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His fingertips are still red and soaked from handwashing clothes. The rather cozy, soap-scented washroom is only a few meters wide, pushed into the corner of the camp they set up just the other day. There’s soap on the floor and on his knees that he pushes closer into his chest. He feels so small right now. But alone and – safe.
A weak Faerghan sun has hidden behind frosty hills on the horizon, last sunbeams shining through the little washroom he found solace in and casting a familiar almost-warmth into the wooden area. The purple-headed man specifically requested to be on washing duty today, and he might as well use that to the full extent, he keeps telling himself. His body feels so cold, but his head is too hot, feels clenched, stuffed, full and heavy, but there’s familiarity in that too.
But then – “Is anyone in there?”
A voice. Byleth’s monotonous, bleak, gentle little voice. Shez raises his head and hisses as he jumps up to his feet, trying to get the soap off his clothing.
“Yeah – just me!” he calls, huffing a laugh, “You can come in. Just finished the last batch.”
The creaking door opens, and in strides the green-haired man, eyes as empty and lifeless as usual as he looks between Shez and the laundry basket quizzically. The ashen cloak is discarded for the day, lying over his arm. There’s a warmth in his eyes that he can’t handle right now, so the shorter man snorts and points to the piece of clothing in his arms, “I can take that thing off your hands too, if you’d like. Bet it’s soaked up blood again. Free of charge, of course”, he quips, but Byleth, as usual, doesn’t seem to get the joke and merely looks to the piece of clothing in question.
“No, thank you.”
“Um, alright?” Shez answers, eyes widening in confusion, “I am on washing duty today, you know? It’s… kinda my job right now?”
“That’s fine”, Byleth says, offering him the tiniest of smiles, “I’d like to clean it myself.”
Shez should have already left. The longer he stood here the more he felt ridiculous – not to mention furious. Why those simple words from the Ashen Demon made him so angry was a mystery to him, but they did. Was he not trusted to clean a cloak now too? He sighs before he manages to say anything that would screw over what little friendship they have somehow managed to build from the ground up, raising his hands in defeat and looking aside, to the floor.
“Fine. I give up”, he states, turning on his heel to get out of the predicament, “Soap’s inside the third shelf minus the broken one.”
“Wait”, the other man suddenly says, a warm hand grabbing him by the wrist. He instinctively freezes up, but prompts to look his way when the light grip doesn’t cease – being met with a couple of bleak eyes that he suddenly swore he saw as dark blue at some point. There’s a pointed glare directed at him though, plump lips narrowed in concentration, brows furrowed disapprovingly. Was being a bit sensitive really that big of a deal? He’s gotten emotional from not beating a personal record or failing to cook a dish well enough for him and his father already. Then his gentle eyes widen just a tiny bit before he slowly releases his wrist, “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” Shez asks with a dismissive shrug of his shoulders, prompting Byleth to hum. His eyes must still be puffy or something, because Byleth’s haven’t moved from his and he was starting to get creeped out.
“I don’t believe you”, he said simply, level-headedly. His eyes were wide open, evaluating Shez as if waiting to see whether he would fight or flee. Shez wasn’t one for fleeing.
“Like that’s any news, By”, he jokes bitterly, then immediately feels bad as he sees Byleth’s face saddening openly. Goddess, does he have to ruin what little he made? He was only trying to get to him, but Shez always pushes away. The silent man’s patience isn’t that of a saint. And even a saint’s fades if the history books are to be trusted. There’s a worried glimmer in his eye now, something Shez wishes to push away and bury deep below the ground. He doesn’t need this. Byleth reaches out, then, but he cuts his intentions with a simple, “Don’t.”
As if he didn’t feel horrible enough already. There’s tears forming in his eyes already and he doesn’t know how to swallow them.
The Ashen Demon stands there dumbfounded. The cloak he wanted clean is now discarded on top of the cabinets as he looks around for something. Now Shez stands there dumbfounded too, because Byleth is picking up freshly-washed clothes and peeping beneath the rest before moving onto the medicine cabinets and merely sticking his head in. It’s amusing. Shez feels a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Eventually, Byleth pulls out what seems to be a large quilt and Shez doesn’t have the time to ask himself the very important question of how it even got there in the first place before Byleth swings the colorful cloth around his shoulders and then huddles him up, patting the finished project. Shez stares at him openly, a slight blush on his pale cheeks, and Byleth offers him one of those rare tiny smiles again.
“You looked cold.”
“I’m not – ” Shez starts, but ends up yelping as the larger sweeps him off his feet and securely holds onto him as he busts open the door with his shoulder, rushing through camp with the Shez caterpillar in his arms, bridal style. Shez doesn’t have enough time to register where he’s being carried to, otherwise he would have already been panicking whether someone sees them, and finds himself plopped against a uncomfortable bed soon enough. He’s immediately greeted with the scent of bergamot from the tiny kitchen the leaders insisted on giving to Byleth, who eagerly obliged and was now inviting council members to tea regularly. He’s never been invited to one of his tea parties before, though.
