You, In Every Lifetime - phichithamsters - Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Ferdinand is minding his own business when the grumpiest man on the entire planet sits down next to him.

Or, that’s how Ferdinand will tell it to his friends later— over drinks and soft pretzels as he recounts his strange encounter— but for the moment, Ferdinand knows nothing of the man who plops down on the very same bench that he himself sits under the shade of a scarlet oak tree.

“Um… good day?” Ferdinand asks, warily testing the waters of communication. It’s a sunny afternoon on his college campus, and since Ferdinand has occupied this bench first, he presumes that he should at least be afforded the luxury of introductions with anyone who decides to join him.

The sullen-looking man turns his head slowly to regard Ferdinand, as if the sound of another person’s voice is the first indication that the bench had been occupied when he sat down. The stranger is dressed almost entirely in black, save for a pair of tiny gold earrings Ferdinand can see glinting in the sunlight, and his hair is a dark mop on his head, almost obscuring one of his eyes.

He scans the length of Ferdinand’s body with his uncovered eye, almost meticulously so, and Ferdinand feels a bit uncomfortable as his gaze lingers on his face.

But the mysterious man doesn’t say anything yet, he just turns away from Ferdinand and sighs rather mightily.

“I’m sorry, have I offended you in some way?” Ferdinand asks, loudly, in the hopes that any other students passing by might hear. His pride is, at the very least, wounded, and he could use some backup if he is going to make a scene.

To his surprise, the man laughs. It’s not a very pleasant sound, a low chuckle that sounds more sinister than joyful, but Ferdinand recognizes it as a laugh nonetheless.

“Here I was, trying to enjoy some solitude on a bench, but it seems I have found the most talkative student at the university,” the man says, sarcasm dripping from his voice like poisoned honey. Ferdinand has half a mind to slap him.

“Excuse me, sir, but you sat down on my bench—“

“Do you personally own this bench?”

“—Well I was sitting here first!” Ferdinand is seething at being interrupted, and while he knows his logic will win him no debates, a man can’t help but defend himself when he’s being affronted.

“I’m terribly sorry, then, Mr…. what did you say your name was?” the man asks.

Ferdinand rolls his eyes. “Ferdinand Baker. As if it matters to you.”

“Nonsense, I always like to personally address the people I have offended,” the man says.

The gall of this person, to sit down on Ferdinand’s bench, and to take offense when Ferdinand tries to strike up a simple conversation. Who does he think he is?

“And who might you be?” Ferdinand asks, so that he may set the record straight.

“Hubert. Rolfe, if you prefer surnames.”

Ferdinand scowls at this Hubert. He’s so pretentious, even his name sounds stuck up.

“Surnames,” he scoffs. “Who calls them ‘surnames’ anymore? Just use ‘last name,’ like the rest of us.”

Hubert, clearly unsullied by Ferdinand’s vicious insult, simply crosses one leg over the other like an old Victorian butler and snickers. “I sat down because I thought you were a man of class, one who would not disturb my musings.” His eyes flick back to Ferdinand for just a moment. “My mistake.”

And because Ferdinand will not have his honor affronted like that, he gasps quite dramatically and turns fully on the bench to face the other man. “I am too a man of class. I am of noble blood. Classiness runs through my very veins.”

Hubert rolls his eyes. “I have had a terribly tiring day today, and bickering with the likes of you is the last thing I would like to do.” He rubs his temples with two slender fingers. “Now, please, if you would just let me sit in peace.”

Maybe Hubert is not falling for Ferdinand’s bluff, or maybe he is simply telling the truth— Ferdinand doesn't have the read on him like he would prefer. But, Ferdinand decides, the best way to end this argument is by simply being himself (and ignoring Hubert’s wishes).

So he stands up, brushes off his grey slacks with his hands in two sure strokes, and loops his satchel over his shoulder. “I will show you just how classy I am, Mr. Rolfe,” Ferdinand says, and holds out his hand. “Come. Let me buy you a cup of coffee.”

Hubert regards Ferdinand’s outstretched hand for a moment, not unlike one would regard a venomous snake, before sighing loudly (again).

He doesn’t take Ferdinand’s hand, but he does stand up off of the bench. “Perhaps I am in such a state that I don’t feel like arguing with you any more,” he says, and then picks up his 19th century briefcase (what kind of undergrad carries around a briefcase, for Goddess’ sake). The buckles are of a rusty gold color, and Hubert snaps them shut with long fingers.

“I’ll join you. Come on, then,” he says, and then: “And please, don’t call me Mr. Rolfe.”

—

The real reason Ferdinand wants to get Hubert alone in a cafe is not because he needs to defend his honor, even though that was a large motivator. No, the reason Ferdinand extended his hand to the grumpy man on the bench is because he felt drawn to him.

Now, Ferdinand Baker is first and foremost a scholar. He studies history, psychology, and anthropology at Garreg Mach University, one of the premier institutions in all of Adrestria. Even better than a triple major, though, Ferdinand has created his own major of study, something interdisciplinary, which he and his advisor have called “The Study of Interpersonal Relationships Through the Ages.”

Nowhere else would Ferdinand’s family money be spent to have Ferdinand study something as trivial and inconsequential as “Interpersonal Relationships Through the Ages,” but here, at Garreg Mach University, Ferdinand is able to research what he pleases and still graduate with a Bachelor’s of Arts. So what Ferdinand does is, in fact, study.

His interest took seed while researching the great founders of the Adrestrian Empire in his early freshman days, as that had always been a subject of curiosity. Originally a single history major, he had been assigned many readings into the more nuanced histories of the Empire’s past. As his reading took him further into the political intrigue and entanglement of much of the empire’s royal family, Ferdinand grew more and more intrigued by the stories that played out, time and time again, within the courts.

Before his sophom*ore year, Ferdinand had created a complex timeline of political rivalries, genealogies, and relationships than had ever been created before (mostly due to the lack of need for such a thing). But Ferdinand’s studies were so deep and rich that at times he felt like he was himself a part of those courts, the ones with the storied names he had read time and time again by lamplight, way past the library’s closing hours.

And as his college years went on, Ferdinand would see the same petty dramatics, the same dry conflicts played out in his own life as the ones he’d read about in the private diaries of the twelfth empress of Adrestria, or the journals of the Foreign Minister. It was like Ferdinand was living out century-old court antics in his 21st-century lifestyle, and it fascinated him.

So not only was Ferdinand studying interpersonal relationships, but he was studying them across the ages, which to some, including his friends, sounded a bit like the theory of “reincarnation.”

Which, when explained at a comprehensive level, might seem a bit preposterous— Ferdinand understands this. But no scholar in the history of the Empire has studied the royal families like he has, the ties and entanglements that kept people together for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

Sometimes, Ferdinand’s hunches are just little feelings, like reading a story of two advisors who lived identical lives almost a thousand years apart, or seeing familiar faces in Court portraits. And sometimes, it’s just meeting a huffy man on a bench who refuses to say a single nice thing to Ferdinand, even when he pays for both of their drinks.

