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Felix looked a little pissed to find Sylvain lying limp on the ground. At this point the crease between his eyebrows was permanent. A certain redheaded duo would like to take credit for that, reckless in their own special ways.
“Get up,” Felix demanded, hoisting Sylvain up from his underarms like a pet. “Are you alright? Stop messing around.”
Sylvain’s armor jingled pitifully as he was jostled. He wasn’t really sure how he’d ended up down here, but the nauseating fuzz of an unfriendly spell was unmistakable in his veins.
The red sky spun above. It was always funny, to some extent, messing up and getting shaken back to life like a rag doll. Sylvain liked to make it funny, at the very least. He had the perfect joke to reply with, smile loaded and pulled taut like a bow. One that’ll really get Felix’s teeth gnashing.
Instead, this is what came out of his mouth:
“I feel like I’m going to pass out. Also, I can’t feel my right leg.”
Felix frowned. Then, Sylvain frowned. Misfire? He hadn’t meant to say that.
Before he could try and fix it, Felix asked, “Can you walk? The nearest healer is up the ledge.”
Pfft. Of course I can walk!
“No, I can’t walk,” Sylvain responded.
Felix swore, his head darting in every which way in search of options. Sylvain, against his own intent, slurred, “Felix, I think there’s something wrong with me.”
“I know there’s something wrong with you.”
Yeah, he’s right. He’s always right. As the world faded behind his eyelids, Sylvain’s head lolled back.
—
He woke up in the infirmary, with familiar threadbare sheets tucked around him. Sylvain turned his head, and found that the cot next to him was occupied with a most welcome neighbor.
“Good morning,” Sylvain croaked.
Dedue wasn’t startled. He turned slowly onto his elbow, and lifted his chin to stare up at the glowing skylight. When his eyes met Sylvain’s, he smiled. “Good evening.”
Not an unfamiliar setup. Professor said they were a pair to be reckoned with in combat.
But that was decided years ago, within the steadfast walls of a classroom. They looked real good on paper. In practice, however, Dedue’s determination to protect others clashed with Sylvain’s self-sacrificial guilt. The last thing their foes would see, before bleeding out, was the strange sight of two men dueling over who would get to die first.
And, sometimes, they came pretty close. They danced around death like they danced around each other. They’d wake up at each others’ bedsides in the infirmary, speak nothing of it, and go out and do it all over again.
“Are you in pain?” Dedue asked.
He perched his cheek on his hand. Perfect as a painting. Those awful sheets looked like draped silk against his chest. He glowed brighter than the evening sun.
Oh. He’d asked Sylvain a question. Sylvain cleared his throat, and focused on denying the searing pain in his leg.
“Yes,” he said confidently. “There’s a searing pain in my leg.”
Dedue’s brow furrowed in concern, and Sylvain thought about sewing his own mouth shut.
“I should’ve been there, at your side,” Dedue muttered, his tone low. “I let my guard down and allowed myself to get surrounded.”
Sylvain shuffled closer, nearly falling out of his bedding. “Hey, it’s not your fault,” he said. “It’s never your fault. My mistakes are mine alone.”
Dedue continued to stare at him, appraising. When he opened his mouth to respond, however, the grand doors of the infirmary creaked open. The two men jolted, the thread of the moment snapping. Manuela strode in with the grandeur of a queen.
“Why, look who’s awake!” She announced, before wheeling onto Sylvain. “Sylvain, dear, how’s the leg?”
Okay. Let’s try this again. Lie on command!
“It stings like a bitch,” Sylvain replied. An absolute failure!
Sylvain groaned, rubbing harshly at his face. “Actually, Manuela, I think there’s something else wrong with me,” he admitted.
At that, she raised a manicured brow. “And that would be?”
“I…I, uh, I don’t think I can lie.” Sylvain muttered into the back of his hand.
“Again, dear,” she said, weary.
“I can’t lie,” Sylvain blurted. “Or, I keep saying things in a way I don’t mean to.”
It sounded ridiculous. Fortunately, Manuela didn’t seem too shaken. Or, maybe she just didn’t believe him. That’s fair.
