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The worst thing about Brilehaven, you decide, is the heat. It’s not the political tension filling every nook and cranny and dank alleyway; not the anxiety of creeping wing by claustrophobic wing through Louis’ impossibly huge runner. No, it’s the muggy ocean air plastering your undershirt to your back. It’s the hot steel of your lance, slick against your sweaty palms. You can practically taste the sea when you breathe in, it’s so humid. This high above the street, on the deck of your gauntlet runner, the sun feels more like a curse than a blessing.
“Giving up already?”
Across from you, Strohl lowers his two-hander. He waits for your gaze to snap to his face, before slowly raising one eyebrow.
Ooh, you could throttle him.
“How are you still holding on to your sword?” you demand, gesturing with your lance. It slides through your grip—just an inch, but enough to demonstrate your point.
His lips twitch.
“Grit and practice,” he says.
You stare at him. Tilt your head.
“Did you just say what I think you said?”
Following Gallica and your now-captain out of the forest, infiltrating the military of a nation that proudly hates your people, and chasing the kingdom’s most powerful bastard halfway across the country on a crazy assassination mission, and you didn’t have enough grit and practice?
Strohl’s cocky smirk softens.
“No one would deny you have grit in bounds. But practice? I doubt you’ve ever had to wield that lance outside of wherever you came from.” He nods towards you. “Unless elda are more nomadic than I gathered?”
“And how did you gather that?”
“The three of you weren’t exactly shy about gawping at the entirety of Grand Trad. Or at the cliffs and sands we’ve traveled through.”
You grimace. Not like you could deny that.
Chuckling, he tugs at his cravat, unraveling the knot. With a relieved sigh, he tosses it toward his coat, already crumpled on the deck floor. Then he starts loosening his collar as well.
“Country bumpkins aren’t hard to spot,” he continues. “Especially for someone who used to be one himself.”
And he pieced together your struggle with the weather just from that?
You glare jealously at his pile of abandoned clothing. Easier than listening to the flutter in your gut.
Why couldn’t he have just been any old musclehead with a firm sense of honor? He’s reckless enough. But he had to be sharper than a tack on top of that?
With large, strong hands, and forearms muscled enough to hint at firm biceps you’ve only ever caught glimpses of—
Flushing, you yank your gaze away. He finishes rolling up his sleeves, before picking his sword back up and flexing his wrists.
At least he hasn’t completely taken his shirt off. Then you’d be in trouble.
If only you could. But you’re already stripped down to your undershirt, and if you stripped any further you’d attract the kind of attention that your group can’t afford right now and Louis wouldn’t appreciate.
Unfortunate.
You let out an aggravated sigh, and make do with shoving your hair out of your face.
“Well?” Strohl waves his sword at you again.
“Really? Are you really that eager to get your ass handed to you?” That was not a whine, and this isn’t you being a quitter. It’s just the heat getting unbearable. Really. “We’ve been at this for hours.”
“You haven’t handed it to me yet.”
“The time I knocked your feet out from under you didn’t count?”
“Not when you lost your lance in the process.”
“Bullshit!”
“We fight more than just people with two legs and a weapon,” Strohl says stubbornly. “You can’t trip a human with just your feet.”
“Watch me,” you retort. But you raise your weapon and widen your stance, because you’re not a quitter and you will not give it up in front of Strohl, of all people.
He takes a deep breath in, releases it. Nods.
You whip your lance around and under his swing, ducking. The broadsword whistles over your head. Feint, thrust, retreat. The advantage of the lance is its reach. You hold the upper hand as long as you keep your distance from him.
Dodge, shove—the blunted tip jabs towards his armpit, fleshy and vulnerable for all but the most armored Imitec.
He sidesteps the attack, then swings down, yelling.
With reach, you win, but with him inside your guard, his sword can lop your head off before you can recover.
But you trained in the forest, not in some noble’s yard or in the military. You twist your grip, turning the lance into a staff with a bladed end. His sword clangs against your overhead two-handed block.
You take a moment to relish the shock on his face, then spin your weapon, knocking his aside.
Victory setting your blood ablaze, you point your lance at his throat.
Brown eyes flash. He flips his sword, turning downward momentum into upward—
The practice blade digs into your ribs, just as the tip of your lance rests on his collarbone.
“Tie,” you say, panting.
Again.
It happens more often than you’d like. Hulkenberg can beat you both to the ground, and Heismay just dances circles around your larger weapons. But you and Strohl are even enough that it’s a joy to spar together. He’s smart, and perceptive, while you’re wily, ready to take whatever advantage you can find. That you are equal in physical strength makes spars exciting and unpredictable, something both of you relish.
Or you did. Because instead of his usual breathless laugh, Strohl frowns, pushing your lance from his jugular.
“Again.”
“Again?” You gape at him.
He gives you his usual charming smile, but it’s crooked, and half-hearted.