So he doesn’t invite Hubert to coffee to defend his honor, or even just to be nice. Ferdinand has a feeling.

“Tea? Who orders tea at a coffee shop?” Hubert practically balks when Ferdinand picks up his order from the counter, a steaming cup of Southern Fruit Blend.

“Please, drink your hot bean water that I paid for and keep insulting me,” Ferdinand snaps back.

He leads them to a table in the center of the coffee shop, with hardwood legs, uneven from frequent use. The chairs squeak against the shiny wood floors, but the other patrons are used to it.

The cafe is a favorite among Garreg Mach students, as it’s fairly close to campus, offers food that can substitute for a meal, and doesn’t play music with words. The tables are small, but there are a lot of them, so students come from all over to spread out their laptops and notebooks and tablets across as much space as possible and then park themselves there for hours. It is rare that Ferdinand himself comes here for a cup of tea that is not followed by hours of rigorous study.

Hubert sips his coffee, and then says, “I’ve never been here before.” Ferdinand almost snorts into his tea.

Figures. Ferdinand spends more time in this cafe than his apartment, and he’s never seen the man.

“Prefer the library?” he asks, the tone of his voice even but mildly insulting.

Hubert sets down his cup, clasping his hands over his crossed legs. “No,” he says. “I prefer the solitude of the departmental office, or my own personal quarters.”

Ferdinand stifles another scoff, because Hubert speaks like he’s from the 16th century. But he’s not being unfriendly, so Ferdinand decides to be civil as well.

“What do you study?” he asks, taking a delicate sip of his tea.

“Politics,” Hubert says. “And biology.”

“Odd combination,” Ferdinand points out.

Hubert shrugs. “Perhaps. I was pre-medical for a while, before I decided I wanted to also study science of a political kind.” He smirks a bit at his own joke.

“Why?” Ferdinand asks. He’s intrigued now. What kind of career is there for someone who is studying biology and political science?

(Although, Ferdinand has little room to talk, studying interpersonal relationships through the ages and all.)

Hubert lifts his shoulders again, as if he is simply privy to the whims of some other creature, controlling his decisions like a puppeteer. “I have always had an interest in politics. My father was a political advisor, before he passed.”

“Oh? I did not know of a Rolfe in the Adrestrian Parliament,” Ferdinand replies.

Hubert smiles. “You would not have heard of him. His work was more… behind the scenes, we shall say.”

“I see.”

“Behind the scenes” was most likely a thinly veiled code for “undercover operations,” or, political going-ons that would not have to be approved by the Parliament, or even the Chancellor, for that matter.

Well, that might explain Hubert’s love of biology, but his hesitancy to become a doctor.

“And yourself?” Hubert asks.

“Hm?” Ferdinand is not paying attention to the question at all the moment Hubert asks it.

“And yourself?” he repeats. “What do you study?”

“Ah. I was hoping you’d ask.” Ferdinand sets down his tea cup on the saucer and crosses his hands in front of him, elbows on the table. “I too am studying multiple majors, but I have to say, I have three that I’m currently tackling.”

Hubert does not take the bait, other than a simple, “Oh?” and a raised eyebrow.

Ferdinand continues. “I started off with history, but I’m also studying anthropology and psychology. I’ve created my own major, actually.”

“So you technically have only one major,” Hubert says, annoyingly smug.

“That does not lessen the course load!” Ferdinand says, defending himself and his rigorous academic studies. “If anything, it is more challenging to create a major completely from scratch, rather than simply follow some course guidelines the University gives you.”

“Perhaps,” Hubert says, revealing how little he agrees with Ferdinand. Well, no matter. If Hubert doesn’t understand how impressive Ferdinand’s studies are, he will soon. Besides, Ferdinand had not spent $3.35 on black coffee just to have an academic dick-measuring competition with Hubert, even though Ferdinand can and will win.

“Perhaps,” Ferdinand echoes. “But I have combined my three majors—” emphasis on three, “—into an interdisciplinary degree on the Study of Interpersonal Relationships Through the Ages. I’m currently writing my thesis on the Adrestrian courts.”

Hubert raises one long eyebrow. “Interpersonal relationships… through the ages? You may have to explain.”

Ferdinand taps his chin, mostly for show. “Well, it all began when I was studying the early Adrestrian courts, back at the founding of the continental empire, in 1186—”

“Must I endure a history lesson to understand your major?” Hubert interrupts, quite rudely.

Ferdinand shoots him a look. “Yes. It is all very important,” he says, and ignores Hubert’s palpable eye roll. “As I was saying: there isn’t much known about the first Adrestrian courts after the great war that unified Fodlan, but I began researching the early courts when I first came to college.

“It started out as a fun hobby— while I was researching the politics of the time, I would also read court gossip, just for fun. Much of it was written down and preserved, surprisingly.”

(Ferdinand looks out of the corner of his eye to make sure Hubert is still paying attention while he monologues. He is, so Ferdinand continues.)

“While I was entertained by the stories, I began to notice patterns. Certain political rivalries would be played out over multiple generations, but over time, it seemed like the same stories were being told, over and over again. It wasn’t always members of the same families; sometimes, it was completely unrelated strangers, but the narratives were the same.

“It took a lot of research and many, many late nights to start to see these patterns,” Ferdinand says. “But if I looked closely enough, instead of multiple conflicts being played out over centuries, it began to look like one single conflict that was being rehashed, redone, and redrawn over hundreds of generations.”

Pause for effect. This is his big hook— his catch that leaves his audience thirsty for more. He has practiced this speech too many times in front of a mirror in order to explain his atypical field of study, so many times, in fact, that he can recite it while drunk.

(And he has a few times at parties, because students at Garreg Mach University usually only have one pick-up line, and it’s, “What’s your major?”)

“And what is this conflict?” Hubert asks.

Ferdinand smiles widely, because that’s exactly what he had hoped Hubert would ask. “That’s what my senior thesis is on,” he says, smugly.

“I see,” Hubert says. He regards Ferdinand for a moment. “And these… interpersonal relationships, as you call them, why are they important?”

Hm. Here comes the hard part. Ferdinand keeps his smile on and hopes it’s good enough to charm Hubert into believing his next words.

“Well… let’s just say, the conflicts are not the only things that are similar about these people. I believe… well, I believe that they are the same people, living out their same lives in different ages.”

For a moment, Hubert doesn’t say anything, like he’s thinking deeply about Ferdinand’s theory. Like maybe, he might be able to see how this could possibly be—

“So, reincarnation,” Hubert says, and then he breaks into a grin himself, but it’s a far cry from charming. “And here I thought you were a real scholar, Ferdinand.”

The way Hubert says his name stings, but Ferdinand has been in this position more times than he can count. Hubert isn’t the first person who has told him he’s crazy, but Hubert is the first person he’s felt a connection to like this.

