A/N: So my brother convinced me to watch the Berserk film trilogy a little while ago and now my life is ruined. I've started the manga because I need it to fill the void but until I catch up I wrote this. I also decided to try a bit of a different writing format than my usual, so these aren't strictly linear pieces of story – I just decided to split it up into three chapters instead of having them all on the same page. Also, the fic is only rated M because of the second chapter.
Contains spoilers for the Golden Age Arc, and some less important spoilers for what comes not long after. The title is from the song of the same name by Goran Dragas if anyone is curious.
I. Grey
Guts knew this wasn't the first time he'd wondered what the hell went on in Griffith's head, and knew it wouldn't be the last either.
Hair pale as a full moon fluttered in the wind, owner of said locks pursing his lips as if he were mulling over an answer. Guts wondered if Griffith was really thinking about it, or just pretending to for his sake.
"We have one less person vying to see both me dead and the Hawk destroyed, now that Midland holds us in such esteem. Isn't that a good thing?" Griffith asked, almost playful.
"I never said it wasn't," Guts replied. Smears of dew whetted the toes of his leather boots in the grass. The morning was young, pink sky melding with emerging blue and receding darkness like a good bruise. The city loomed behind them, but from this angle the dawn was true as the times when they camped in the wilds.
"Then what are you asking me?"
"I'm not asking. I'm telling. You started the conversation."
Griffith smiled in response. He poked the binding still on Guts' arm.
"That could've been your face. And that arrow fired by Julius' man could've pierced my heart. I'm starting to think you're good luck, Guts."
Something like nostalgia but much more insidious twisted in Guts' stomach. "Not luck. We're both just too stubborn to die when we're meant to," he said without letting the feeling reach his face.
"I never took you for a man to believe in fate," Griffith chuckled. "Just when I think I've figured you out – you never fail to surprise me with something unexpected."
"Tch. I believe in fate about as much as you do."
Griffith rose from his seat next to Guts, river-blue eyes gazing off into the horizon.
"That's right," he said. "The only set fate we have is choosing our own ambitions – or serving another's. God is much too busy to be granting free wishes."
Guts had never taken any of Griffith's philosophical musings too seriously at first. But that was back then, before he'd realized the extent of another's dream, the current that swept him up like chaff.
Griffith, he supposed, was like that. People were drawn to him, into his force of character, much like Guts felt himself the opposing tide that pushed them away.
He had always known he wasn't anyone special, that he didn't fit inside the overgrown anthill of humanity. None of the Hawk really did. Living by the sword marked you as a different kind of human from the rest.
Growing up that way had shown Guts that he was a freak even among outsiders. But then there had been Griffith, and just when Guts had started to think being a freak might not be so terrible after all, a few simple words and a child's blood on his hands had brought him crashing back down to earth.
He stood up a moment later, stretching his legs. He didn't want to be here with the waning daybreak anymore.
"The only ambitious choice I made was thinking my ass was gonna find that log comfortable for more than five minutes. Let's go get some breakfast," Guts said, breaking the pause.
Griffith turned to look over his shoulder. The sky beyond him was far lighter now that the earthen red of the behelit resting on his sternum.
"I heard that boy Adonis was killed too," he said suddenly. "What do you think, Guts? Was he cleaved in half with one swing? I wonder if he even had time to realize what was happening before the killing blow."
Unlike Griffith, what was in the child's head had been clear on his face.
The boy had been so fragile. Speared right through and Guts hadn't even felt the weight on his sword. Just the small hand in his, warm and yielding like a robin's egg and the moment had frozen there until the boy finally slouched over into death. No comfort to ease the passing except the arms of his murderer.
And for what?
Guts realized that he still had no answer for Casca, either. An answer for her would mean none left for himself.
"What's done is done. Difficult decisions must sometimes be made. And we are all the better for it, my friend," Griffith said into the pause.
The smaller man then walked past Guts, patting a hand on his shoulder as he moved by. Guts resisted his knee-jerk aversion to the physical contact and said nothing.
"Things are looking up. You'll see," Griffith promised. "Now come. Casca and the others are probably wondering where we are."
Including Griffith and a few other facts of life, Casca was fairly high on the list of things Guts didn't altogether understand. Of course, there was a great difference between understanding something, caring about it, and being forced to care because a certain hellion of a woman would throw things at you until you did.
"I – said – get – out!" Casca growled, punctuating each word with a hurl of whatever was unfortunate enough to be within her grabbing range.
It wasn't that she was often trying to hit him with things, even when provoked. It was just that nobody seemed to rile her up to this extent like he did. Then again, he was sure she'd resented him ever since they'd met, and all that had come after probably hadn't helped.
