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kumeko · 9 months

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A/N: For the Paradise zine! I wanted Byhardt slow burn throughout the years. Slow because they’re both a little dense.

…

Linhardt yawned. It was bad enough that he was forced to come to the Academy, his classes interfering with his personal research and studies. Now they were interfering with his sleep. Maybe he should take a page from Bernadetta and hide in his room, only coming out for food and books.

“Hurry up already!” Caspar growled, his strong fingers wrapping around Linhardt’s wrist and yanking him forward. “We’re gonna be late ‘cause of you.”

“And that’s a problem why?” Linhardt sighed. Even if he did hide away in his room or the library or some cave in the middle of nowhere, he had no doubt that Caspar would find him there and then drag him out. There was no reprieve for him.

“We’ll miss the class.” Caspar glared at him as he hurried them down the path to the training grounds. Despite his small body, he was a powerhouse, and Linhardt went limp as he let Caspar drag him away.

“That would be a dream come true,” Linhardt drawled.

As they got closer to their destination, the sound of swords parrying, their blades clashing and bouncing off armour, grew louder. When they stepped in, the air was thick with the sickly sweet smell of sweat. Linhardt wrinkled his nose. Another reason he hated training. It was disgusting.

Inside, Dorothea sat on the ground, leaning against the door, her chest heaving as she tried to regain her breath. Petra and Ferdinand stood, but just barely, their limbs shaking from the effort. Only Hubert looked unaffected as he passively watched the battle before them.

And it was a battle. Edelgard crossed blows with their new professor, using a heavy broadsword in lieu of her usual axe. The professor easily countered. Linhardt couldn’t remember the last time Edelgard had difficulties in weapons practice.

Even Caspar was amazed. “She’s strong.”

Edelgard lunged and the professor dodged, her hair flying wildly behind her. She stepped to the right. A blunt blow to the wrist and Edelgard let go of her sword with a sharp breath. Her blade fell to the ground with a heavy thud, the professor pointing her own at Edelgard’s throat.

A defeat.

That was something utterly radiant about the professor’s smirk as Edelgard yielded.

“Fascinating,” Linhardt breathed, transfixed.

ii.

“Professor.” Linhardt padded steadily to Byleth’s desk. By now, the rest of the class had cleared out, the classroom empty save for the two of them. “I have a question.”

“What is it?” Byleth asked, looking up from her papers. “I—”

Realizing it was him, her lips set into a thin line. She leaned to the right, to the left, and sighed when she realized that he was the only one here. “A question about class, Linhardt?”

Her tone implied she doubted that to be the case.

“Absolutely not.” Linhardt kept his eyes focused on her as he talked, catching the minute changes in her expression. “It’s about your crest.”

Her expression somehow grew flatter. It was utterly fascinating—he had long considered Byleth expressionless, but clearly that wasn’t the case. No, she still had emotions, but subtler, harder to spot. He wondered what it’d take to get a big reaction out of her. He wondered what it’d take to make her smile.

“Between you and Hanneman, is there anything left to ask?” Byleth raised a brow, mildly exasperated. “No one in my family has it, I don’t know who my mother is, I have not come across anyone else with it, and no, it doesn’t provide me with extra strength or skill.”

Linhardt smiled, unfolding a piece of paper. Perhaps Byleth didn’t understand the fundamentals of a researcher, but there were always questions to be asked, hypotheses to be tested, and tests to be run. “You said you haven’t met anyone. Could you tell me all of the places you’ve been?”

Byleth stared at him. Her long fingers rapped on the table steadily before she sighed once more. Opening a drawer, she pulled out a scrolled paper and spread it across the table. It was a map of Fódlan. “You might as well grab a seat,” she added, pinning the map open.

He plopped down immediately. He had a lot of questions to ask, after all, and his feet were tired already.

iii.

The stone wall was cold. Linhardt focused on that one fact, that one sensation. Cold. Wet. Steady. It was strong in ways his roiling stomach wasn’t. His lunch tried to force itself up his throat and Linhardt closed his eyes, leaning against the wall as he fought it back down.