And if Ferdinand is a scholar, like he himself claims, then he can’t let Hubert slip away.

“Well, it’s been a nice conversation,” Hubert says, pushing back his chair. “But I don’t have time for fantastical theories about reincarnation—“

“Wait! Please,” Ferdinand says, swallowing his pride with an outstretched hand. Hubert pauses, halfway out of his seat with his coffee cup in hand, but he doesn’t move.

“Just, give me a few more minutes,” Ferdinand asks. “Hear me out.”

Hubert sighs, and then checks his watch, and then, miraculously, he sits back down.

“I invited you to coffee today because I felt like we had a connection.”

Hubert raises both eyebrows, and Ferdinand realizes how much he sounds like he’s flirting.

Okay. Try again. “Not like that,” he says, and Hubert’s shoulders relax an almost imperceptible amount. “I felt… like I had met you before, in some other lifetime.”

Hubert begins to roll his eyes.

“—And before you roll your eyes!” Ferdinand shouts, startling some studying students nearby. He lowers his voice. “Before you roll your eyes, this isn’t a feeling I have experienced before. It’s like…”

Ferdinand struggles for the correct words. “It’s like I can feel my research. All of the effects of the reincarnations—“ he lowers his voice when he says the word, lest he embarrass himself and Hubert further, “—everything. It’s like I’m feeling what they felt. The old Adrestrians.”

Ferdinand finishes speaking, but does not let go of his breath. He has laid all of his cards on the table, and now all he has to do is wait for Hubert’s response.

It’s a terrible thing that Ferdinand has always been impatient.

It feels like centuries pass before Hubert even moves, and when he does, he sighs, smaller than before, but it still sounds of disappointment.

How unfortunate. Ferdinand is disappointed too.

“I hope your research treats you well, Ferdinand,” Hubert says, something like pity in his voice. “Thank you for the coffee.”

Ferdinand nods. “Of course. I hope your day improves, Hubert.”

And with that, Hubert gives an awkward little bow, and walks out of the cafe.

—

When Ferdinand returns to his apartment that afternoon, the first thing he does is research Hubert’s entire ancestry line.

Not because he’s a stalker, but because he is curious. Ferdinand will admit, there is something slightly indecorous about the entire affair, but he has a subscription to Ancestry.com from the school, and he intends to put it to good use.

What he finds doesn’t surprise him. Hubert doesn’t seem like a very open person, and neither is his family. There are few records of the Rolfe family, and Ferdinand can only trace the name back a few generations before it gets muddled in second marriages and legal name changes. And since many members of Hubert’s family tree have blank spaces where documents are supposed to indicate their existence, Ferdinand finds more dead ends than live ones.

He is able to trace one particular line back quite a while, until digitized records cannot fill in any more blanks. He’s within a few hundred years of the first Adrestrian court (and the founding of the new Adrestrian empire in 1186), and even though there is only one person he can pinpoint as being a direct relative, the last name “von Vestra” is sure to lead somewhere.

So next, Ferdinand checks some of his own archives— a collection of overdue library books, old scrolls he’s bought from quirky collectors, a binder of annotated essays done by other historians— and he searches for the von Vestra name.

And sure enough, within minutes Ferdinand finds proof of a von Vestra in some noble ledgers from the late 1200s, only a few generations from the first courts. If the von Vestras were a part of the third or fourth Adrestrian courts, it’s likely that they were in the first Adrestrian court.

This is exciting to Ferdinand for a number of reasons. First, many of the records from the first Adrestrian courts are scant, at best, and have been badly preserved. Unlike the other eras of the Empire, the first empress of Adrestria, Edelgard, kept many secrets which were lost to the flow of time, and scholars still to this day are trying to determine the exact events that led to her coronation.

And second, if Hubert is directly related to someone who was a part of that first founding empire, he could have valuable information on his family that would help Ferdinand’s research, as well as complete the archives with essential knowledge of that time period.

Ferdinand knows that he was able to trace his family line back to some of the later courts, right before Adrestria adopted a parliamentary system and dissolved the nobility, but he’s never had access to someone so close to the source.

He immediately has the urge to contact Hubert.

But, Ferdinand reasons with himself, he’ll need more proof, if Hubert’s attitude at the coffee shop today was any indication. It won’t be enough to speculate that Hubert’s relatives were a part of the first courts— he will have to prove that they were.

Which will prove to be a problem, because the records of the first courts are few and far between. But as Ferdinand’s research over the past three years had shown him, if he is to find the information anywhere, it will be at Garreg Mach University.

Named for the very monastery that used to train young knights and nobles, Garreg Mach University was built to preserve the legacy of the institution (some even said it was built on the foundations of the old cathedral, but those were rumors at best). The university excelled at the arts, histories, and humanities, but it had since established robust engineering, robotics, and computational science departments as well. It stands as one of the top institutions in the country, and its library lives up to the university’s reputation.

Ferdinand says a quick hello to the library desk attendant, a girl with short purple hair hiding in a large black hoodie (she must be new; Ferdinand doesn’t recognize her as one of the library’s usuals). But Ferdinand doesn’t need to ask for directions or shelving information, as he’s headed to his very favorite section of the library— the Adrestrian Archives. It’s on the first floor, serving as a display, because the Garreg Mach library had the largest collection of primary source material from the Adrestrian Empire in the entire continent.

Most of the materials are kept in a nice, temperature controlled room in dim light, but the special records, the really old ones— those are kept behind a locked door that only the librarians have access to.

Luckily, Ferdinand had gotten access during his freshman year, when he begged the head librarian to allow him to enter the room at his own discretion. He had to spend the entire year reshelving books, helping students navigate the stacks, and even taking a special class on book preservation, but finally (with permission from his advisor and the Dean), Ferdinand was granted almost unlimited access to the Adrestrian Archives special room. All he needs is his key.

Ferdinand strolls up to the circulation desk with the purple-haired girl. “Hello,” he says again. “My name is Ferdinand Baker, and I would like to access the Archive's special room.”

The girl squints at him for a second, nods, and then types something into the computer. While it loads, she chews on the string of her hoodie.

“How are you this evening?” Ferdinand asks, trying to make conversation. The girl whips her head around, like she’s forgotten his presence already, and she stares at him like a deer in headlights until the computer pings.

And then she’s back to normal, clicking a few buttons. She then pushes back from her desk to scurry to the back office (likely to retrieve Ferdinand’s key), and then returns to the desk and holds out her small hand with an old brass key (Ferdinand is right).

He takes it from her. “Thank you,” he says. She just squeaks and retreats further into her hoodie.

Luckily, Ferdinand has accessed the rare books room more times than he can count, so the strange interaction with the purple-haired girl doesn’t faze him. He strolls back to the Archives, behind the last stacks, and unlocks the door with the large key (which is just for show, because everything else in the library is card-operated).

