This was written for this prompt: Fire Emblem 9/10: Ike/Soren - someone else has to point out to Ike that he's in love in the fe_fest community on LiveJournal.

Warnings: some implied m/m stuff

Disclaimer: I do not own Fire Emblem or any characters therein. I make no money from anything.

Ike had a problem. It was a very big problem and he didn't know what to do about it. It was not the usual sort of problem either; unlike the usual ones, this one couldn't be solved with a plan that was ultimately 'hit it with a sword'. Now, Ike wasn't stupid by any means, but he had a liking for 'hit it with a sword' plans. Most problems could be solved by hitting them with a sword. This one, being of the not physical type, regrettably could not. Well, parts of the problem could be hit with a sword, but Ike didn't think he'd feel any better if he did. Maybe as soon as he'd done the hitting, but then the guilt would set in and then he'd just be one big pile of regret and unsolvable problems. Soren would probably hit him with a book too. And that would just make Ike feel even worse.

And really, Ike didn't want to go around hitting everyone who looked at Soren with a sword. Except he did. Everyone and everything, including that horse and that cat and that poor, poor rabbit. And woe betide them if Soren looked back at them. That was a crime even more heinous than looking at Soren. If he looked back at you then... well, then Ike wanted to get Shinon really drunk and dare him to shoot at the offender. Or hire Volke. Or tell Kieran that whoever it was had committed some dastardly crime and hope for the best. The upshot would be that if they had Soren look at them, Ike wanted to take the hitting with a sword plan and multiply it a lot.

This was, quite understandably, a very large problem. Ike was well respected and currently head of an entire army. Soren was his tactician. Soren got looked at an awful lot. He looked at people an awful lot. Ike couldn't exactly issue a new rule saying 'no looking at Soren'. That would be ridiculous (and he knew that some people, like Skrimir, would just ignore it). This new over protectiveness or whatever the hell it was, was okay on the battlefield. On the battlefield, well, if someone looked at Soren then Ike would hit them with his sword and he would not think about the poor, poor rabbit. Because they were the enemy and they looked at Soren. Yes. That makes sense. Ike was not stupid, but he did like hitting people with his sword, especially when they looked at Soren.

The problem only increased in magnitude when Skrimir looked at Soren. And said things like 'sit next to me, little one'. Or 'you are very small, so I shall protect you'. Or 'I like the tiny tactician. Put his tent next to mine'. When Skrimir said anything like that, Ike's vision went a startling shade of red and he wanted to hit Skrimir, very hard, with Ragnell and Alondite and Ettard. Whenever that happened, Ike had to go and listen to Mist talk about Rolf's crush on Shinon – Oscar and Boyd didn't know yet and neither did Rolf apparently, but Mist was absolutely positively sure that Rolf was harbouring the biggest crush on Tellius for Shinon – in that really quite disgustingly sweet way girls talk about boys having crushes. Of course, listening to Mist was also a helpful way to both bond with her and learn what was going on in the army. Girls were scary, but they knew all sorts of things.

Ike had tried, very briefly, to distance himself from Soren, but Soren had become so upset that Ike had to go back and besides which, his own murderous feelings had increased with the distance. He'd also become really depressed, which Ike thought was pretty strange. In fact, during those few days, it had seemed like everyone had been sort of depressed, although that might have been because Soren had been upset and when Soren was upset he also became angry. Angry Soren, everyone knew, was a force to be afraid of. If Soren had been particularly angry, some said, then he could have utterly defeated Mad King Ashnard without any help, magical armour and all. Some people even said that if Soren got into an extremely bad mood, they might just send him to Begnion as a one man army and hope that he hadn't destroyed everything by the time reinforcements arrived.

Luckily, Ike had realised that it was better for all involved – that is, for everyone on Tellius – if Ike went back to being all but glued to Soren. Once he did, Soren went back to being his normal grouchy self and people stopped having to avoid spontaneous wind storms whenever they went near Soren. There were also rather fewer mysterious flying swords hitting people in the face, which was universally agreed to be a good thing. Rhys had almost used up an entire Heal staff on broken noses alone. Everyone was happy when Ike and Soren weren't avoiding each other (although Ike didn't know this, the betting pool had taken a serious blow when Ike had suddenly started Mission: Avoid Soren. With his return to form, it had recovered admirably and was now offering odds of 3:1 that Soren and Ike would end up sharing a tent before their next battle).

