Summary: (FE9) Oscar, Rhys, and everything in between. A 1sentence set about the priest and the paladin.
A/N: I don't know where this came from, honestly. I've been a little obsessed with the 1sentence theory for a while, and I guess I couldn't resist. This is the Gamma theme from the LJ. I don't know where the pairing came from either, except that it was the first thing I thought of when I saw the two of them together, and that it's kind of silly no matter how you look at it. There's a kind of coherent story in here, and I had a good time writing it. That's what counts, right? Enjoy!
Prayer Enough
01: Ring
The castle had a jousting circus, and Rhys would often pause in his gardening to watch Oscar galloping through the course, collecting brass rings on his lance and tossing them to the small audience of female admirers he always gathered; he was just a little flushed the day Oscar tossed one to him.
02: Hero
Oscar never really felt like a hero – the ones in stories never sold their lances to the highest bidder, after all – but somehow Rhys' grateful, almost awed thanks at dispatching a threatening bandit made him feel like the shining prince ever time
03: Memory
The soft song Rhys hums while picking feverfew always intrigues him; when Oscar asks one afternoon which hymn it is, Rhys, laughing, says it was only an old waltz his parents had danced to on their wedding day.
04: Box
The cloth-lined box that held his medicines smelled like Rhys – or maybe it was Rhys that smelled like medicine; Oscar didn't really care either way.
05: Run
Rhys hated moving quickly, on foot or astride; but somehow, galloping full speed on Oscar's horse never really bothered him.
06: Hurricane
Rhys was surprisingly courageous, Oscar thought, after the two of them spent a long, frightening night piling sandbags against the raging gale in hopes it would hold the flooding river from their doorstep.
07: Wings
"Because it makes me feel like I'm flying," Oscar replied, reining in the horse after the jump and smiling at the breathless priest sitting behind him clutching at his waist with a trembling, shaky laugh.
08: Cold
"Cold hands, warm heart," Rhys would often say, rubbing his hands together against the frigid Crimean winter and smiling; Oscar always thought that was a ridiculous saying, but in this case he couldn't find the will, or the point, to argue.
09: Red
After the battle, Oscar found Rhys scrubbing fiercely at the hem of his robe; "I hate this color," he said sadly, when the blood refused to come out.
10: Drink
Oscar awoke with a headache and a sticky residue in his mouth, and found Rhys sitting beside him, a bowl of green liquid in one hand and a terrified expression in his eyes; "Thank the goddess," the priest breathed, smiling, when Oscar complained mildly, if hoarsely, about the taste.
11: Midnight
Oscar became accustomed to the sound of the quiet nighttime prayers over his recovering body, but he never told Rhys he was awake during the quiet tears as well.
12: Temptation
Some nights, it was all he could do to resist squeezing back when the priest's hands clasped his in a grateful, private prayer of thanks.
13: View
"It brings me closer to the gods," Rhys said, admiring the sunset; Oscar, watching him, wondered if the glint of fading light against his copper hair brought the gods closer to Rhys instead.
14: Music
There was the soft waltz again, just outside Oscar's window; who knew Rhys sang while he folded laundry, too?
15: Silk
"It's nice, but I prefer cotton," Oscar gets in response to a remark about the quality of Soren's robes, and why doesn't Ike provide fabric that nice for everyone?
16: Cover
For the second time in six months, Oscar wakes up to a praying, red-eyed Rhys at his side, aware of the painful, deep gash across his chest and the shaking, clasped hands held over him that he'd give (and almost gave) everything to protect.
17: Promise
"Promise you'll never do that again," he says in his quiet, damp voice; Oscar, sadly shaking his head, only says, "I can't do that."
18: Dream
Rhys jerks awake in a cold sweat, cheeks flushed and fingers tingling, all too conscious of the peacefully sleeping man in the next room over and the intensity of his own imagination.
19: Candle
"Hey, Oscar left a light on for us!" Boyd cheers, grinning, and Rhys finds himself wondering if the beacon in the window the knight always leaves burning for them is his own version of a prayer.
20: Talent
"You must have hidden talents as well," Rhys says, quite innocently, when Oscar catches him singing again, and ducks behind the heavily laden clothesline when he's certain he sees the other man flush pink.
21: Silence
Watching the sunset together has become habit, and the silence between them is like its own wishful hymn.
22: Journey
Rolf is finally old enough for his own horse, and Oscar gets a little thrill inside when Rhys volunteers his own to the young archer, claiming that he likes riding behind one of the knights better anyway.
23: Fire
The heat he feels when their eyes meet is no longer deniable, and he wonders fiercely if it ever really was.
24: Strength
That night, he prays for courage.
25: Mask
And he finds it, when a sniper's arrow passes too close for comfort, and Oscar's fierce mercenary mask drops for an instant into panicked, terrified fear when Rhys clutches at the torn sleeve of his robe, a thin trickle of blood from the scratch leaking from between his fingers.