Then, Ferdinand suits up— a pair of gloves, custom wattage headlamp, booties for his shoes. He double checks his ensemble before picking up the first tome, lest he damage one of the precious archives, and begins to read.

He starts with old ledgers from the courts, trying to find dates that align with the ones of the first court. The first ledger directs him to a second, and that one to a third, before he even begins to read about records from the correct time period.

He finds an entry about the exchange of currency at the beginning of the Empire’s unification which looks promising. That leads him to a moneylender’s journal, which mentions some of the members of the first court by name. Ferdinand’s heart quickens. He’s getting somewhere.

He jots down the name in a small notebook. He exits the room for a moment, accessing the computer again to see if the library owns any books that mention some of the names he's read about.

Caspar von Bergliez.

Petra Macneary.

Dorothea Arnault.

He searches each one, but can only find a small entry from the journal of Petra Macneary. That’s a start, he thinks. Ferdinand notes its storage location, and then returns to the rare books room.

There, in a small filing cabinet, he finds a few pages of a diary entry, pressed into plastic bags for safekeeping. They’re in another language, so Ferdinand painstakingly copies the texts, exits the rare books room, and then gets to translating.

He’s surprised to find references to two more court nobles, ones who are not mentioned by name, but by legacy. Petra describes the two men as “the Emperor’s Confidante” and the “Noblest Noble.” At least, that’s an approximate translation— Google Translate is not the most reliable linguistic tool.

Even if he can’t find Hubert’s direct ancestors, tonight’s research has gotten Ferdinand further than he thought. He has three new names of nobles that were parts of the Empire’s first court, and two monikers, which he hopes to learn the names of soon. Whether or not he ever speaks to Hubert again, tonight’s research is about more than that— it’s about more than both of them.

Satisfied, Ferdinand exits the rare books room once again to access the computer. He inputs a search for “The Emperor's Confidant + The Noblest Noble” and is surprised to find a hit in the main stacks, in a collection of portraits that has been digitized and reprinted. Hoping to learn the names of these men, Ferdinand notes the stack's number, locks the rare books room, and heads up the stairs to the library’s art section.

His heart is beating widely in his chest, a palpable excitement that Ferdinand hasn’t experienced in quite some time. The chance to lay eyes upon portraits of the very people that had founded the entire Empire— could this be the big break in his research that Ferdinand is searching for?

Locating the stacks, Ferdinand’s fingers trace the spines of the books until he finds the one he wants. The book is hefty and dusty, and it looks like it’s barely been touched since its first shelving. Ferdinand brings it to a nearby table and lays it out, the spine cracking satisfyingly as he flips through the pages.

Referencing his notes, Ferdinand should be able to find the portrait somewhere in chapter three—

He freezes. The picture in front of him is a grainy scan of what is captioned to be the first emperor, flanked by her two closest advisors— the Emperor’s Confidant and the Noblest Noble.

But it isn’t the emperor’s striking appearance, her white hair, or the eagle perched on her throne that makes Ferdinand’s blood run cold.

It’s the man staring back at him, on the emperor’s left: with flowing ginger hair and a suit of red and gold, the Noblest Noble is unmistakably him— Ferdinand is starting at a picture of himself.

Before he even has time to process the excitement bubbling up within him, to address the thousands of questions spiraling in his brain, Ferdinand looks at the portrait more closely, at the man on Edelgard’s right.

And although his face is hidden by shadow, as if he was trying to avoid the painter’s eye, Ferdinand would recognize those long, slender fingers anywhere: they belonged to a man named Hubert Rolfe, and Ferdinand had met him, completely by chance, just a few hours ago.

No, this couldn’t simply be chance. It has to be fate.

With questions like “What does this mean?” and “Why are we connected?” buzzing under his skin, Ferdinand knows there is only one person who he wants to talk to about all of this.

The one person who had practically laughed at the idea of something like this mere hours before.

Taking a deep breath, Ferdinand opens Facebook and types in Hubert’s name, finding a single result for “Hubert Rolfe” and “Garreg Mach University,” even though it is woefully without a profile picture (which fits Ferdinand’s perception of the man, but also makes him seem a tad like a serial killer).

Ferdinand sends a friend request, and then opens Messenger to type out a message:

Ferdinand: Hello, it’s Ferdinand Baker. From the bench.

Ferdinand: And the coffee shop.

Ferdinand: I have something you need to see.

Ferdinand: In the library.

Ferdinand: It’s important.

Ferdinand is a proud double texter, but his habits are exacerbated in situations of stress— so Hubert gets about 15 more messages.

When a minute passes and Hubert doesn’t respond, Ferdinand gets impatient and calls him on the app, even though he’s in the middle of the library and Hubert hasn’t even accepted his friend request.

“Did you just call me on Messenger at midnight?” Hubert answers, disdain clear and present in his tone.

“Is it midnight already?” Ferdinand asks, and then, right— back to the important subject at hand. “You weren’t answering your messages.”

“Had it occurred to you that I might have been in the middle of typing when you called me?” Hubert says, stressing the word “called” like it’s personally offensive.

But Ferdinand is impatient, and news like this waits for no man, regardless of how much said man might hate talking on the phone. “Hubert. Check your messages,” he says, and then snaps a picture of the open book in front of him, the one with the picture of the two of them.

A moment passes, and the picture goes from sent to delivered as Hubert grumbles over the speaker, and then the message changes to seen, and the phone goes quiet.

Despite himself, Ferdinand breaks into a wide grin. He feels a little manic. Maybe this is what evil geniuses feel like.

Silence, and then: “Where are you?”.

“Library, second floor, back left,” Ferdinand says, not even trying to hide his glee. “How fast can you be here?”

—

It turns out that Hubert Rolfe moves very quickly, given the right motivation. While he dragged his feet all the way to the coffee shop this morning, he is at the library in seven minutes flat, hair windswept like he’d run all the way over, but not the slightest bit out of breath.

Hubert stares at the open book on the table between them, one finger on his chin, but he hasn’t said a single word since he arrived, and Ferdinand is getting impatient.

“Well?” he asks, and Hubert slowly raises his head to look at him, clearly annoyed.

“Well, what?” he counters. “Am I supposed to understand what this means?”

“Well, no.” Ferdinand balks a little under his sinister gaze. “But, for one thing, isn’t this exciting? A little scary?”

“And,” he continues, “You have to admit— I was right.”

Hubert sighs, long and weary, and Ferdinand realizes that he has already grown accustomed to the sound in the span of only a single afternoon.

“Perhaps your theory—” he stresses the word “theory” with his eyes narrowed “—could be at work here. Or perhaps it could be something else.”

“Oh, please, Hubert!” Ferdinand is close to raising his voice from exasperation. “Can you just admit that this might be proof that we were connected in the past, just like I said earlier?”

Hubert rolls his eyes. “Your optimism is relentless, and while I would scoff, I have to admit…” He pauses to suck in a long breath, like he’s in pain. “This evidence is incredibly intriguing, and I have motivation to believe you.”