It was during the next battle that Ike realised another aspect of his problem. Namely, if Soren was injured, Ike couldn't concentrate on anything else. This meant there were suddenly a lot of 'take the vulnerary Soren, or I will shove it down your throat' and 'if you do not go to Mist and get that wound healed I will take you there myself' followed by 'that's it, you aren't standing more than four feet away from Rhys ever again'. Soren himself didn't seem to appreciate Ike's over protectiveness and almost all of these incidents ended with Soren yelling 'Ike, it's a thorn scratch that's not even bleeding' or 'don't waste Heal staves' or 'Ike, I have my own vulneraries and I am not even hurt' or 'Rhys needs to be over there and I need to be over here and you, Ike, need to be over there' or even just 'Ike, shut up. I'm not hurt at all'. Ike was quite hurt by all Soren's rebukes although they weren't very bad rebukes by Soren's standards. Ike had the sneaking suspicion that if had been anyone else trying to force vulneraries and elixirs on Soren, he would have ignored them or hit them with his Wind tome.

And then the worst thing happened.

Soren stopped and talked to Aimee, which was quite a dangerous task in itself. Unluckily for Ike, he happened to overhear part of their conversation. Said part involved Soren complimenting Aimee and Aimee saying that Soren was such a sweet talker. In that moment, Ike wanted to do something really horrible to Aimee. It was almost worse than the Skrimir thing; at least then Soren just ignored him. Ike, in a very seriously bad mood, decided that it was time to listen to Mist talk about Rolf's crush again. This plan, like so many others, did not go quite right.

"Ike," she said when he got there, "if you're here because of Soren again then I'm going to tell him that you're in love with him." Ike blinked at her, very slowly.

"Um, what?" he asked, intelligently. Mist bonked him on the head with her spoon.

"You're in love with Soren. I'll tell him if you don't," she repeated. Ike felt that she was treating this situation in a very... disconcerting way.

"Since when?" he asked, feeling panic start to set in. Mist rolled her eyes.

"I don't know, Ike, honestly. Since before you started listening to me about Rolf. If you still haven't told him, then you're an idiot," she said, as if it were a matter of fact.

"I'm in love with Soren?" Ike said, mostly to himself.

"You're in love with me?" Soren squeaked, having come to the mess tent to see if he could find Ike. Mist, annoyed with the male melodramatics taking place, threw a spoon at them. Ike didn't dodge and got a spoon to the temple. Thoroughly chastised, he returned the spoon and left the tent, Soren following in his wake like a very confused tactician.

"Um," Ike began.

"Um," Soren agreed.

The conversation looked set to continue in that manner, but was stopped by the timely intervention of a battle cry. By the time they could have a conversation, both were tired and bloody – not with their own blood, mostly – and had had enough time while they were fighting off soldiers of some description to think about what to say. By mutual agreement, they went to Ike's tent (Volke came by later to pick up his winnings, which were quite large) to have it out.

"Um, nothing has to change if you don't want it to," Ike began. Soren paused and gave him a very long look.

"Ike, I would like nothing more than for it to change," Soren replied. Ike blinked – he did that a lot – and thought that through. A smile tugged at his lips.

"Change like... a good change? Or a bad change?" he asked. Soren snorted.

"I would hope for it to be a good change, Ike," he said. He looked around the tent. "I think I should start sharing your tent, Ike. To save room."

"Um, you're the tactician. If you think it's a good idea..." Ike felt a bit like he'd been hit by a Tornado or something. In a good way.

"Ike," Soren began, "we will also be sharing a bed."

"Oh."

And that, it seemed, was that.

Ike never did solve his problem. Even after sharing his bed (really quite a lot and Soren had been enthusiastic to say the least) with Soren, Ike still had problems with people looking at Soren and Soren looking at people. He became even more murderous when Skrimir still made his comments (Ranulf had let slip that all the laguz could smell what Ike and Soren had been up to), although that was cooled by heavy petting instead of listening to Mist theorise on the relationships of everyone in camp. And Ike was, if anything, even more protective of Soren, to the extent that he insisted that whoever had a Physic staff had to use it on Soren if he needed it and Soren should carry at least three vulneraries at all times and an extra Heal staff for emergencies. Soren didn't seem to mind quite so much anymore.

Oh and the betting pool remained open, with odds for when someone caught them in the act outside of their tent, when Ike finally snapped and brained Skrimir, when Soren finally snapped and created an elaborate plot to get rid of Aimee and, of course, for when they threw their sword and tome away to get a bit hot and heavy on the battlefield (it was hoped by all and sundry that that last one never actually happened, but there had been one very persistent taker who refused to give his name and only said that if he ever won, he would drop in to collect his winnings).

Thanks for reading.

Rethira