The stone wall was sturdy. His sweat was sticky. The faint scent of iron filled the air. A hand rubbed slow circles on his back. Linhardt opened his eyes, his gaze flicking to the presence to his right. Blue filled his vision and his eyes widened as Byleth leaned forward, concerned.

“Are you alright, Linhardt?”

Her other hand held a sword, still slick with blood. He couldn’t look away as a droplet slid down the blade, dropping to the dirt floor silently. That blood was on his hands too. His stomach heaved, eager to empty itself in this desolate tower.

“Breathe,” Byleth murmured, still massaging his back. Her hand was warm. He felt cold. “In the nose. Out the mouth.”

Linhardt tried. In the nose. Out the mouth. He kept his gaze on her, because if he looked anywhere else, he would see the thugs they’d just killed. There was a reason he had never wanted to come to this academy. Despite his duties to the empire, he wasn’t a fighter. He never had been. And now there was blood on his hands.

“Breathe,” Byleth commanded, harsher now.

He hadn’t realized he’d stopped. Linhardt stared into her eyes, the blues even darker in this moonlit ruin. In the nose. Out the mouth. The wall was cold. Byleth’s hand was warm. His stomach settled, just enough, and Byleth helped him straighten up before pulling back.

He still didn’t look away. He wasn’t ready to.

“Good. The first time is always the hardest.” Byleth flicked the blood off her sword impassively before sheathing it.

The first. His stomach churned at the thought. There would be a second. A third. Who knew how many? Linhardt curled his hand into a fist, his nails digging half-moons into his palm. The pain steadied him. “Does it get easier?”

“Sometimes.” Byleth looked away, studying their surroundings before turning back to him. “It depends on the person. It depends on the death. It’s probably better if it doesn’t.”

“Is it easier for you?” he asked.

She didn’t answer. For once, Lindhardt wasn’t sure if he wanted to know.

iv.

Byleth was dead. Or maybe just lost. Linhardt didn’t know what to think about that, what to feel about that. One moment, she had been there, leading the fight. The next, she had disappeared, swallowed by the chasm of which there was no escape.

He didn’t know how to react, so he didn’t. The Empire was entering a war, and there was always something new to study. Linhardt buried himself in his research, trying to ignore the empty spaces where Hanneman would push him, where Annette or Lysithea would tear into his ideas and rebuild them stronger.

There was an emptier spot where Byleth used to sit across from him, her expression torn between fondness and exasperation as he had yet another list of questions.

He couldn’t ask those questions anymore.

Something heavy settled in him.

He didn’t want to think about it.

Byleth was alive. Caught in the heat of battle, surrounded by classmates he hadn’t seen in a while, Linhardt hadn’t had time to process the news before he’d plunged into battle with a legion of bandits. Now, after all was said and done, he had a moment to realize what it meant.

He wasn’t imagining things. Even pinching his thigh didn’t change the fact that Edelgard and Byleth were walking down the stone steps, Edelgard’s arm wrapped around Byleth to support her. Their former teacher looked exactly the same as she had all those years ago, her moss green hair somehow glowing in the early morning.

Lindhardt took an involuntary step forward. Byleth was here. A tension in his belly eased.

As ever, Caspar blurted out all of their feelings. “You’re alive?”

Byleth lifted her head lightly and nodded weakly. “I didn’t die.”

“We thought you had, Professor.” Ferdinand looked as confused as Linhardt felt. “It has been five years—what were you doing?”

“I…” Byleth pursed her lips, wincing as she tried to answer. Her eyes scanned them all, before landing on him. Smiling weakly, she answered, “I thought I’d listen to Linhardt and sleep for once.”

Linhardt’s shoulders relaxed, a weight he didn’t realize he had leaving. “You slept too long.”

She chuckled. “I don’t want to hear that from you.”

vi.

Linhardt found Byleth in the long-abandoned Black Eagle’s classroom. He wasn’t sure where he had expected to find her after today—not the church, the time for a goddess had long since passed. Not the food hall, it was well lit and always fun, with little room for privacy. Not the gardens, which weren’t free of prying eyes.