“I thought you promised to knock me on my ass?”
“A tie isn’t enough for you?”
“Since when was it enough for you?”
He’s goading you.
Which is just par for the course, when sparring together. Part of the challenge is trying to find the words that get under his skin and make him flush. Like he does to you.
But something feels different. There’s a sourness to his attitude; the joy of the fight just isn’t there.
You huff and run a hand over your face, swearing. It’s getting harder and harder to tamp down your irritation. The weather isn’t helping.
If he’s pissed about something, he should just say so. You’d happily lend a hand to a friend who needs to beat out their frustrations on something that safely hits back. It’s the evasiveness, and the pretending, that tosses a match into the embers of your temper. And maybe the hurt, because you came out here to have fun, not to be the passive-aggressive outlet for whatever’s needling him.
“Fine,” you snap, and step back. Without further warning, you stab your lance at his feet.
To his credit, he reacts quickly enough. With a yelp, he stumbles back. Before you can sweep your lance up, his sword is there, redirecting the blow.
The fight dissolves into a clash of steel against steel. You lose yourself to the burn of exertion, your hair flying as you jab, parry, and even try the spin Hulkenberg has been teaching you the past few weeks.
He meets you where you’re at, every time. And it should be a delight, as it always has been, but it’s not. His frustration feeds into yours feeds into your blows, until you're the eye of a hurricane of anger.
“Better plant your feet, if you don’t want to keep missing, Strohl!”
“You almost slipped off your lance just now. Pot, kettle?”
“It’s called—tactics! Or did you miss how I dodged your strike too?”
“If that’s tactics—I’m a goborn’s mother!”
“Well, with horns like yours—”
He cuts you off with a blow to your knees. You crumple, swearing. Exhaustion weighs clearly on his heaving shoulders, and the way he leans on his sword like a walking stick. And still, still he straightens, raising the blade.
“Again.”
“What is wrong with you?” you explode. “We’ve been sparring for hours! Rage against whatever madness is plaguing you all you want, but some of us would like to bathe and rest before nightfall!”
“We’re not stopping,” he says between pants. “Not until I’m sure you can defend yourself the next time we leave for a hunt.”
Oh, now you’re really mad.
“Are you our combat expert now? Since when? Have you told Hulkenberg yet?”
“Since you got a sword shoved through your ribs at the Forsaken Tower!”
“It was below my ribs, and lil ol’ Cap healed it quickly enough, didn’t he?”
“You shouldn’t have gotten hit in the first place!”
“I’m fine!” You gesture at yourself, furious and baffled in turn. “It turned out alright in the end, so it’s fine, okay?”
“Don’t dismiss it,” Strohl snapped. “You can’t be careless about this!”
“I haven’t gotten injured more than Hulkenberg, or Heismay, or even you,” you retort. “I don’t see you cornering them and calling them careless!”
“They don’t give me a heart attack because they left their left side open.”
“Oh, that makes me feel so special.” Sarcasm turns each word sharper than a knife. “Woe is me, single-handedly ruining an entire mission because I gave you a little heart attack—”
Strohl slams his practice sword down, cutting you off.
“Do you even know how terrified I was when I saw you fall?” he demands. “Do you really think me so cold-hearted to not flinch when I see someone I care about get hurt?”
“No! Just that you—” You pause, the rest of his sentence catching up to you. You frown at him, confused.
He stares back. Then abruptly snaps his mouth shut. Somehow, his angry flush gets even worse, until his whole face rivaled the scarlet of Hulkenberg’s hair.
“We all get hurt, at one point or another,” you say slowly, thinking hard. “I think the only one who hasn’t been almost gutted is Heismay. But when it was me…”
Strohl rubs the back of his neck, looking away.
“Like I said, I care about the safety of this team,” he says. You’ve never seen him stand so stiffly, worse than a stone post blasted by a storm. “We can’t afford careless mistakes.”
“But you lost it when it was me,” you repeat, stepping closer, until you’re toe to toe with him. Tilting your head back, you try to catch his gaze, but he stubbornly keeps looking somewhere over your shoulder.
You cock your eyebrow and wait.
Finally, he looks down. This close, you can see the shifting shades of brown in his eyes as they flicker across your face, his lips thinning. The way his blush collects on the highest points of his cheeks and spreads outwards is unfairly charming. At this rate, you won’t hear anything he says through your heartbeat thundering in your ears.
He clears his throat.
“You are standing too close,” he says.
But he doesn’t step back.
“And you’re stating the obvious.”
You refuse to give in. Either he says what he needs to say, or he walks away, and you get to call him an idiot to his back.
He scowls.
“Don’t tease. Mock me if you want, but teasing like this is uncalled for.”
You sigh.
“Strohl,” you say, too light for the electric charge filling the air between you. “Do you know why I tend to leave my left side open?”
“Always—”
“Tend.”
