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It is with great pain and a general lack of dignity that Shez gives in to the thought that – yes – he is nowhere close to the Ashen Demon when it comes to one-on-one combat – or any kind of combat – or any kind of movement in general, probably – and instead of reaching for the steady hand that was hanging in front of his face expectedly, he scoffs and looks away, cheeks flushing red at the thought of having the Ashen Demon helping him up. He can help himself up and dust himself off on his own, thank you very much!
(Yes, his new training partner once dusted his back off, and he has yet to learn to trust him with his back again.)
“Couldn’t hurt to add another hour to my training regime, huh?” Shez asked in a raspy tone, checking his armor for any dirt that may or may not have gotten stuck in the old garbs, “What’s the winning streak now? 52 to 0?”
Byleth’s mouth stretches just a tiny bit – sure, the guy doesn’t display much emotion and all but once you’re on the battlefield watching each other’s back, you get to know a guy more than you really want to, so Shez could easily discern pity from confusion. And pity, this was not, thankfully. Goddess knows if the Demon ever pitied a thing. Even worse – him. He’d like that to stay that way.
“There is no winning streak when you work together.”
“Well, yeah, you’re probably right”, he pauses mid-sentence, frown stretching across his face, “Can’t say I can just… change my thinking up like that on a whim, though.”
Byleth gives him that head tilt that reminds him of a dog trying to understand human speech. That’s what the dogs around here do when he goes and coos at them – weirdest thing, coming to the camp from the battlefield after almost getting his ass kicked by the very man, and next thing you see is him feeding the animals with Shez’s homemade food. If Byleth didn’t, at least the animals liked it, he guessed.
“A merc needs all the experience they can get… Even if it’s as weird as this”, he says with a small huff, “You master it and – ba-bam – new skill!”
“What we’ve been doing is more… swordsmanship than hip movement, though.”
“Y-yeah, I guess”, Shez’s mouth turns into a thin, thin line, purple avoiding that emotionless green at all costs as Arval snorts like one of the pigs back in his village – it might have been nostalgic, were it not for the fact that the little guy has enjoyed every single embarrassing moment with his (one-sided) rivalry ever since Shez said that stupid, stupid lie, “But I won’t pass up an opportunity to better my skills if you’re, you know, right there. That’d be crazy.”
The mint-haired man (he never did tell him why he suddenly just changed hair color, but Shez wasn’t bothered by that, why would he be?) stares some more into his soul, those empty, empty eyes only ever focusing on tactical questions and freshly made food that way, so, wow, Shez is flattered, really.
“You’re doing better than before.”
At this, a pang of frustration charred somewhere in his upper back.
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever”, Shez scoffs bitterly, because he is a sore loser, but then looks up expectedly again, because he can’t hold still, “Tomorrow, same time?”
He can hear a sigh escape Byleth’s slightly down-curled mouth. There was the slightest of furrows of his brows, as if saddened by the notion that all they could ever do together was train now, but really, Shez has no time for other things. This man may have killed many a soldier he knew, and he may have almost single-handedly destroyed his employers’ dreams, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to take all the experience he could get when he was around. Not that he knew what he was thinking. Maybe he was just disappointed in his “student”.
Their routine began one random day that Shez couldn’t take it anymore, watching the Ashen Demon spin elegantly as he cut down hundreds of foes with a straight face, mint green hair flowing into his eyes and large white overly-pompous garbs that made him look like some kind of saint dragging across the floor that he may or may not have wanted to step on purposefully to see whether the guy would stumble. Pety? Yes. Was Shez bothered by his own intentions? Yes. Did he do anything against them? No. He stepped onto those damn bishop robes – just to see – just to see whether the man would lose balance.
He didn’t. Shez did. The Demon caught him in his fall. So half of their squad was now watching them in this weird… dipping position and Byleth’s long, fluttering lashes were kind of distracting him from the obvious question in his eyes, forming on his chapped lips – Shez, before anything, said he was trying to perfect his Dancer techniques.
“Your technique could use polish”, Byleth said, in his horrid monotonous, all-knowing voice. Shez’s face was beet red as he jumped out of his embrace to retaliate, flailing his arms around like Annette when she realized Shez went around singing her weirdly enchanting songs to other mercs.
“Oh yeah? Bet you know all there is about dancing, eh?” having the man not respond was somehow worse than any other response anyone could ever have given him, “Fine! Why don’t you show me, then?”
Byleth, after a few seconds of more soulless staring, only nodded his head once before pulling his sword out of a dead corpse and slowly turning the other way, thin legs stepping onto the ground feather-lightly, eyes distant and carrying too much wisdom for someone their age. He felt bad for lashing out, but he just couldn’t help it with Byleth. He was so… frustrating. And nice.
And so, he snuck out of his tent that day and convinced the training guy to make him a Dancer.
A Dancer. Dancer Shez. He was a mess. He’d never danced before!
So, was it really that big of a surprise when all he did the last couple of days was stumble over his own two feet (or worse – his dance partner’s) and slam into his chest or into the nearby fence that protected them from… nothing, really? Arval is suddenly grateful for the Ashen Demon, he says, just because he would have died like thrice already if it weren’t for him, somehow, apparently. He’d like to say he’s thankful, but first of all, he wouldn’t even be in this situation if Byleth just shrugged it off, not took it as his life’s mission to teach him to step nicely in circles.
