with Sylvain in his head, trying to find out where he’d gone wrong, when he’d put out a signal he clearly didn’t mean to, what he’d done that convinced Sylvain he was worth switching sides for, and came up blank.
In the meantime, the Black Eagles Task Force formulated a plan of attack, and it was weird, attacking the place that had been known as home for the past three years, but Caspar listened to all the arguments Edelgard made and didn’t understand half of them, but he knew he would follow her anyways, but hers was the side of justice, and he’d always wanted that for himself. Wanted to feel right, all the way down to his marrow.
It caught Caspar off-guard every time he looked up from the maps and the lists of what supplies they had on hand, where men would go and what weapons they would have to forge to arm the soldiers they would need, and saw Sylvain staring at him. Caspar didn’t know what to do with that. It was one thing before he didn’t know, and now he did, and it made him feel all weird on the inside. He thought maybe Sylvain knew, too, and he was sad about it, because he would smile and then look away.
Caspar always felt cold when Sylvain looked away.
There was something on the edge of being realized that was driving him mad, but he couldn’t figure out just what it was, so one day when Edelgard and Hubert and the professor were deep in discussion about private matters and everyone else had been given the day off to relax, Caspar went and found Linhardt. Linhardt was book smart. Caspar knew down to his marrow what was good and what was not, but he’d never needed to be book smart before. And maybe Linhardt could help him out with this.
“Linhardt,” Caspar said, and Linhardt looked up from where he was napping.
“Have you come to finally ask me for my advice?” Linhardt sighed, running a hand through his hair. He pulled a leaf out of his hair and dropped it down to the ground like he hadn’t predicted Caspar’s move down to the last second, making him feel predictable. It was oddly reassuring.
Caspar sat down next to Linhardt. “You already know what I’m gonna ask?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it,” Linhardt yawned. “It’s about Sylvain. And your feelings for him.” Linhardt looked up and saw Caspar’s pole-axed expression and raised an eyebrow. “You hadn’t gotten that far, I see,” Linhardt said drily, and no, he hadn’t, but he could kinda see it now, like every minute he’d spent dreading launching himself off a cliff had been leading up to this moment, and now he was soaring above the clouds, because he already knew Sylvain felt the same way towards him.
Feeling oddly shy, Caspar covered a smile with the palm of his hand. “Thanks, Linhardt,” he said. The thanks tasted odd on his lips.
“For what?” Linhardt asked, but Caspar was already getting up and going to where he’d last seen Sylvain. He had something he needed to tell him, too.
That Sylvain wasn’t alone in this feeling, and that worrying about him was something Caspar was probably going to be doing well into the future.
What was worry another name for but love?