She questioned him. When did you first notice this? Did you come in contact with any magic recently? What have you eaten in the last two days? Who else knows about this change? Why weren’t you more careful? Why aren’t you better than this?
Okay, he may have made up the last few. All in all, Manuela deduced that he had been hit by an enemy truth spell.
Sylvain was exhausted. He massaged around his bandages. “Why would anyone cast a truth spell in battle?”
“It’s a common tactic. Cast the spell, give them a little bludgeoning, and in just minutes you have the perfect hostage for interrogation!” Manuela replied.
“Very efficient,” Dedue hummed. Manuela shrugged noncommittally.
Sylvain was inconsolable. “So, if someone asks me anything, anything, I have to answer truthfully?”
He continued in a fit of panicked laughter. “Hah, but what if I don’t even know the truth? Oh, sweet Goddess. My career is ruined.”
“Aren’t you always touting your ’undying truthfulness’ to some maiden or another?” Manuela recited boredly.
“I do say that a lot, but I’m actually a compulsive liar,” Sylvain said proudly, before shoving his knuckles into his mouth.
“You could say that again,” Manuela chimed. “I’d say the spell will run its course in a week. We’ll check daily with some simple questions.”
Sylvain, panicked beyond belief, reached out to poke Dedue. “Guess I’m taking a page out of your book, buddy. Honest Dedue, am I right?”
Dedue responded, “No. I lie frequently.”
Sylvain blinked. Dedue blinked. Manuela blinked.
Dedue cleared his throat. “I am starting to think that I have been affected by the spell as well, Manuela.”
—
That night, the two found themselves the recipients of bad news in the professor’s quarters.
“You can’t do this! You need us on the frontlines,” Sylvain hissed. “Without us, you’re leading our soldiers to slaughter.”
“Come now,” Byleth said flatly. “You trust me, don’t you?”
“No,” replied Sylvain and Dedue, both.
Byleth smiled, a sight rarer than pearls.
“I believe my point has been made. You both will remain here until the curse lifts.”
Sylvain and Dedue are promptly subject to a lifetime of deskwork, menial chores, and generally fucking around doing what felt like nothing in the maelstrom of war.
Dimitri aired his grievances. Two of his favorite pawns down in his parade for the dead. At least Sylvain finally had confirmation that Dimitri knew he still existed.
Rules were outlined for the sake of the army as a whole. It’s not like Dedue had any nasty secrets to spill, right? But Sylvain did; the amount of vitriol he’d kept stuffed in his heart should have killed him a long time ago. Nobody was to ask either of them any questions while the truth spell was still in effect.
For the most part, no damage was done in that first full day. The most egregious happenstance was when Ashe had asked, conversationally, if he had gotten better at gardening, to which Dedue had responded that the tomatoes have never looked worse since they’d been under his care.
It was a short ordeal, but never once had Sylvain seen a smile that sad. And he owned a mirror!
Following the incident, Sylvain sat on the dock under the setting sun, consoling an extremely upset Dedue.
“Well, to be fair, he was killing the damn thing. We need those tomatoes,” Sylvain offered.
Dedue sighed, glumly staring out at the shimmering lake. “A tomato crop isn’t worth the impact on his self-esteem.”
“So you’d be okay with yet another dairy-based dinner without a vegetable in sight?”
“No. I would find that awful,” Dedue huffed. “Sylvain…we aren’t supposed to be asking each other questions. ”
Sylvain prodded his shoulder. “C’mon. I know you want to.”
Dedue smiled, and tilted his chin fondly. The evening sun glinted in his green eyes. “You know, defying an order from the Professor is an act of treason.”
“It’s not an order, it’s an arbitrary rule that everyone has since broken at least once,” Sylvain replied. “What’s your favorite color?”
“Purple. Oh, gods—“ Dedue muttered, leaning his head into his hands. “Sylvain, you—treason. This is treason. You’re committing treason.”
“I am not!” Sylvain whined.
In lieu of tormenting him further, Sylvain laid back on the dock, sighing with momentum. With Dedue, he never had to worry about keeping up a conversation. It’s because of him that he no longer grew anxious in shared silences, for silence was a scarcely afforded peace.