26: Ice
After that, despite the half-frozen snow crunching under the hooves of the horse they share, neither one feels cold at all.
27: Fall
Boyd certainly isn't surprised at this unconventional turn of events – it's not like he's never seen his brother fall before.
28: Forgotten
Funny, Rhys thinks, that the world seems to disappear when he smiles.
29: Dance
Suddenly, the nervous dance of hope and despair they do around each other resolves into a graceful waltz of smiles and glances, and Oscar is very happy he isn't the one leading this time.
30: Body
He's surprised and a little sad when Oscar's hands seem unable to touch him, and he wishes at least one set of robes was clean enough to hide his pale and sickly figure under.
31: Sacred
The sad hope in Rhys' eyes is enough for Oscar to say, quietly, "I don't want to profane something so holy," and the tremble in his hands when Rhys reaches out to hold them makes him wonder if he's going to hell after all.
32: Farewells
Oscar always thought goodbyes were terrifying, because you don't know if they'll be the last one; but Rhys said, goodbyes are just there to remind you of what you'll be coming back to.
33: World
The world was changing so quickly now, and Rhys was both relieved and grateful when Oscar joined him in at the makeshift altar he'd constructed for the dead and the lost, saying only that he need not take the burden of prayer on his shoulders alone from now on.
34: Formal
Their own, less formal prayers were said later that night, skin to skin, in hopes that it would prove to the gods that there was still passion worth protecting.
35: Fever
"Shouldn't you be the one lying here?" Rhys said faintly, gesturing to the bed he lay in with a tired smile, the fever sweat glistening along his cheeks.
36: Laugh
He laughed weakly when Oscar muttered darkly, "It's no picnic for me, either," and went back to mixing medicine at Rhys' careful, quiet instruction.
37: Lies
"You're looking better today," Ike said, smiling at the pale man, but Rhys' eyes held only quiet acceptance, and Oscar's despair was barely hidden behind a mask of determination.
38: Forever
Rhys' sense of humor was surprisingly morbid: "At least we'll be together after all this is over," he said, after a painful bought of coughs that brought up more blood; "We saved the world – that has to count for something up there, doesn't it?"
39: Overwhelmed
"That's what family is for," Rolf said, as he and Boyd sat with their arms around their elder brother, staving off the hopeless crush of tears for another night.
40: Whisper
Soren's theory was just that, a theory; but it was something to cling to, and Oscar had to be physically prevented from leaving that night, in the driving rain, to search the woods for that one particular herb.
41: Wait
"I won't leave unless you're here," Rhys said, and Oscar smiled for the first time in days, certain that Rhys would keep his end of the bargain.
42: Walk
The forest was thick with undergrowth, and he had to leave the horse behind, tied to a tree; his mind, exhausted from lack of sleep and too much fear, thought only that it had been years since he'd gone further than a mile on foot.
43: Search
Soren's sketch was accurate, he was sure, and his eyes were sharp from so many years in the field; but he only found the tiny blue-flowered plant after he started humming Rhys' waltz under his breath.
44: Hope
He wondered how all his hope could be wrapped up in one insignificant little herb, but he tucked it into his cloak anyway.
45: Eclipse
The moon was full as he emerged from the forest, and Oscar sighed as the light streamed down onto the path before him; "Is it right to wish for an eclipse?" he asked under his breath, his hero-instincts somewhat ridiculously put off by the lack of harrowing darkness to ride through.
46: Gravity
"Of course I appreciate the gravitas of the situation," Rhys said, smiling at an indignant Soren, a book clutched in the mage's hands, "I just want to keep my mind off it; read the second poem again, the one with the walrus, alright?"
47: Highway
The unwritten story seemed to catch up to him as he leaped off the horse and left it standing in the center of the road; clouds moved in to obscure the moon, the patter of rain against the well-worn highway was only the start of a greater storm, and the thunder crashed dramatically behind him as he burst through the door, salvation pressed beside his heart.
48: Unknown
"Is it working?" Oscar asked later, as Rhys drifted off into a quiet, fitful sleep and Soren placed the herbal concoction on the table beside him; "We won't know until the morning," the man replied, and left Oscar, knowing the task of holding off the unknown for one more night was his and his alone.
49: Lock
Oscar said all the prayers he knew and more, until he could only clutch at the bedsheets and press his forehead against Rhys' clammy chest, saying, "I'd lock your heart inside myself, if that would keep you with me."
50: Breathe
He hardly noticed when Rhys breathed, deeper and cleaner than he had in weeks, and sighed against his temple; "But," he breathed, and smiled at Oscar's tearstained face, "Oscar, you already did."
Awww. Okay, I'll stop.
On a side note, I really wanted to sneak Kieran in there somewhere, but couldn't. Maybe next time.
Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you think!