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Siegfried is all-too-accustomed to being an observer.
Of course, it is not usually a position that bothers him - it allows him to work on his own, the loner he has always been, allows him to move freely and learn, know more about people than they know themselves. And he’s never been all to apt at social situations, truly, would rather stay home from parties and formal events.
There are some times he wishes he didn’t strictly observe, however, watches Percival burn himself up in his own flames and anger, red hot and striking away those who whisper too close. He watches Lancelot crumble under his own weight and Vane fade in beside him, sees them fall and reconstruct and only supplies help from the shadows. It is Percival whom he finds himself coming back to, however, oh-too-bright and brash and everything Siegfried is not.
(his light nips dangerously close at siegfried’s shadows, makes him want to toe the line, makes him screw his eyes shut because percival is blinding. )
Siegfried bites back bile when Vane teases him, “you look distant, thinking about your love?” because he’s been thinking about Percival - it always comes back to him, lately, doesn’t it - and his hands ball into knuckles-white fists as he laughs off the comment. Percival is in a corner looking aloof and under his breath where he thinks no one can hear hums a tune, a folk tune, which Siegfried doesn’t know but is sure must hail from Wales.
Something in him wants to know that song, a bit more of the uninviting pyre. He hates that part of him.
Lancelot, always too nice for his own good, seeks him out, “you’ve seemed troubled?” and Siegfried doesn’t bother to force a laugh. There are bags under his eyes - there are always bags under his eyes, his lips are always pursed downwards. His voice is not light when he asks Lancelot to leave well enough alone.
Lancelot complies, the busy-boy, ever obedient. Siegfried almost feels bad, but what is he to tell him? He is never one for reliance on others.
(isn’t that funny, doesn’t it make him just like percival, burning himself up?)
Percival sets a hand on Siegfried’s shoulder, and it is not companionable, nor is it scorched. It is simply there, an unwelcome presence, and Siegfried steadies his breath, sets his shoulders back and hunches into his tattered cape, “do you need something?” and Percival frowns as he always frowns.
If he had the heart for it, he’d laugh, but he feels he’s not had much heart for laughter recently.
He tilts his head, then, eyes like fallen cinders, melting through the rock Siegfried defines himself with. A nervous habit in him wishes to bite his lip, to toy with his cape, to breathe away from suffocating-smoke-air. Percival makes a noise of disdain, “don’t be too distracted, something might topple our great knight,” and his voice is both reverent and sarcastic, it bites at Siegfried’s passivity. He goes to say something, anything, and then Percival is gone, extinguished.
His tongue has been stayed once again, but isn’t that for the better?
(lancelot sees him staring at percival at one-such fancy ball, watching percival’s formal cape billow behind him, his hair falling into his face.)
Lancelot confronts him again, “you’re hiding from him, avoiding him.” Siegfried really does laugh at that, because of course he is, but doesn’t he avoid everyone? It’s how he justifies it, at least; doesn’t Lancelot know that, for all the beauty fire has, if you stand too close you’re sure to get burnt?
Of course, Siegfried has already let himself fall face-first into the flame, but he doesn’t acknowledge that. If he pretends, perhaps he won’t be burnt.
Lancelot goes on to suggest that Siegfried simply talk to him, and at that Siegfried turns, exits the room in a storm of shadows. He laughs to himself. Something in his eyes stings, and he bites his upper lip, doesn’t stop moving until the sun is down and icy wind cuts between cracks in his armor.
(he thinks of a warm fire, and his mind remembers percival’s eyes, his cutting words - how ironic, isn’t it, that he’d seek out the most abrasive and wish to make him his.)
Percival falls asleep at his desk - he never did seem the type to overwork himself as such, always a Lancelot sort-of-brand of action. Siegfried sighs when he sees this, coming to collect some document-or-another, dims the light of Percival’s lamp and sits in the armchair beside his desk - odd that there was another chair at all. Percival certainly wasn’t one to entertain guests.
“I’ve fallen for you, you know,” Siegfried says, legs spread wide, elbows resting on his knees - he nestles his chin in his hands.
“Oh, well, I doubt you’d know.”
Percival’s breaths are tired and steady. There’s an ink smear on his cheek, and Siegfried thinks he sees the faintest freckles across Percival’s nose. He lets out a breath.
“Take care you don’t burn yourself up.”
(he is gone, then, rippling into the shadows, cape wavering in the light - percival cracks open an eye, then, wonders why siegfried did not truly check if he was asleep, perhaps a part of him wanted him to know, and yet even so, percival does not feel any sort of victory in this confession, in this newfound knowledge.
he feels only as if he has burnt another person up in his own flames.)