Archive of Our Own

Illuga, the Squad Leader of the Nightmare Orioles is a very skilled man. 

He’s the youngest squad leader among all the Lightkeepers of Nod-Krai.

He has incredible endurance and dedication.

He’s deeply loyal to his squad.

He can cook meals that could even impress Escoffier.

…and he’s a workaholic.

All of these are facts that Lohen, Vice Captain of the Knights of Favonius’s Fifth Company, learned within his first day of meeting the man. However, he did not expect that he would care so much about all those qualities, especially the last one. And that stupid compassion is exactly how Lohen found himself staring at Illuga after they had finished dealing with another horde of the Wild Hunt that barely left Lohen feeling the thrill of battle.

“Birdie!” Lohen called, sitting on Illuga’s bed, which he knew infuriated the Lightkeeper, and definitely not just because he liked the idea of sharing a bed with him. “Biiiiirdie~”

No response.

Oh, so you want to make this harder than it has to be, huh?

Lohen got up and snatched Illuga’s pen from his hand. Illuga turned to face Lohen with a look of confusion. “What was that for?”

“You haven’t yelled at me once since we got back from the Wild Hunt.”

“So?” Illuga rolled his eyes, lifting his hand to free his precious pen from Lohen’s reach. “Give me back my pen and let me finish this report–”

“Nope.” Lohen raised the pen as high as he could, eagerly watching as Illuga struggled.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Illuga groaned as the two of them scampered across the room. “Aedon! Help me out!”

FUCK NO NOT HIM–

Aedon, that terrible bird, started to pull Lohen’s hair with his beak, like his life depended on it. Why was that stupid bird so annoying, and why to him? What did Lohen ever do to deserve this?

…okay, well the hate might stem from the one time Lohen hid Aedon’s lantern to piss off Illuga, he didn’t expect it to annoy the bird too.

“Ow!” Lohen yelped at a particularly annoying poke in the cheek, leading him to drop the pen. Illuga quickly noticed the opening and yoinked the pen back for himself, sitting back down in his chair like nothing happened.

Lohen rolled his eyes as the bird finally went back inside its little lantern home thing (Lohen has no clue how it works and won’t even bother asking because he’d zone out half way through the explanation anyways). Picking himself back up, he rests his own head on top of the Squad Leader’s, again, just to annoy Illuga, definitely not because he thinks that the Lightkeeper’s hair smells nice and is strangely fluffy.

After about five seconds, Illuga gives in and sighs. “Lohen, what are you doing?”

“Reading your report, although I’m getting sleepy just looking at it.” Lohen pretended to yawn like a maiden from a fairy tale, dramatically stretching, which earned himself a small chuckle out of Illuga. The Vice Captain went back to observing the report, but noticed something off. “Hey, what happened to your handwriting over here?”

“Nothing.” Illuga quickly replied. Almost too quickly. Lohen smirked. Using the Lightkeeper’s moment of panic, Lohen grabbed the report and started to look through it. He wasn’t looking for specific words or any of the such, though he did glance at a phrase that looked suspiciously like “Vice Captain Lohen of the Fifth Company disregarded orders, again”  but that wasn’t the point right now. 

“Birdie.” Lohen started, pointing at a completely normal looking sentence. “Look here.”

“Lohen, it’s a completely normal report, stop looking for–”

“Uh huh, then what’s this absurdly long line for?”

“What absurdly long line?” Illuga almost jumped out of his seat, clasping the papers and frantically flipping through them.

Illuga’s expression was the perfect human embodiment of the word, flabbergasted, although he quickly regained his composure and took a deep breath. “That was just my pen running out of ink, that’s all.”

“Then why was your head bobbing as you wrote this stupid thing after we came back this afternoon?”

“Because-” Illuga paused, then looked Lohen directly in the eye. “Wait, why were you looking at how my head was bobbing?”

“Uhhh it's a Mondstadt thing, ANYWAYS,” Lohen took the report away from Illuga again, “Your report is going to suck if you keep falling asleep while writing it!”

“This report is due tonight!” Illuga cried. “And anyways, in a couple of hours we’re going to patrol again, and after that, I have to make dinner, and then everyone wanted to go to the Flagship, so that means we’d be traveling in the night, which is especially dangerous with the amount of Wild Hunt out–”

“BIRDIE, TURNING IN A REPORT A DAY LATE ISN’T THE END OF THE WORLD!” Lohen screeched, his hands raised up in the air like a madman, which he kind of was, honestly. “IF YOU CARE ABOUT IT SO MUCH, I’LL FINISH IT FOR YOU!”

Illuga blinked. “You hate reports and get Gunther to do them for you.”

“Y’know what, forget I ever said that.” Lohen’s right eye started to twitch. “Just go to sleep before I drug you into doing so!”

“...fine.”

“Fine?”

“Yes, I’ll sleep.”

“Great!” Lohen smiled, turning around to shove the goddamn report into one of Illuga’s folders. “I’ll just go tell Flins that the stupid report is gonna be late and you can go sleep, okay Birdie?”

“...”

“...Birdie?” Lohen turned around to find Illuga’s head dropping with a thud onto his desk. 

“You really were that tired, huh?” Lohen muttered under his breath as he started to leave the Squad Leader’s tent, before his maniac brain started to act up again and spew stupid thoughts.

Sleeping on a desk can’t be that comfortable, right?

Lohen looked at Illuga, the desk, Illuga’s bed, and outside of the tent.

And that’s how Lohen made the terribly cheesy, corny, and stupid carrying the Squad Leader of the Nightmare Orioles, full on bridal style, to his bed. How is he this heavy, I could have sworn he looked more scrawny than me. After completing such a knightly duty, Lohen promptly dropped down next to the Lightkeeper’s bed and started staring at him, again. Just so that Illuga wouldn’t escape or do something stupid like write his report in his sleep. It was oddly peaceful, but Lohen’s heart was still beating at the pace that it would on a battlefield… that’s weird.

The strange peace lasted for around five minutes.

“Lohen? Lohen, you damn rascal, where the hell are you?!” Lohen could hear Varka’s voice calling from the distance. Oh great, the Grandmaster’s gonna have a blast seeing this. Lohen, calm? Not moving? Willingly? Impossible, at least that’s what most people thought. Actually, that’s what Lohen thought until he reached Nod-Krai, and he still didn’t know why.

Varka poked his head into the tent. “Captain Illuga, have you seen Lohen–” Varka looked down at Illuga’s bed. His expression was what confusion and amusement would look like if they had a child. “Well, well, well, I didn’t know you had a soft spot for–”

“Varka, shut the fuck up and get out of here.”

Varka closed the tent flap again.

“Flins owes me 100 mora.”