It had been luck she was in the fourth place he checked. Outside, it was dark, the moonlight seeping through the windows. The hearth had long since been put out, no new kindling to provide any light. That was fine; he’d brought a lamp of his own.

At the other end of the room, Byleth sat at her desk, her expression pensive as she stared at the half-erased chalkboard. She didn’t turn as he entered, didn’t do anything actually. Linhardt set his lamp on her desk and pulled a chair over to sit in front of her. They’d done this so many times before, in the time when he had been just a student, and the war wasn’t even a pipe dream.

Today, he didn’t have any questions but one: “Are you okay, Professor?”

She started. Her eyes slid to and then past him, at the rest of the classroom, before her shoulders slumped. He wasn’t the only one remembering the past, remembering the classmates that flitted in and out of their doors.

“I thought they would retreat,” Byleth whispered, her voice raspy, as though anything louder would shatter the moment.

“It’s a war,” Linhardt replied kindly, lowering his eyes. His fingers dug into his thighs. He had five years to get used to fighting former classmates. She had only weeks. “No one wants to—no one can retreat.”

Byleth inclined her head, gazing at her hands. She clenched them, as though she was holding her sword. “I suppose so.” Letting out a shaky laugh, she looked up at him. “This won’t get easier.”

The wording triggers a memory, long ago, of his first kill. Of him asking a question with no answer.

He hadn’t needed one. He definitely didn’t want to find out this way. Quietly, he leaned forward and squeezed her hand. “It hasn’t for me.” Linhardt paused. “Byleth.”

Her eyes widened fractionally before her expression crumpled, and she shuddered. Byleth’s sobs were silent things. He wasn’t sure how he had ever thought of her emotionless all those years ago. She clasped his hand like a lifeline and he clung back tightly.

vii.

There wasn’t an agreement, a formal declaration, but somehow, Linhardt kept joining Byleth for her nightly patrols. Somehow, they kept meeting in the abandoned places of their youth, surrounded by the ghosts of had-beens and could-have-beens. There was something utterly natural about the way he slipped into place beside her, about his scant questions and her quiet replies.

Tonight was no exception. He found her in the grand hall, his feet knowing where to go even if she hadn’t told him where to meet. The hall was large, dark, and looming. A few holes in the ceiling revealed a bright night sky, filled with stars. On one side, Byleth sat in a window alcove, a lantern at her feet as she stared out the window.

“Byleth.”

She looked up at the sound of her name, the light casting shadows on her face as she turned. Even in the dim light, her hair still glowed like a fire, her eyes as bright as the stars above. In the night, Byleth seemed less a woman and more a goddess, an ethereal being that would disappear if he looked away too long.

It was an irrational thought. He had watched her for years and he knew just how all-too-human she was. Her arm even had a bandage from a recent skirmish, an injury that was healing far too slowly for his liking.

It was an irrational thought, but he felt it all the same. Byleth lips curved slightly and he couldn’t look away, mesmerized as she picked up her lantern and approached him. “You’re late,” she said.

“You look tired,” he replied. It was true, she looked worn in the ways that he felt, in the ways that war wormed deep inside and refused to leave.

“We all are.” She turned, heading down the hallway.

He slipped into space beside her, as usual, as always. No, not always, he had seen her die, seen her come back. It could happen again. Linhardt felt his hand brush against hers, and the urge to grab it.

Linhardt froze. He wanted to grab her hand.

Noticing he wasn’t beside her, Byleth turned around, raising her lantern high. “Linhardt?”

Linhardt wanted more than to grab her hand. He wanted that always, that forever. He wanted those quiet questions in a study, wanted lazy afternoons and long naps. A world without war was ideal, but a world with Byleth was all that he really needed. His skin flushed, his heart beating like a rabbit’s, and he was glad it was dark, that the naked desire that must have been clearly etched across his face was all but invisible.

“N-nothing,” Linhardt stuttered, forcing his feet to move again.

He loved her. He might have loved her for a long time now.

It seemed he had a new line of questioning to try out. One that started with a ring and hopefully ended with a yes.

#byhardt #byleth eisner #linhardt von hevring #byleth x linhardt #fe3h #fire emblem three houses #fanfic

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