He rubs his forehead, which meant he was actually considering the question, only to jump as his elbow brushes your shoulder. Had he forgotten how close you were standing?
You fight down a giggle. It would have come out too fond.
“What reason could you…” He trailed off.
You take pity on him.
“You’re always on my left.”
“Don’t think I haven’t blamed myself enough for that,” he snaps. “I should’ve been there, but I wasn’t, and I can’t always be—”
The rush of affection is so sudden and powerful it overwhelms you. He’d been thinking of that? That’s what’s been boiling in his head these past few hours? Not anger towards you, or even anything else, but himself… just because you were hurt?
“—so the next best thing is to make sure that habit is—”
Your lips slot over his, swallowing whatever he wanted to say next. It’s a trial, to reach that high; you’d grabbed his shoulders to support you and bring him down as well. His lips keep moving, for half a second, as he tries to speak, sputters, finally processes what’s happening, and freezes.
This time, your giggle escapes. You pull back, just far enough to hold his face in your hands and look him in the eye.
“And we’ll work on that,” you say, as if your conversation had never been interrupted. It’s delightful, how his mouth stays open, stunned, his gaze frozen on your face. “But what I’m trying to say, you stubborn, noble, compassionate idiot, is that I trust you. And I care about you too.”
“...Oh.”
“Yes, oh.” Then you beam at him, because there’s no stopping the shy, ticklish joy tugging at your cheeks and your hammering heart. “Is that all you have to say for yourself?”
He sighs, then sags at last.
“I’m sorry,” he says, surprising you. “I hadn’t meant… I was so afraid, when you fell. You were paler than I’d ever seen, your blood was everywhere, and you wouldn’t open your eyes until our captain called upon the Cleric…”
Your smile drops. Suddenly, you remember his quiet stories of a village lost, how desperate he had been to find a way to help the survivors that made it to Grand Trad.
With a pained heart, you pull him into an embrace, your hands pressing against his shoulder blades.
He returns the embrace without hesitation, as if he’d been waiting for permission all this time. He tucks you under his chin, holding you so close your back bends just to fit against him, but his touch stays gentle, almost faint, like you’re made of glass and he’s terrified of shattering you.
“I’m alright,” you whisper. “Strohl, I’m alright.”
“I know.”
He doesn’t let go, though. Both of you stand there for a long time, the ocean breeze drying the rest of the sweat lingering on your skin. You shift in increments, Strohl resting his cheek on your head, small tugs telling you he’s begun playing with the ends of your hair. Your own cheek is pressed against his collarbone, every breath filling with the scent of him, your nose brushing the line of his neck.
“So,” you say at last. “How do you plan on making this up to me?”
Your voice is embarrassingly hoarse.
“What?”
His voice is also satisfyingly hoarse.
“This. Hours of beating the shit out of me, when it turns out you were just trying to cope with your hidden crush on me.”
He stiffens again, jerking back, but you tighten your grip. That stops him. He stays quiet, but the air shifts.
“I acted poorly,” he admits, sounding more thoughtful than apologetic.
“Very,” you agree, searching for the kind of words you assume noble circles would use. “Boorish. Quite ungentlemanly.”
Now you can hear the smile in his voice.
“And I do think I owe you for earlier.”
“You do! Oh, how my muscles ache from your merciless rampage…”
Was that too much? He laughs though, so you count it as a victory.
“That’s not what I meant. I owe you something else.”
You cast your mind for his meaning, only for it to blank as he cups your cheek and tilts your head up.
This kiss is much better than the last, with him guiding the soft movement of your lips and his hand hot on your hip. You lose yourself in the skipping excitement of your heart. The joy crests like a wave, carrying you with it.
When you withdraw, it isn’t far. He rests his forehead against yours, eyes closed.
You take a moment to admire the way his lashes rest on his cheeks, then say, “That still doesn’t make up for how you bullied me.”
It startles a laugh out of him. You bask in the puff of his breath against your lips. You’d kiss him again, but that would be too easy, ruining the game you’ve yet to tire of playing.
“Alright,” he says. “How would you like me to make it up to you? For… bullying, as you said it.”
You pat him on the shoulder.
“First, you fill the bath,” you say cheerily. “Then, I want you to stand guard at the door while I soak. For an hour. Maybe more! And if anyone asks, you get to explain.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Why I’m standing in front of the door?”
“What you put me through. And why.”
You grin at his pale face.
“You want me to explain to the others that—” He cut himself off, flustered at just the thought.
“That you adore me,” you agree. “And you bullied me so unfairly.”
He shoves his hand through his hair, sighing. “You’re not going to let that go for a while, aren’t you.”
You plant another quick kiss on his lips, then whirl away, giggling. “Hop to it, soldier!”
He catches you one last time, taking your hand and twining your fingers together. You can’t begrudge him that, especially when he kisses your joined hands, his eyes soft on your face.