Ferdinand’s eyes widen and his eyebrows go up. He nods, hoping Hubert will offer some follow up.

“And, well, I can trace my ancestry back quite a bit, and there is reason to suggest I have… noble blood, as you yourself said earlier. I believe my family had a place in the early Adrestrian courts.”

Ferdinand nods along eagerly, because he knows this, but doesn’t want to reveal just how close his behavior earlier had verged on stalking.

“And I’d be lying if I said this red-haired fellow doesn’t look strikingly similar to you,” Hubert says.

“His hair is exceptional, don’t you think?” Ferdinand says with a cheeky grin. While Ferdinand’s own hair is a short bob, just above his shoulder, his historical doppleganger’s hair reaches the middle of his back.

Hubert does not answer.

“Did you discover the names of these two men?” he asks, instead. Ferdinand fills him in quickly on the research he did to find this image, and then admits that he hadn’t looked further. Once he’d laid eyes on the image, he had called Hubert immediately.

“I see,” is all Hubert says, before flipping through a few pages. Then, he shuts the book suddenly and disappears into the stacks, leaving a very confused Ferdinand in his midst.

“Hubert? Where are you going?” Ferdinand pushes back from the desk, the scrape of the chair echoing in the library. It’s later than Ferdinand realized, and the stacks are mostly abandoned at this hour.

He walks the aisles until he finds Hubert in one, illuminated by the stark fluorescent lights on the library ceiling. He’s holding a book open in his hands.

“Why did you run off?” Ferdinand asks, but Hubert doesn’t respond, so he walks up the aisle to meet him, trying to peer at the book over his shoulder. “What are you reading?”

Wordlessly, Hubert hands him the book and points to a line on the page. Ferdinand reads.

Though the full names are not accurately reported anywhere else, one source close to the Vestra family recovered a journal that belonged to a man in the first Adrestrian Empire, who was known for many years only as the “Emperor’s Confidante.” That man, whose journal was penned under the name Hubert von Vestra, also speaks of the first Emperor Edelgard’s other advisor, a man known as “The Noblest Noble,” or, Ferdinand von Aegir…

Ferdinand blinks once, then again, but he cannot make sense of the words in front of him anymore. The only thing he can read is “Ferdinand von Aegir,” over and over again.

“That’s… that’s my name,” he whispers, looking up at Hubert, who is as equally pale as he himself feels.

“And that is mine,” Hubert says, his voice hoarse.

They are both silent for a moment, the sound of their shaky breaths filling the dim space of the crowded bookshelves.

Finally, Hubert clears his throat. “I suppose… you may have been right,” he says, and Ferdinand balks at him, almost more surprised at Hubert’s concession than at their discovery.

“I never thought it could be something like… this, though,” Ferdinand says, making vague gestures at the page.

Hubert nods. “At the very least, we have more work to do.”

“We?” Ferdinand’s eyes go wide, but Hubert ignores him (again).

“We can start tomorrow. I do suppose I owe you a cup of tea,” Hubert says, and despite everything, Ferdinand smiles a bit at that.

“I would like that, very much. Tomorrow it is, and coffee is on you this time,” he says.

Hubert sighs again, and Ferdinand can already tell he’s going to get very used to that sound.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

The next morning, Ferdinand messages Hubert with his plan.

While he’d hardly gotten sleep the night before— the excitement, nerves, and all the other possibilities of what his research could mean kept him wide awake— Ferdinand had taken some time to devise a plan before passing out, facedown, on his desk from sheer exhaustion around the hours of 3 and 4 AM. In the morning, he’s come up with this: after his classes end for the day, Ferdinand is going to pay a visit to the smartest man he knows, in hopes of finding some more answers.

Hubert, unfortunately, does not respond to Ferdinand’s Facebook friend request, but he does message back at 8:12 AM. Does he have an early class, or does the man simply not sleep? Ferdinand knows both kinds of students.

They agree to meet outside of the Political Science building after Hubert’s last class of the day (which he reluctantly produces the name of after much of Ferdinand’s curious prodding: Political Parties and Interest Groups in Fhirdiad), and together they walk over to where Ferdinand’s incredibly smart friend lives.

Ferdinand realizes that they must look quite the pair walking across the grassy quad of campus— the student body Vice President of Organizations and a Victorian goth who looks like he might turn to dust if the sun hits him at just the right angle, but Ferdinand Baker keeps all sorts of company, and he is, if nothing else, a man of the people.

“A freshman dorm?” Hubert asks, when they finally reach their destination. “Please do not tell me this scholar you spoke of is a freshman.”

“Hubert, don’t be ageist,” Ferdinand quips, although he absolutely agrees with Hubert— he would rather live in ignorance for the rest of his life than consult with a freshman.

“But don’t worry,” Ferdinand adds. “He’s an RA.”

“I see.”

Ferdinand texts his contact to let them into the building, and a minute later, Lindhardt Byrne pushes open the heavy glass doors to let them into the building.

“Good afternoon, Linhardt!” Ferdinand says, following him inside the building. He notices Linhardt is wearing a pair of slippers. “Or should I say good morning?”

Hubert looks personally offended at the thought that Linhardt would have just woken up at 4:30 PM, but Linhardt just chuckles lightly as he leads them into the building and says, “I just woke up from a nap.”

They climb up two flights of stairs, heat rising as they ascend, and Linhardt leads them to his room where he’s propped his door open. Blessedly cool air hits their faces as the door swings open— Linhardt’s RA privileges must extend to getting a free AC unit installed in his window.

Only once they are all packed into Lindhardt’s single room does Ferdinand make his introductions.

“Hubert, this is Linhardt, the smartest student on campus,” he says. Linhardt nods, not seemingly humbled by Ferdinand’s words at all. Hubert, on the other hand, looks like he doesn’t believe a word Ferdinand says.

“And Linhardt, this is Hubert. He’s my… um, well…” Ferdinand struggles for a definition. What is he supposed to introduce Hubert as? They aren’t friends, since Hubert seems to want to have as little to do with Ferdinand as possible. And they aren’t classmates, roommates, or any other explicable pairing. They’re… research partners? Study buddies?

Two men inexplicably bound to each other by some unknown fate, the likes of which Ferdinand is trying to unravel by bringing the mystery to Linhardt?

He looks at Hubert for assistance, and Hubert looks back, equally perplexed, and incredibly unhelpful.

Ferdinand clears his throat. “We’re… well, we met yesterday, and I think we are connected in some way. That’s what we’ve come to you to get help with.”

“Connected, you say?” Linhardt asks, raising one eyebrow slightly, insinuating even more slightly.

Hubert scoffs. “Not like that,” he says, and while Ferdinand agrees, he is a little offended at the speed in which Hubert produced his scoff.

Ferdinand bites his tongue, but he makes a note to bring it up with Hubert later, because Ferdinand is an incredibly attractive man (and anyone would be lucky to have him).

