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2020-06-05
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some other storm

Summary:

His gaze follows Jeritza, as inexorable as thunder after lightning.

Byleth and Jeritza take tea together during a storm.

(War phase, Crimson Flower route.)

Notes:

This was written for the charity zine "Rest Day", thanks to both MxTicketyBoo for beta and Purple_Bookcover for the editing, as well as the zine folks for including my fic as part of their project!

Title from my favorite lyric from my favorite song by my favorite band: Good Morning, Magpie by Murder By Death.

Just follow some other storm, 'cause I'll only weigh you down, you carry me home.

Rated T only because Jeritza is into murder, LOL.

Work Text:

They’re in the middle of the war council when the storm hits. 

Byleth has been watching as the sky grows progressively darker, ominous clouds a roil of mottled gray and sickly green coming in slow from the west. The distant thunder rumbles  louder, rattling the windows in the war council room. Caspar’s face goes a bit pale -- how he can throw himself at an enemy battalion with bare fists and yet quail at a storm, Byleth will never understand. One more mystery about other people, how the things they’re afraid of never seem to be the things that want to kill them. 

Which brings Byleth’s glance to Jeritza, sitting near the back of the room. His ice-water gaze flickers between Hubert and Edelgard, to Byleth, to the windows and the storm beyond. When the rain lashes the glass and the lightning cracks the sky like magefire, Byleth sees him smile. 

It’s clear the Black Eagle Strike Force’s attention is no longer on battle plans and sorties, and when Linhardt puts a soothing hand on Caspar’s shoulder and says, with his usual gentle tactlessness, “Caspar, what do you think is going to happen, it’s just weather ,” Edelgard sighs and exchanges a look with Hubert. 

“Since we’re all children who need to hide under our beds in a storm, I suppose we’ll adjourn,” he says, but there’s no rancor in it. In five years they’ve come to understand all the jagged edges of each other, smoothed like rocks in a stream. 

Byleth stands and stretches, gaze drawn again to Jeritza. He is mostly silent in these meetings, disinterested in the minutiae of supplying an army or the practical considerations of making camp on a march. Byleth doubts anyone would mind if he wasn’t there; they might not even notice. 

Byleth would notice. His gaze follows Jeritza, as inexorable as thunder after lightning. Byleth heads toward him, noting with pleasure that Jeritza appears to be waiting. Usually Byleth’s waylaid by questions or concerns after these meetings; but today it seems everyone is eager to be elsewhere to wait out the storm. 

“Would you like to have tea with me?” he asks, tilting his head up, a careful hand resting on Jeritza’s arm. 

Jeritza’s gaze is smooth like the rain-smeared glass windows as he stares, unblinking, at Byleth. After a moment, he nods. “All right. But not the gardens.” That’s where they usually take tea, when the weather’s nice. 

“My room,” says Byleth, and there’s a flicker of something deep in Jeritza’s gaze, something hungry and human amidst the stillness there. 

***

The storm breaks around them, the covered stone walkways doing little to keep them from being soaked from the rain even on the short walk to Byleth’s personal quarters. It’s the same rooms he had years ago, before his long sleep in the dark. 

There is an absurdity in seeing the Death Knight standing shivering in the middle of his room, wheat-blond hair sodden and dripping on the floor. He strips out of his coat and Byleth does the same, hanging both over the back of a chair to dry. 

“Here,” Byleth says, handing him a linen towel and a comb. “For your hair.” He smiles a little. “You look a bit like a wet cat.”  

Jeritza does not respond to that. He tugs the black ribbon from his ponytail and drapes it on Byleth’s desk, then pulls the comb through his hair and dries it with the towel. It’s such a simple thing, but Byleth is fascinated. He’s never seen Jeritza with his hair unbound. 

Messy from battle, smeared with blood, tangled from Byleth’s fingers -- yes. But not like this, loose soft waves around his pretty face. 

“You’re staring,” says Jeritza, handing both items back. 

“I like your hair,” says Byleth, and feels his face heat. He is not good at the subtleties of courting. “I haven’t seen it down like that, before.” He turns to quickly return the towel and the comb to the shelf, then goes to find the tea service. 

They’ve had tea here before, when the gardens are crowded and Jeritza finds the dining hall too busy for his comfort. He sits at the little table, eyes tracking Byleth’s every movement as he sets the tea service up and begins to brew Jeritza’s favorite. 

Jeritza’s taken off his gloves, too. His bare fingers curl around the teacup. Outside, the storm rages on, thunder rattling the shutters on Byleth’s window, wind howling and making the door to his room shake. 

“Should I light another candle?” Byleth asks. 

“I can see you well enough,” says Jeritza, and then, because he’s just as bad at this as Byleth is, “Your face is already a memory etched behind my eyes. I could not forget it if I tried. Do you have sweets for the tea, then?” 

He is a strange man. Byleth feels malevolence bleed off him sometimes, when he’s still and quiet, like the thing inside of him is seeping through all the cracks of his facade. Byleth has come to understand the subtle shifts in Jeritza’s expressions, the cadence of his dreamy voice. Today there is no dark thing lurking inside those stormcloud eyes. He is just Jeritza, just a man and nothing else besides. 