Byleth stares into his soul as he holds a cup of deliciously smelling tea in front of him. Shez looks between the cup and the man, suddenly too tired to think properly. The Ashen Demon, realizing it is futile to wait, pushes the tiny porcelain cup towards the part of the quilt where his hands are supposed to be. Shez reluctantly reaches for the cup and stares into the dark-colored liquid blankly.
“Sorry.”
“There’s no need to apologize”, Byleth says in a flat tone. Shez frowns at him.
“No, it’s not right to bring it up like that”, he confesses, wanting to drink the beverage but burning himself instead, “I can do better. I just… I’m just spent, today. That’s all.”
Byleth lets out another thoughtful hum, then cups his chin. His eyes were boring into his temple and it wasn’t particularly comfortable. But the quilt and the bed were slowly warming him up, and he felt a fuzzy feeling in his heart that felt very much out of place.
“Do you really think that I wouldn’t trust you at this point?” the man asked after a while, only staring blankly at Shez once he looked back to him incredulously. Shez would never understand that man.
“Well…” Shez’s nose looks to the floor, brows furrowing, “It’s not like I literally didn’t try to kill you multiple times”, he looks up as there’s no response from the Demon, “I mean, yeah, it’s not like it wasn’t my job but… I dunno. I still feel bad about it.”
“It’s as you say”, Byleth says calmly, nodding as he sips on his tea, “it comes with the profession.”
“But – ” Shez yelps, but only freezes up as Byleth gives him a strange look. His face looks kind of funny from this angle.
“But…?”
“I…” Shez looks back into the warm liquid, steam caressing his face gently, “It’s not just about you. It’s about everyone”, he pauses, bites his lip, “How can they just trust me, with all that’s happened recently? And even before that – with powers like this… I mean to say, I wouldn’t trust myself.”
Byleth merely cocks his head, says nothing. He feels judged.
“They’ve got you now, and you’re getting along surprisingly well”, he smiles at him, but with a furrow of his brows, “It’s just – I don’t feel like hogging the spotlight too much now that you’re here. I’d rather do the cooking, cleaning, things like that, you know? Just… maintenance, and battle. I don’t really have the energy to spend on others right now and, hey, it works with them. They’ve gotten quite far. Some are getting super close and all”, his smile widens, but under the Ashen Demon’s scrutinizing glare, he falters and shrinks back into a ball, “I dunno why I told you all of that. Been running my mouth a lot lately.”
After what seemed like an hour of silence, the man across from him places his empty cup against a small wooden table, takes up the empty tray where the teacups were, stands up and ever so carefully walks towards him, before slowly sitting on the bed that creaked as it took up more weight. And he sits there, Byleth Eisner, directly next to him, holding an empty tray vertically between them.
Shez eyes the tray, then looks at him, then back to the tray.
“I mean… I gotta ask”, he finally says, lowering his brows, then continues with a hint of amusement, “What are you doing, you weirdo?”
Byleth looks to the tray as if it should have been immediately obvious, then fumbles with it before looking back into Shez’s surprised eyes and gesturing to the tray.
“You’re distant.”
“Eh?” Shez responds deeply, grimacing. Byleth blinks, scooting further towards the wall to gesture to the empty tarnished tray again, something like a professor trying to explain a difficult topic by visualizing it for the student.
“You’ve built up a wall around you. Our comrades are worried, you know. And I’ve been trying to invite you to tea for a month now, but you’re always busy”, he explains with a soft smile, to which Shez opens his mouth to protest, but then doesn’t say anything, “That’s fine too. You were always aloof.”
“Um – ouch?” Shez asks shakily, biting on his lip as he takes in the other man’s gentle eyes, the soft lines of his face, and the small smile that he would like to get accustomed to, one day. He’s never seen this side of him, and wasn’t sure whether he is now in possession of some secret knowledge no one is supposed to come across. Who dubbed this man a demon again?
“It’s alright. I’ve never been one to fit in as well”, there’s a tint of pink on his cheeks as he looks to the floor, “We’re alike in that regard.”
Shez wasn’t sure what caused the man to be embarrassed by a statement as simple as that, but he wasn’t one to question things that should, in theory, be simple. In theory, he says, because nothing’s ever simple, no matter how straightforward you try to live life. He’s just a mercenary who has left his village because he had nowhere else to go at the moment, and no other way to earn money. He keeps his reasoning practical to stay alive, and yet he ended up biting off so much more than he could chew anyway. In the end, Byleth has no idea what has gotten Shez so upset, and honestly, Shez couldn’t pinpoint the exact reason himself, even if he asked of him to do so. So he sets down the teacup, still full of steaming tea – wondering how Byleth could have already drunk his – and still curled up in a blanket leans down against the man’s broad chest, where he stays frozen.
“Thanks for that”, Shez whispers, lips quivering as he hides his face in Byleth’s shirt, “I mean it.”
Byleth huffs a laugh, then passes a single elegant hand through the man’s soft purple hair. Shez sniffs loudly, burying himself into the other man, before a series of soft cries emanate from the trembling mercenary.
“You’ll probably want to get the shirt washed too”, Shez whimpers, and Byleth hugs him close.