“It’ll take a minute to explain, but this might help,” Ferdinand says, pulling up the picture Ferdinand von Aegir and Hubert von Vestra from the book last night.

“I’m not really a visual learner,” Linhardt says, but he takes Ferdinand’s phone.

For a good minute, Linhardt stares at the picture on the screen, and then up at them, and then back down again. Ferdinand fidgets with his backpack straps, discomforted by the silence. He sneaks a glance at Hubert. He looks bored.

“Huh,” Linhardt says, finally. “I have to say, this is quite intriguing.”

Ferdinand does a mental victory dance. Not much excites Linhardt— he is a hard man to please and even harder to interest, so the fact that he seems to be intrigued by this information makes Ferdinand’s heart sing.

“So I assume this is you two,” Linhardt says, not a question but a statement. Ferdinand nods. “I see,” and then: “I’d love to hear more.”

Success! “Shall we sit?” Ferdinand offers.

The three of them get settled in Linhardt’s small dorm room— Ferdinand and Linhardt on the floor, and Hubert on the sole desk chair. Ferdinand had originally thought they could all sit on the floor, because there weren’t enough seats in Linhardt’s room and Ferdinand did not want to cross the social barrier of asking Linhardt to let him sit in his bed, but Hubert griped about it so much that Ferdinand gave up and let him pull up a chair, totally ruining Ferdinand’s fantasy of conspirators around a campfire, but it’s fine .

Their sitting arrangement is a bit odd, with Hubert towering over them, but Ferdinand pulls out from his backpack the files he’d optimistically gathered earlier that morning in preparation for this meeting.

But before Ferdinand can even ask him for help, he has to explain their little situation.

“So,” Ferdinand begins, “The short version is that I met Hubert yesterday completely by chance, and then last night I came across this image in my readings.”

Ferdinand does not mention his extensive background research of Hubert’s ancestry, but that he’ll cross that bridge if they come to it.

“And, of course, you already know how I’m researching reincarnation,” Ferdinand lowers his voice a bit, as if the newfound proof of his theory is enough to make his research illegal or taboo in some way, “so I need help finding out more information about these two men specifically—“ he points to the past versions of Ferdinand and Hubert— “as well as more information about the first Adrestian court.”

Linhardt taps his chin. “That’ll be hard. Most of that court’s records are not easy to find.”

“I know,” Ferdinand nods. “Other than Emperor Edelgard the First, hardly anything remains—“

Hubert sighs loudly, cutting him off. Ferdinand whips his head around to face his short-tempered companion. “Can I help you, Hubert?”

“I’m just wondering,” he emphasizes the word wondering, “if I even need to be here at all?”

He leans back in his chair, and it creaks precariously. “It seems like you and Linhardt are simply playing catch up. I don’t see a reason to waste my time like this further.”

Ferdinand has a thousand insults on his tongue, but he bites them back, because they aren’t just bickering on a bench anymore, they are spending time with Linhardt, whom Ferdinand greatly respects.

Ferdinand takes a long, calming breath. “Please, Hubert, if you would be so kind as to stay,” he says through a forced smile and gritted teeth. “I didn’t get to explain my entire theory yesterday night, or at the coffee shop either, so I would appreciate your patience if you could stick around a little longer .”

Ferdinand feels like he might explode from trying to contain his annoyance at Hubert’s blatant rudeness, but he tries to just simmer to himself. Linhardt looks between the two of them.

“Isn’t this about you as well?” Linhardt asks, addressing Hubert. “What could be more important than learning about your previous life?”

Linhardt blinks his big eyes back to Ferdinand. “If anything, I would like to learn more.”

Hubert stares at Linhardt for a moment, like he’s affronted that Linhardt would have the audacity to speak to him so directly. But, to Linhardt’s credit, Hubert shuts his mouth, sits back in his chair, and does not protest further.

Maybe he should keep Linhardt around more often.

“Anyways,” Ferdinand steers the conversation back. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to find much about these two men, especially on such short notice as this, so I instead turned my attention to some of my other research.

Ferdinand pulls out a binder, created fresh last night with multicolored tabs and three year’s worth of thesis work, all organized for quick digestion and easy skimming. “Instead, I was thinking we could look into the other potential reincarnates that I’ve found over the years, to see if there is a link between their lines and ours.”

Linhardt nods, which Ferdinand takes as a sign to continue, so he launches into his theory.

Over the past year or so, Ferdinand has found a few connections in the courts he now assumes to be reincarnations. What started out as conjecture— sets of people living similar lives or stories— turned into more concrete evidence as Ferdinand tracked birth dates and death dates. Currently, he has a few pairs of individuals who are likely reincarnation candidates simply due to the similarities of their lives and also the fact that one died and the other was born on the same day.

“For instance,” Ferdinand holds up a folder with two slips of paper taped to the front— a newspaper birth announcement and an obituary— “Baldur von Underwoode was born on this day in 1497, and Emile Garfield passed away on that date, around the very same time.”

He passes the folder to Linhardt, and gives another example to Hubert, two women of another potential reincarnation line.

“So you think these people are reincarnations of each other?” Linhardt asks.

Ferdinand nods. “Yes. Not only do their births and deaths align, but look at this—“ he opens the folder and pulls out some more files: a photocopied journal, another newspaper article, and a quote from a book, “these two lives very similar lives. Both of them cheated on their wives and were caught, it was a big scandal at the time, and both either got together with another partner near the end of their lives. One married his best friend of 40 years in secret right before he died, and the other moved in with a neighbor at 80 years old.”

Linhardt skims the files he is pointing at, and Ferdinand pauses for questions.

“And what do these women have in common?” Hubert asks, and Ferdinand has to stop himself from rolling his eyes, because it’s all explained in the folder there, if Hubert would simply find his basic reading comprehension skills.

He briefly summarizes the stories of the two women, Celestria de Silva and Elise von Martin. Celestria was born first, and on the day she died, Elise von Martin came into the world on the other side of the country. Both were major political players that used their husbands’ influences to rise in the nobility. Their stories were so similar, in fact, that Elise was constantly referenced as a “more successful Celestria” during her time in the courts.

“Do you believe these two pairs to be connected?” Hubert asks, the first helpful question he’s asked all day. “And if so, does gender not factor into the reincarnation?”

Ferdinand shrugs. “I don’t know, honestly. They are far enough apart in time that they could be, but I can not be for certain.”

Hubert nods and doesn’t say anything more, and in the most surprising twist of all, goes back to reading Ferdinand’s notes.

Ferdinand feels a swell of pride in his chest.

“So, what I hear you saying is that these reincarnations of yours can be traced by birth and death dates, right?” Linhardt asks, and Ferdinand is already nodding before he finishes, because of course the smartest guy he knows would understand exactly what he is trying to do!

Linhardt continues. “And you want to focus your investigation of your personal— hypothetical— reincarnation, your connection to the two men from the First Empire, by looking at these dates?”