While the tea steeps, Byleth reaches out and curls his hand around Jeritza’s. Jeritza’s skin is cold from the rain, but it warms quickly enough. 

Jeritza blinks at him. His fingers tentatively tighten around Byleth’s. Byleth smiles, encouraged. Such a simple thing, really, holding hands with one’s sweetheart over tea. But Byleth’s sweetheart sometimes whispers heatedly in the dark about killing him, and Byleth has a feeling courtship doesn’t usually involve so much talk about murder.  

“I saw you smile when it started storming,” Byleth says, staring at their clasped hands. “Is it because you knew it would get us out of the council?” 

“I always want to get out of the council,” Jeritza says. “Talk of war strategy bores me. I already know how to kill.” He rubs his thumb over Byleth’s knuckles. “I care not where we sleep or eat before we reach the battlefield. I know not why the princess insists I attend.” 

“The emperor,” Byleth corrects, gently. “She’s the emperor, now. And you’re an imperial general, that’s why she wants you there.” He is more than his demon. Byleth wants him to understand that.  

Jeritza brings their joined hands up, gently brushing his mouth against Byleth’s skin. Byleth shivers, warming under the light caress. This is new. “I suppose so. Let them give me whatever title they want, it matters not to me.” 

Byleth reaches up and draws his fingers over the sharp curve of Jeritza’s jaw. He has to lean forward a bit on the chair to do it. He wants to kiss him, but he’s still shy about that, and the table is in the way, the tea and the sweets he promised to share waiting. “Did you smile, then, because you just like it when it storms?” 

“Mmm.” Jeritza turns his face, presses his mouth to Byleth’s hand, bare fingers drawing down Byleth’s wrist and making him shiver. “I have always liked storms, yes.” 

Of course he does. What is a storm but a slow, gradual build of sudden violence that sweeps across the land, leaving clear skies and the memory of the destruction it wrought etched in upturned roots and downed trees, flooded rivers, damaged homes? Jeritza’s demon is just a storm that gathers inside him, waiting for the moment it’s allowed to break. It is easy to forget when his eyes are clear, unclouded.  

“The tea, beloved,” Jeritza breathes, voice even drowsier than usual. “It grows cold.” 

Byleth nods and returns to his seat, and pours the tea. He is even less sure of physical desire than he is of courting. The idea of it always seemed vaguely preposterous, like a thing that happened to other people. The closest he’s ever come to understanding what it might be like is in battle; the way the world narrows to another person, the adrenaline as you draw nearer, the exultation and terror of matching blades, seeking the vulnerable places in which to bury your sword. 

Kissing Jeritza that first time, it wasn’t that much different. Byleth doesn’t know if it is the same for other people, if he would have felt this way if he’d been kissing someone else. He’s never wanted to kiss anyone before. 

The storm reaches its zenith as they sit, quiet, sipping Jeritza’s favorite honeyed-almond tea and eating the sweets given to Byleth by Mercedes. Emile likes these, she’d said, handing over the basket covered in an embroidered linen cloth. Perhaps you could share them with him. Mercedes, who found Byleth by the pond fishing on an afternoon vastly different to this one; bright blue sky and puffy clouds and softly chirping birds, the splash of fish in the calm waters. 

Thank you, she’d said, taking Byleth’s hand in hers. Her eyes were summer blue and earnest. Thank you for seeing something in him besides the Death Knight. 

They don’t speak as they drink their tea, and that’s fine. With everyone else, Byleth has to carefully construct conversations like battle plans. With Jeritza, he can sit in silence and drink his tea, listening to the storm as it rages, waiting for it to fade. 

***

Later, they lie in Byleth’s bed together. Byleth likes to put his head on Jeritza’s chest and hear the steady thump of his heart. He wonders what she would say, the goddess who sank into his soul and disappeared. When he thinks of her, his eyes stray to the corner of his room where she once was. But there is nothing there now but shadows. 

The rain outside is gentle, lazy, an afterthought. Jeritza runs his fingers through Byleth’s hair. His touches are always so careful, precise, like he is concerned that to do the wrong thing will spook Byleth into running off like a startled cat. 

“I dreamed of you, the other night,” Jeritza says. 

“Oh?” Byleth traces the shape of the Crest of Flames on Jeritza’s chest, over his heart. Jeritza’s body is warm and solid, just a man pressed up against Byleth in this narrow bed. He smiles a bit, rubbing his face against the scratchy linen of Jeritza’s tunic. “How did you kill me this time?” 

“I did not,” Jeritza says. “We stood in a killing field and kissed among the flames of war.” 

“We won, then?” Byleth asks, glancing up at him. 

Jeritza’s hair is still down, and half of it is in his face. He looks lovely and sinister in the muted light of the last candle, burning down to nothing across the room. He cuts his eyes down at Byleth. “There is no winning in war, beloved. That is a lie we tell ourselves. There is living, and there is dying. We lived.” 

“Well,” Byleth says, huffing a laugh. “I guess that’s something.” 

Jeritza tips his face up, cool fingers on Byleth’s chin. “It is the only thing.” 

Perhaps he’s right. They’ll have to wait and see. Jeritza kisses him, and Byleth hears the distant rumble of thunder and wonders if he’s dreaming.