A/N: For Lemurian Girl's challenge, I'm making this 1000 words. I don't own Fire Emblem or the song 'I Never Told You What I Do For a Living.' Respectively, their owners are Nintendo and My Chemical Romance.
Touched by angels, though I fall out of grace
I did it all so maybe I'd live this every day...
He'd lost sight of Heath in the confusing blur of blood and weapons and shouts to destroy the deserters in the name of the king. And now, all he knew was that Heath was somewhere on this bloody warfield, either injured or fighting off the last of their hunters. Or was he dead? Killed by someone who would have been his comrade if he hadn't left the corrupted army of Bern?
Perhaps he'd decided to flee on his own and, for lack of a better phrase, save himself. He scoffed at the thought. No, Heath was much too honorable for that. If anything, the wyvern knight was probably looking for him right now.
He saw no movement around him; they'd probably killed them all. A wyvern knight and the Hurricane were hard to outmatch, even when the odds were ten-to-one. But it was one thing to fight half-witted bandits with their minds on gold; it was a far different matter to fight soldiers of Bern who had clear intents of killing them. He'd gotten a bad slash across his chest earlier, and he'd already used up his elixer on a wound that had been quite close to crippling his left arm. He was starting to feel light-headed from blood loss; walking wasn't making him feel any better.
Where was Heath? He wondered as he dragged another breath into his lungs. Wyverns weren't exactly hard to find... But that also meant that Heath was a prime target for arrows. He hadn't seen any archers, but one could never be too sure about that--they'd probably been hiding in the trees.
A sudden sound of coughing put Legault's nerves on end. He shifted his stance and drew his killing edge, then sheathed it when he saw the source. There was Heath a few feet in front of him, with his lance broken and his back against the fallen form of his mount. Hyperion wasn't moving, although the thief could see the wyvern's sides rising and falling with an agonizing slowness.
"Heath," Legault breathed out (was he relieved?) and cautiously ran over, ignoring the flaring pain in his chest as he came to kneel beside the wyvern knight. "Heath, are you okay?"
"...They shot Hyperion..." Heath rasped shakily, almost too quietly to hear.
Legault nodded and moved in front of the wyvern knight, inspecting him for any obvious wounds. Trust wyvern knights to put their mounts before themselves, he mused idly. He supposed that all wyvern riders acted like that--or was it just because Hyperion was the only tie left to Bern that Heath had?
He shrugged; maybe Heath was just in shock from the fall. It was common knowledge in both Ilia and Bern that, rather than the actual arrows killing them (which was more likely if a sniper was attacking) it was the injuries that rider and mount sustained from the fall's impact.
There were no injuries he saw, but from the rigid position Heath was in, trying not to move, one or both of his legs had probably been broken. "Are you okay?"
Heath shifted and was about to say something, but he winced and tensed up. "My leg's broken... And I think my ribs."
"Come on, I'll help you get up," Legault told him. "Let's get you on Hyperion and the three of us out of this lovely spot, shall we."
He ignored the fact that Hyperion was dying and Heath's leg was broken.
And as they stood, Heath made a pained noise and fell back down, bringing Legault with him. "Urgh... Sorry, I think both my legs got broken..."
"As a matter of fact, I don't think I'm up for a walk either," Legault said airily. He coughed, the motion sending stabbing pains through his chest.
"We won't be able to run this time, Legault."
"Literally and figuratively, I think you're finally right about that." For a moment Legault thought about what to say, then continued. "You know Heath, I don't think I was lying when we had that little chat at my former headquarters."
"What..." Heath paused and carefully took a breath. "What do you mean?"
"You remember--'must be this thing called love,'" Legault reminded him flippantly. "I think I startled you when I said that."
"You said you were joking."
"Keep in mind, I did also say that I liked you. Or rather, your honesty. And that I myself lack the ability to tell the truth."
"So... If you weren't really joking about it..."
"Yes, I believe I do love you." Legault waited for something to happen as he said it, thinking that Heath would let go and drag himself away with the same nervous, jumpy expression he'd had at the Black Fang's headquarters.
But the grip on his neck tightened.
Night fell, covering the three of them in a darkness that masked the field of corpses and softened the large silhouette of the fallen wyvern, who groaned and let his head fall to the ground. Heath's strained breathing quieted, and the grip on Legault's neck loosened so slightly that the thief almost didn't notice.
Presently, Legault turned his head and whispered Heath's name into his hair. There was no answer.
With that silence, he too slipped into the darkness that was far deeper and longer than one mere night.
And nobody noticed the bloody field of dead where two deserters had finally fallen.
"My enemy's the strongest army on the continent. No matter how you look at it, I'd say you're getting the short end of the stick," Heath told him. "Why would you do all this for me?"
Legault tried to keep a straight face, he really did. But despite his efforts, the corners of his mouth twitched up into a crooked smile. "Must be this thing called love, you know?"
And we'll all dance alone to the tune of your death
We'll love again, we'll laugh again
And it's better off this way
And never again, and never again
They gave us two shots to the back of the head
And we're all dead now.