“Yes! Exactly!” Ferdinand can not contain his excitement any longer, and he pumps one of his fists in the air. He turns to Hubert. “See? Smartest guy I know.”

Linhardt smiles. “So, Ferdinand, when were you born?”

Before he can answer, Hubert speaks. “But reasonably, we can’t just look into every person that has died on our days of birth, and then trace it back from there,” he says. “That would span almost… Two thousand years...” he looks up at the ceiling, like he’s trying to think hard about something.

“56 generations?” Linhardt offers. Hubert looks annoyed.

“Something like that,” he huffs. “And there are seven billion people on the planet. Do you know how many die every day? How many we’d have to sort through?”

Now, Ferdinand is not a showman, but he is not above some showmanship. Hubert set him up perfectly for his big reveal— this was all part of the plan he thought up last night, but he wanted to make Hubert and Linhardt arrive at it organically by way of a friendly discussion.

“I thought of that problem too,” Ferdinand says, playing up the distress. “But, I think we shouldn’t focus on ourselves.”

He pulls out the picture of Ferdinand von Aegir and Hubert von Vestra once more. “I think we should focus on them.”

If Ferdinand had a mic, he would have dropped it.

And that’s where I— we need your help, Linhardt,” he says, glancing at Hubert to make sure he is still planning on helping. “If anyone can get their hands on records from the first court, it would be you.”

Ferdinand is aggrandizing for Linhardt’s pride at this point, but it works, and a tiny, pleased smile plays on Linhardt’s lips. He even seems to sit up straighter, which is noticeable, because Ferdinand has never seen him in any position taller than a slouch.

“I’m in,” Linhardt says. “If anything, my old research was getting a bit boring. I needed a new project anyway.”

“Thank you so much, Linhardt,” Ferdinand says, and then nudges Hubert’s leg, urging him to follow suit. While Hubert’s reluctant “thank you,” can barely be heard over Linhardt's desk fan, Ferdinand must admit, it is a start.

Linhardt, on the other hand, is already mumbling to himself. “If I take a nap now, I can check out the inter library loan system during lecture.” He shuffles some papers to the side of his desk, revealing a laptop buried beneath. “Then, during 251, I can review the slides from the Seiros lecture.”

Hubert gives Ferdinand a look, and clears his throat to get Linhardt’s attention. “Why don’t you investigate the ILL system now, so that you can participate in your lecture and you don’t have to make it up during another class?”

Linhardt looks at Hubert like he cannot understand the words coming out of Hubert’s mouth. Ferdinand wants to scold him for being so rude. What one man does with his college schedule is his own business and no one else’s.

In the end, both of them ignore him.

—

Outside of Linhardt’s dorm, Ferdinand stops Hubert.

From walking away, that is.

“Hubert? Where are you going? We still have much to discuss!” Ferdinand calls after him. Hubert sure has long legs. Maybe that’s how he gets around so quickly.

Hubert barely spares him a passing glance as Ferdinand catches up to him. “Back to my dormitory. I have work to do.”

Ferdinand wants to ask what in Fodlan could be more important than this, but he tries a different angle. “You still owe me a drink.”

Hubert pauses, like he is possibly taking a moment to consider Ferdinand’s offer, but then continues to walk. Ferdinand sighs and jogs to catch up with him.

“Hubert!” he calls, again. “I thought we were working on this together!”

“And what makes you think I can’t accomplish the same amount of work— no, more — on my own, without your constant chattering in my ear?” he asks.

Constant chattering? Ferdinand has been nothing but pleasant and accommodating during the almost-24 hours that he and Hubert have known each other. It is almost insulting, the level of disrespect and disdain that Hubert has shown for him for absolutely no good reason.

This man, Ferdinand decides, is either far too sensitive, or he has some kind of personal vendetta against making friends. While other men might shirk at a challenge of this grandeur, Ferdinand himself rises to the occasion.

He will break down Hubert’s walls, and so help him Goddess, they will become friends.

Ferdinand stops walking, crosses his arms, and says, “I don’t know why you are so insistent upon working alone, but you said yourself last night that you would help me uncover the mysteries of this project.”

Thankfully, Hubert stops walking. He doesn’t turn around, but still, he is standing still for the moment. Ferdinand continues.

“I don’t know what kind of resources you have, but I do know that I am the only student on campus that has unlimited access to the Rare Books Room, as well as three years worth of study on this subject matter. You are welcome to work on this alone, but I doubt you will get anywhere without me.”

He pauses. “I understand this is scary and fantastic and a little bit mind-blowing, but you’re a part of this too, now, and you said you would help me. Well, this is what helping me looks like. Take it or leave it.”

Hubert’s hands clench tightly by his sides for a quick second before he releases them, stretching out his fingers before balling them into fists again. Ferdinand puffs out his chest and stands his ground. If this is the moment of truth, so be it. Ferdinand is not going down without a fight, but he hopes this won’t turn to actual blows.

And then, Hubert turns on his heel.

“Hubert?” Ferdinand calls out, not sure whether to chase him or stand frozen in his tracks. “Where are you going?”

“Cafe,” Hubert snaps. “Catch up. I’m buying coffee, and we are sitting down and working out a schedule.”

Ferdinand jogs to catch up to him, no longer suppressing his wide smile.

—

In the same cafe in which they sat one day before, Ferdinand ponders his options. The tea selection isn’t listed on the large menu boards behind the counter, but Ferdinand knows the blends they offer almost by heart. He is, however, considering choosing something other than a tea today, though, because last night’s studying left him with little sleep. In the sleepy, serene cafe atmosphere, Ferdinand has already had to blink himself awake thrice.

Hubert orders a large black coffee and steps to the side, signaling Ferdinaind’s turn to order.

“Perhaps I will order a chai today,” he says, mostly to himself. And then, directing his question to the cashier, “Which of these—” he squints at the menu boards “— ‘ health boosts’ would have the most caffeine? And, follow up: do you think that an extra strength Gogi Shot would taste good in my tea?”

Off to his right, Hubert scoffs.

“Here to judge my drink order again, Hubert?” Ferdinand asks, rolling his eyes and mouthing an apology to the barista.

“Yes, in fact, I am,” Hubert says. “Why go to all of the trouble of ordering a drink with all of these fancy extras, when you could simply drink coffee and save money?”

“There is only one problem with that logic,” Ferdinand says. “I do not like the taste of coffee. Never have. I find it far too bitter.”

Hubert sighs. “You do know, they make drinks from coffee that don’t taste bitter.”

Ferdinand frowns. “But won’t it still taste like coffee?”

“Yes,” Hubert rolls his eyes. “He’ll have a peppermint mocha latte,” he tells the cashier.

Since when does Hubert order for him? “That was bold,” Ferdinand remarks as they walk over to the other side of the counter to wait for their drinks.

“Trust me. This will not taste like coffee in the slightest, and you will at least get more caffeine than you would drinking your regular tea blends,” Hubert says.

