Title: Strange How We Fit Each Other
Series: FE10
January Eighteenth / something familiar about the way they fit together (late)
character/pairing: Ike/Soren
Rating: PG-13
A/N: comment_fic: Fire Emblem 9, I can't take my eyes off of you. Title comes from a line from "Eric's Song" by Vienna Teng.

.

The book was just beyond his reach.

Soren stood on tiptoe, yet again cursing his height. There was no bolster to lift himself up, and the chair was of a heavy wood, one which was far too much trouble for him to drag across the room. For Ike, it would have been little trouble. For him, however, it was impossible.

The door opened behind him. A careless step, brusque, beloved. Soren turned, as if it was magnetic, for he was never able to resist.

"I was about to find a leverage of some sort," Soren murmured.

"I'll get it," Ike said.

Ike's hand ran up along Soren's spine, as he reached up, and Soren leaned into him, back arching to the touch. Ike's hand still rested on his shoulder.

"Meet me later for the final report," Ike said.

And Soren wouldn't even think of protesting.

.

Every night, the first thing Ike started with was the hair ties. He undid them and let Soren's thick black hair flow free down his back.. He was surprisingly meticulous in his attention to Soren's hair, considering that the motto for his own hair was seemingly get out of bed, leave bedhead as it is.

"You should leave it long," Ike said.

"It would be a nuisance, constantly in the way. ..But I will, if you wish it."

"Hmm. Then only when you're with me. Is that better?"

"A fair compromise," Soren said.

"It's almost been three years since then," Ike said

"Yes..."

Seven hundred and thirty five days. Of course Soren knew the time they've been together, could easily recite the year, month, day, second. Yet most of his life has been devoted to Ike, his service, friend, tactician and now, lover. The time spent with him merges to all this time, unseparated, how his life was spent, how he intends to spend every last hour until his last breath.

He was not surprised by the date, merely that Ike has remembered. Even now, Soren had to remind himself that Ike cared. It was hard to not fall into the role of a martyr. The distant friend who would never get what he wished for, who had to watch the one he loved marry someone else and live with the inevitable pain that came.

But he had. He had won, somehow, in a way that still boggled him, Ike had chosen him over a princess, of all things. Over every other woman who had hoped for a hero to call their own. He had watched Ike grow up, both of them growing up together. Ever since that first time he'd not been able to take his eyes off of Ike. Now was little different. He felt Ike's thumb against his lips, a tender gesture. Their fingers fit and their bodies fit. It wasn't seamless, but they made due. To Soren, something found or given too easily was suspect. If there had been no small issues, no problems to be solved, then he would have been suspicious.

There were new things to memorize. Expressions during coitus, breaths during sleep. Every day was a repeating of striving to drive down the unease gained from childhood, but that too, was simply another problem to be mended. All it took was reminding himself of the simple truth that had become his life. He never had to turn his gaze away, and could live in bedspreads and enclosed fingers until he drew breath. And that was all he wanted in a life, that and nothing else.