"Stop trying to break shit!" he said as a shoulder pad went sailing past him out the entrance.
"You won't leave me in peace!" she retorted.
"I didn't come here for you. I came to get my helmet and you just decide to have your time of the month whenever I'm around!"
Guts stepped further into the armoury, if only to avoid looking like an idiot standing cowed in the entrance by a woman. Even if that woman was one of the greatest fighters the Band of the Hawk had ever seen, second only to its leader and Guts himself. Maybe that was why she hated him so much – he'd displaced her. Not that it had been his intention; he didn't care that much either way.
"Your helmet's busted because you left formation and decided to charge the enemy alone again, you asshole! You put everyone at risk by revealing your position and have the nerve to walk around like it's no big deal!" she berated.
He could stay with the Hawk until his hair was grey and she'd still be saying the same old thing, Guts thought. Did she really believe he acted like he did for the hell of it? That he thought nothing of the comrades he fought side by side with?
Although he knew he couldn't physically intimidate Casca, he took another few steps forward in the hopes she would back up – that way, he could get his helmet and leave without trying to get around her, stubborn as she was. He'd already had enough of the conversation and lest she start getting him angry, he wanted to end things quickly.
But she didn't back up. The moment he started moving she lunged with a wide-angled, angry fist designed to break his nose. He seized her arm in the air just before impact, feeling the lean muscle beneath his grip go taught.
If it were someone else, Guts would have struck back.
He knew she'd probably hate him more for the thought, but he couldn't help it. He was rough around the edges, he was unburnished, yet even if Casca hadn't been pretty he could never have brought himself to strike her face. The tiny grain of chivalry that god-knew-how survived in him would rear its head and, because she was also his war comrade and not some stranger, he let the feeling restrain him.
Casca was simmering. She kept her dignity and didn't try to struggle away, but there was colour on her cheekbones and sharpness in her eyes.
"I don't know what more you want from me," Guts said. "I care about Griffith as much as you do. Is what I've shown over these past years not enough for you to stop hating me because of him?"
"I haven't said anything about Griffith," she retorted.
"We've had this fight a hundred times. I'm not an idiot."
"I beg to differ. Taking on a hundred men alone to prove whatever it is you're trying to prove sounds like idiot behaviour to me."
"It was less than a hundred considering you killed a few, but funny you should bring it up since it was you who got us into that mess. How many times was it that I saved your life again?"
"I never asked for any of that!"
"Of course you wouldn't! But you will never have to ask me, Casca!"
Guts realized his admission, the way he'd said it, the moment it registered on his friend's face. He realized how tightly he was gripping her wrist and how close she had to stand to keep her arm relaxed, and the sudden awareness of her body heat.
Her dark, doe-like irises stared through him. Whenever Guts would picture her in his mind, he had always seen those eyes first.
And then Griffith's would follow, like a reminder to Guts that Casca wasn't his to think about.
He let go of her.
"Sorry," he said. "I'll... leave."
He began turning away to do just that when a gentle touch on his arm halted him.
"Guts. Wait." Her voice had lost much of its edge, so though it was still against his better judgment the swordsman returned his focus to Casca.
Her hand moved to hold the upper part of his forearm where it was uncovered by his gauntlet. Her thumb made a few small brushing motions over the skin there, almost like she wasn't aware of the movement.
Guts dragged his gaze up to her face. Her lips were parted slightly, brows creased in residual frustration, as if there were something she wanted to say and didn't know how to put into words.
He knew he wasn't any better with words than she was – the mantle of silver tongue belonged to Griffith. Yet now it was not Griffith's captivating speech but Casca's silence that kept Guts frozen, like a midnight snowfall on a traveller passing by.
"Um," a voice broke in from the entryway. "I really hope I'm not interrupting anything..."
A youthful head of blond hair and a face dusted with freckles peeked around the door frame, one nimble hand giving a wave in the air to help announce its owner's presence.
"Judeau," Casca acknowledged.
"Hey. Can I steal Guts from you? It's not that urgent, I suppose, if you're still talking..."
"It's fine. I was just leaving," Guts replied.
"Oh. Okay, if you say so," Judeau said as Guts walked past him out the exit. "I guess I'll catch you later then, Casca."
Guts didn't bother to pay much attention to the tail end of his companions' farewells, but eventually both Judeau and his voice caught up.
"Did you piss her off again? There's some wonderful testaments to her throwing arm out in the hallway," the knife-thrower himself said, adjusting his stride to stay even with the swordsman.
"Oh," Guts sounded.
"What?"
"I forgot to – nevermind." He let air hiss out between his teeth. "Damn woman."