“Ugh, this is going nowhere”, Shez suddenly complains, ruffling his already messy hair, “The nobles make it look so easy. Am I missing something? And you’re not exactly good with advice too, you know?” he looks up to meet the other man’s stoic gaze, “I’ve only been trampling the grounds and you’ve given me nothing to work with. Do I need to wash my hands with scented soap before or something?” he quips, thinking that the grin he shows afterwards is enough to dispel any doubt that he might really mean it, but alas, Byleth cups his chin, crossing one arm over the unoccupied part of his other, as he usually does when thinking.
“I don’t think so.”
“He’s as dense as you. Just in another way, of course”, his “partner in destiny” supplies.
“Yeah… Thought so”, he responds with a furrow of his brows, slowly losing patience.
“Maybe you lack… motivation”, the Ashen Demon offers instead, blinking decidedly at him.
“Motivation?” he scoffs, “There’s much I lack when it comes to this kind of stuff. But motivation? Filled to the brim”, he lies blatantly, knowing full well Byleth could probably read him like an open book, so he stands there scrutinized, being glared at and all. He kept all this nonsense up only to cover up his awful act and, well, get all the action in too, of course. His chest was… also surprisingly comfortable. Couldn’t deny that.
“Would you like to continue, then?” Byleth asks softly, once again offering him a hand, but Shez snorts.
“No, thanks. I think I’ve beaten your toes up enough for the day.”
Suddenly, there’s a pair of cold hands against his hot cheeks, and he’s forced to look up into those unblinking eyes. He still saw those eyes in his nightmares standing above him, slowly approaching him with no sound beneath his feet, like a predator – his hands were on him in the flash of a moment, and he doesn’t think he could get a sound out if he were to slice his throat like his crippling paranoia told him he would. His intuition is sleeping soundly, though. Byleth’s thumbs move gracefully against his cheekbones, and there’s something in that low gaze that makes his lower abdomen rather hopeful and maybe he should reevaluate his life’s decisions if that’s what’s on his mind right now.
“Your skin is very soft”, he mumbles under his breath, but it’s not nearly silent enough for Shez not to overhear it. His heart suddenly summersaults and he’s sure he’ll pass out any moment now. Gone. Vanished. But he keeps standing there, firm on the ground, hands having found their place on top of Byleth’s at some point – to remove them. Of course.
“You’re a weirdo”, he states with a shake of his head, trying to appear angry, but maybe he should have tried acting disgusted instead, as Byleth only cocks his head.
“I’ve been told so many times”, he says, and is that – amusement hidden somewhere in his low timbre? Is he amused by this?! And why is Arval gagging?!
“Wh-what are you doing?!” he manages, but doesn’t quite have it in him to push him away. It wasn’t to consider the other man’s feelings, unfortunately – no, he seems to… like… this. What.
What?!
“What a surprise.”
“I’m trying to motivate you”, Byleth says with a lazy blink, absolutely clueless about personal space and what’s socially acceptable and what not.
“As if you’re any better.”
“Motivate me?!” he hopes his voice isn’t as shrill as he hears it coming out (it is).
“Why aren’t you running away? If you’re sooooo appalled by this situation. And not, you know. Totally into it.”
“I’ve seen people do that sometimes.”
“Do – what, exactly?”
Byleth frowns for a single second, then presses his chapped, soft lips against Shez’s firmly, leaning against him with his full might, causing them both to stumble as the shorter mercenary struggled to regain senses to actually use his limbs. His hands were suddenly pulling on that man’s soft locks, his body pressed flush against the Demon’s, and he reveled in the sharp exhale his dancing partner made when the shorter pulled him closer, closer – until they were kissing softly against the useless fence anyone with both legs could jump over, probably sloppily because hell, a merc got no time for that usually, but Byleth didn’t seem to mind, so it was fine, probably.
Parting was the worst part – mostly because he had to face the stoic man after all that. Still, there is this… soft feeling in his chest that seemed as much out of place as it seemed perfectly normal, and even – dare he say – natural. He frowns. Yeah, no wonder Arval was gagging. Byleth keeps quiet under the starry sky, his coldness only beaten by the biting Faerghan air so different from Ordelia’s temperate springs, watching him with an uncharacteristically tender look – usually reserved for the bugs that Shez catches to show him, or children around the city as they flock towards the king – for it to be reserved for him was – well. Weird. Weird, but in a fun kind of way. The hand covered by a fingerless glove is covered gently as he breaks into a small, apologetic smile.
“Okay. I… didn’t really practice any dance moves or anything during that battle”, he looks away, cheeks dusted with pink, “I was just messing with you.”
“I know”, the taller says, still looking at him with the patience of a goddamn saint – who dubbed that guy a demon anyway? – the slight tone of amusement returning to his voice, “I don’t know much of it myself. But you seemed really determined to prove me wrong at that time, so I did my best to learn the necessities.”
“You – you what?!” Shez exclaims, angrily looking at the man that never once flinched from his intense gaze, “I’ve been embarrassing myself for the last five days for nothing? Even Dimitri – Dimitri! Laughed at me! No wonder I’m still as lousy as I was at the start! Why didn’t you say anything?!”
He would have stayed angry at the guy, he really would have, were it not for the fact that a shy smile slowly spread across the man’s face, rendering him absolutely and utterly speechless.
“I guess I just wanted to dance with you.”