A heavy cloud rolled along the horizon ahead.
—
On the third day, a messenger rode in with word of Imperial forces stationed at Fort Merceus. All hands on deck. Sylvain and Dedue watched the troops ride into the horizon.
Sylvain knew that Byleth needed all infantry on-deck for their mission, but it wasn’t until now that he’d realized that, at this point in the war, everyone was infantry. Their hunters became snipers. The scribes learned tomes.
And, with the chefs on the frontlines, Sylvain learned how to clean salmon from the river. Dedue taught him, of course. Because Dedue, somehow, was already a jack-of-all-trades.
A knife in hand, Sylvain stared at the fish head. It stared back.
“Please stop emotionally connecting with the fish head,” Dedue said.
“Sorry,” Sylvain replied quickly.
And so on.
The following day, the two sat in straight-backed chairs and drafted responses to each and every scroll delivered to the monastery. Notices of grain shortages, requests for aid. We have no grain. We have no aid. With nothing to offer, Sylvain saved a lot of ink.
Was it wrong to find such correspondence as boring as it was? Probably, but guilt won’t win them the war. Sylvain remained disconnected, but he couldn’t ignore how the furrow in Dedue’s brow deepened with the hour. Not to mention that their troops still hadn’t returned.
A crack of thunder shocked Sylvain from his reverie. Dedue turned his attention to the window, watching the rain skirt the glass.
“This storm will set them behind a few days, at the very least,” he murmured.
Sylvain added, “Impossible flying conditions.”
He quickly got to his feet, and began gathering the sealed scrolls off of the desk. Dedue stared as he shuffled them into the empty messenger bag on the floor.
“What are you doing?” He asked.
“These approval documents are urgent, and there’s no way to deliver them on time by pegasi,” Sylvain replied.
He slung the bag over his shoulder. “I will submit them to the messenger’s guild on foot.”
Dedue winced. “There must be another option.”
“There isn’t. I don’t mind. It’s just a little rain.”
A weary sigh. “I will accompany you,” Dedue negotiated. “At least let me do this.”
Sylvain smiled. He shouldered on his coat. “We’ll be back before the gatekeeper can say his farewells!”
—
“We very well may die, here,” Sylvain whispered through chattering teeth.
Dedue was shivering. “This is a pitiful way to die.”
The two had made the trek to the messenger’s guild, only to find it completely surrounded by a moat of rainwater. The guild workers witnessed two grown men frantically wade through waist-deep water, submit a pile of scrolls to reception, and wade right back out again into the storm.
Sylvain and Dedue now huddled on the floor of the deserted monastery library. They took turns coaxing the spent logs in the fireplace and wringing out their soaked clothing.
“I can scavenge for blankets from the dormitories,” Sylvain offered hoarsely.
Dedue shook his head. “You will freeze before you find one.”
He was right, as usual. Sylvain usually hated when people were right, but he didn’t mind when it was Dedue. Not one of his truths have hurt, so far.
Could they hurt?
No better time than the present to find out. They were alone, and the fire was alluring. They were bare in every sense of the word, and they weren’t supposed to be asking each other questions, but lines can and would be crossed if Sylvain wanted what lay on the other side.
“Dedue…” Sylvain murmured. “Why did you come back?”
The air weighed on their shoulders, like the silent fall of a velvet curtain. Dedue looked up at the skylight, and Sylvain followed his gaze. The moon gleamed, stark and full.
Sylvain exhaled. It looked just the same on the night of Dedue’s return, at their battle on the Bridge of Myrddin.
A full month had passed since.
A full month had passed, yes, but in moments like these, Sylvain selfishly felt as if no time had passed at all. Not the last half decade of anguish, not the stilted years where war was pen on parchment, not even the sorry lifetime he lived before all of it, any of it. Before Dedue, Sylvain might have never lived at all. Or, he wished he hadn’t.
At last, Dedue took a deep breath, and spoke.
“His Highness gave me a second breath, and that is a debt I can’t even begin to pay with this lifetime. I live for him, and I will die for him. Without him, my being has no reason.”
Dedue swallowed, “So I returned.”
Naturally, Sylvain tried to lighten things up. “Aw, so it wasn’t because you missed little ol’ Sylvain?”
It was a question. It wasn’t supposed to mean anything, nothing he ever says is ever supposed to mean anything. But when Dedue’s expression changed, Sylvain knew that he’d gone too far.
“You were one of my reasons,” Dedue replied.
Sylvain froze. His breath crystallized in his throat.
Dedue continued. “I thought of you often, Sylvain.”
—
The fireside chats became a nightly affair. Maybe it was just a desperate way for Dedue to remain sane as their entire army remained missing in action.
Sylvain, however, couldn’t be more pleased. After all, he pondered, if they’re really all dead, and I’m stuck being alive, then I’m glad it’s you who’s also stuck and alive with me.
Perhaps that’s why Sylvain broke the rule.
“Will you kiss me?” He asked.
Dedue blinked. He swallowed. “If you want me to.”
“Kiss me,” Sylvain repeated. “I’m not asking.”
He will always remember the day Dedue returned. Valiant and beautiful in the salty seaside winds. A silver lining against the barrage of Imperial forces. In the half decade of monotonous, meaningless deaths by his own hands, Sylvain remembers nothing more clearly than the arrival of Dedue, apologetic, exhausted, but alive.
As alive as could be, as alive as he was now, with his lips on Sylvain’s own. The crackling fire couldn’t dream of being as warm.
Sylvain spoke against Dedue’s neck. “Do you like this?”
Dedue sighed, “Yes.”
“Do you like—“
Dedue pulled away, and Sylvain was cold once again.
“We…we shouldn’t have,” Dedue muttered. His eyes were steely. “Not in this state.”
“Oh…you’re right. Yeah. I’m sorry, I just…sorry,” Sylvain said softly. “This was a bad idea, I overstepped. I’m sorry.”
Dedue’s expression was unreadable. “You don’t need to apologize. You did nothing wrong.”
—
They did not speak for two days, after that. This was hard not to notice considering they were the only two people within miles. A very frazzled Sylvain cornered Dedue in the greenhouse.
“Dedue, are you avoiding me?” Sylvain blurted.
Fuck. Okay. Dedue was frowning, he looked like he was going to be sick.
“Yes,” he whispered through his hand. As if he could stop his words in their tracks. “I beg you not to ask me why.”
Dedue left, and the glass door creaked closed behind him. Sylvain sat on the edge of the planter, his head heavy in his hands.
Yeah, that’s right, Sylvain thought to himself. He doesn’t want to be honest with someone like me. Or, he doesn’t want to be around someone like me when I’m honest.
He clutched at his scalp. Maybe it’s both.
Fuck, it’s both.
What if the spell never wore off? If he was chained to a lifetime of unyielding honesty? It is at this moment that Sylvain truly understood how awful he was. As an honest man, he would be forced to watch as the lengths his friends went to avoid him stretched longer as the days went by, until they were out of sight.
—
The next morning, a battered, yet proud horseman cantered into the monastery courtyard.
“I laud your efforts to receive me properly,” he said. “Your troops…I believe they were attempting to circumvent Imperial territory by skirting by Airmid—“
“Cut to the point, Lorenz,” Sylvain hissed.
“Your troops are stranded at the north border of Gronder. You might even see them from the cathedral tower, if you squint. Nonetheless, enemy troops are approaching from Varley; my men are holding them off, but stragglers are imminent. Your king and his army will not survive this day without intervention.”
“What do you need?” Dedue gritted through his teeth.
He huffed a bitter laugh. “Men,” he spat.
Dedue was not a man for jokes, and Sylvain was not a man for Lorenz Gloucester. They both waited in silence for him to give a real answer.
And they got one. “Any and all staves. Freshwater. Vulneraries, if you have any. Horses, anything,” he listed. “You two, perhaps. Goddess knows why our dear professor left you behind.”
Dedue was already off. “Sylvain, stables. I will gather from the infirmary. General Gloucester, we will convene at the southern gate.”
The two set course for Gronder on horseback with haste. The timing was perfect: a rescue mission was without question, and Sylvain just really felt like dying today.
—
Sylvain and Dedue arrived just as a wave of Imperial troops were beginning another onslaught. With great effort, and the aid of Lorenz’s men, they managed to drive the conflict to the center of Gronder, where Byleth’s troops could support.
That is when the bloodbath began. Sylvain’s mind could not keep up with his body, each decision made being one of primal desperation. He did not count the bodies that fell by his hand. He did not want to.
Like clockwork, Dedue appeared astride his horse, shielding Sylvain and his steed from assailants. Infallible.
Well, almost.
As Dedue kept three men at bay, Sylvain caught a shadow dart out of the corner of his eye, and into the brush. When he turned to look, he saw a dark mage poised to cast, her gaze trained on Dedue.
Sylvain thought of one thing, and one thing only, when he dove from his horse and into the line of fire. The pain was stark, jutting icicles through his veins. He felt himself fall, only to be stopped just before hitting the bloodied ground.
“What were you thinking?!” Came a voice.
Sylvain blinked his eyes open, and found himself staring up into Dedue’s stricken face.
There’s an easy answer. Usually an oops. Sometimes a my bad. But as Sylvain’s vision blurred, he succumbed to the spell one last time.
“I love you,” Sylvain admitted.
He patted Dedue’s gauntlet, which clutched his shoulder. “‘S’what I’m thinking. Every time, Dedue.”
Sylvain blacked out.
—
A week later, Dedue visited Sylvain in the infirmary. Someone must’ve let it slip that he’d woken up. They sat side-by-side on his bed.
“What is your name?” Sylvain asked.
Dedue responded, “Sylvain Jose Gautier.”
Sylvain continued rapidly. “How many eyes does His Majesty have?”
“Five.”
“What do you think of Faerghus cuisine?”
“It is not bland or unbearably mealy in the slightest.”
Sylvain threw his hands in the air. “Dedue, I think you’re cured! But I have one more question.”
Dedue rubbed the back of his neck. “You have already asked me so many questions.”
Sylvain asked, “Why were you avoiding me?”
Dedue was quiet for a moment, pondering his words.
“After that night by the fire, I realized…there were some questions I was afraid you would ask. Ones I did not want to answer.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Now, I recall you said ‘one more question,” Dedue smirked. “I think it’s about time we see if you’re cured, Sylvain.”
“You tease,” Sylvain hissed. “Fine. Ask away.”
“Do you remember what you said to me at Gronder? Before you lost consciousness.”
Sylvain cringed. His palms began to grow clammy.
“Decline to answer?” He replied quietly.
Dedue smiled, amused. “It seems you’re cured as well, Sylvain.” He leaned back against the glass, folding his arms with graceful ease. “Well?”
“What questions were you afraid of me asking you?” Sylvain demanded. “Answer mine first. Then I’ll answer you.”
“Questions about you, Sylvain. What I think of you. How I think of you.”
Despite how hard he tried to beat it down, hope rose in Sylvain’s chest.
“Alright. I’ll bite,” Sylvain laughed quietly. He took a deep breath.
“I do remember what I said. As if I could forget. And…I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to ask me if I meant it. I know that I don’t know the first thing about being honest. I know that even a damned…truth spell isn’t enough to clear my name.” Sylvain took another, shakier breath before continuing. “But…I meant it. I mean it now. I just…I don’t know how to face you, right here, in this moment, and say it once more.”
The morning sun was harsh in Sylvain’s eyes. He was tempted to turn away, but then he felt a warm weight over his knuckles.
Dedue, his hand covering his, responded, “I’ve come to realize that we’ve been saying it all this time.”
He turned Sylvain’s hand over in his palm, the brush of his thumb idle yet beyond intentional. His smile was divine. “After all…you know I’m not one for words. Do you agree?”
Conversely, Sylvain’s smile was absolutely ludicrous. “I agree. I agree so much, actually,” he blurted.
He brought Dedue’s hand up to his own face, reverent. As he kissed each scar, upon each knuckle, he swore to brand them in his memory.