Unremarkably, Ferdinand does not believe him, but, since Hubert has paid for both of their drinks, he will give it a try. And if he hates it, which he will, Ferdinand will simply buy something else.

Their orders are called— a plain, steaming cup for Hubert and something covered in whipped cream and sprinkles for himself. Ferdinand wrinkles his nose at the sight, and tries not to spill as they make their way over to a table nestled in the cafe’s corner.

Hubert takes a large swig of his coffee without batting an eye; it’s unnerving, almost. Ferdinand takes a moment to size up his drink— he likes peppermint tea (in fact, he’s never met a tea he doesn’t like), but he has never tried this so-called “mocha,” and he’s not looking forward to it. Bracing himself, Ferdinand brings the festive-looking mug to his lips.

His eyes widen. “Is this… coffee?”

Hubert takes another sip of his own beverage, looking incredibly smug and satisfied. “Technically, it’s espresso, but yes. I assume that you are for the first time enjoying a coffee drink.”

“It’s just so pleasant!” Ferdinand exclaims. “Is there cocoa in this? And the hint of peppermint, oh, this is delightful!” He takes a longer drink, savoring the warmth that floods his body.

He levels Hubert with a glance. “How did you know I have a sweet tooth?”

Hubert scoffs, almost like an actual laugh , and says, “You have a look about you,” and maybe for the first time, Ferdinand actually understands Hubert’s cryptic musings.

“I suppose I do,” Ferdinand smiles. “So, shall we get down to business?”

They spend the next several minutes sorting through their schedules. Ferdinand learns that Hubert has two jobs, researching in the Molecular Biology department as well as something administrative in the Political Science department, and these take up the majority of his time. With some prodding, he also finds out that Hubert is on the University’s Quidditch team, which delights Ferdinand to literally no end.

Ferdinand himself has quite a few activities, from student government to the university’s Equestrian club (they have to meet off-campus, but Ferdinand is a proud member). He doesn’t have a job, but his parents’ weekly allowance (for rent and “other expenses”) keeps Ferdinand living comfortably. And without a job, Ferdinand has more time for other extracurriculars, namely: a whole lot of meetings.

“You’re kidding,” Hubert says. “You don’t have a single free hour until—” he squints at Ferdinand’s schedule “—11:00 PM on Tuesdays?”

Ferdinand nods proudly. Some people say that Garreg Mach University has a stress culture, but he doesn’t let it get to him. He just stays busy and gets all of his work done, and sometimes falls asleep in the library.

With some puzzling, they manage to find two nights a week they’re both free after 9:00 PM, which Hubert reluctantly agrees to (he prefers to operate during business hours, but Ferdinand’s schedule is jam-packed with post-5pm meetings). When he asks for a meeting place, Ferdinand proposes the newest building on campus— the Political Science building. Being an administrative assistant for the department means that Hubert must have after-hours access, and Ferdinand has been itching to try out their study spaces.

“I am not letting you in.”

“Why not?” Ferdinand whines. He knows how childish he sounds, but the chairs in the PolySci building are things of legend. Students say you can sit there for hours without ever needing to stretch.

“We will distract the grad students,” Hubert says, matter-of-factly, like this should be obvious to Ferdinand .

“We will be quiet! I am more than capable of being quiet!” Ferdinand shouts, and Hubert levels him with a look.

It takes a little more convincing, but Ferdinand finally wears Hubert down, and he agrees to one meeting a week in the Political Science building. Ferdinand cannot wait to write on the whiteboard walls.

“Right then, should I send you a Google calendar invite?” he asks, already sliding his laptop from his backpack. Hubert does not mirror his actions, nor does he take out his phone.

Instead, he pulls from his briefcase a small, leather-bound notebook. “I prefer to use a physical agenda,” he says, like he isn’t the most pretentious person on the face of Fódlan.

Ferdinand grits his teeth, forces a smile, and a tense, “Okay,” before entering in their scheduled times into his calendar.

Once he’s created the event, repeated it correctly, and added all the precise locations, Ferdinand returns to nursing his drink. He surreptitiously sneaks glances at Hubert as he sips, watching his fingers gently gripping the pen, drawing long, sloping letters in his planner that correspond to the electronic ones in Ferdinand’s calendar. When he’s finished, Ferdinand expects him to leave, but Hubert just slips his journal into his briefcase again and takes another drink of coffee, looking anywhere but at Ferdinand.

Hubert stays, but he makes no effort to start conversation. They both are quiet for a few moments, the silence dragging out from “comfortable” to “painful” after a full minute passes by.

Ferdinand sips some more of his mocha, trying to avoid a whipped cream mustache.

“So,” Ferdinand says, as a way of a low-commitment icebreaker. Ferdinand Baker does not hold silence very well, and he has always preferred, personally, to fill it.

Hubert raises an eyebrow. “Were you going to finish that sentence?”

It’s rude, but Ferdinand has almost gotten used to Hubert’s tableside manner by now. He shrugs. “I was wondering what you thought of today. Any theories? New ideas?”

“Since half an hour ago? No, I do not have any new breakthroughs,” Hubert says, rather sarcastically.

Ferdinand, so help him Goddess, is trying. But there is only so much a man can do.

“I did have some questions, however,” Hubert says, casually. Ferdinand perks up.

“Questions, for me?”

“Who else would I be asking?” Hubert snaps. “Google?”

Ferdinand narrows his eyes and mutters “Good luck with that,” but Hubert keeps talking.

“Well, I’m having a hard time understanding the science of this,” he says. “Why hasn’t this been discovered before? And, are these all the same reincarnation line? Or are they different lines, all stemming from one group of people? Is it a coincidence you and I found reincarnations of ourselves, or is it possible everyone is reincarnated?”

Ferdinand blinks. Hubert’s questions are introspective, self-aware, and, most impressive of all, some of them are even helpful. Hubert fires them off in such rapid succession that Ferdinand has to take a moment to even process them. Where is the grumpy, unhelpful, reluctant man from before— who is this, and what has he done with Hubert?

“Well,” Ferdinand says, slowly, trying to remember the order of questions and how they were presented. “To begin, I don’t know that this hasn’t been discovered before, this is just the first evidence I have of it happening in the first place. And even the evidence is shaky, I have to admit.”

Hubert nods, and Ferdinand goes on. “I’m not sure if this is all on the reincarnation line, or if all of the evidence I have gathered is from multiple people. I don’t know how reincarnations work: whether they skip generations or not, but the proof I have does suggest that reincarnations happen each generation, that is, to say: cleanly. As in, we should be able to track a line straight from ourselves back to the other Ferdinand and Hubert.”

“I see. But that may be wishful thinking.”

Ferdinand sighs, but it’s in agreement. “Yes, it may be wishful thinking indeed,” he says. “And as for finding reincarnations of other people, I am not sure the odds of meeting someone else who has such convincing evidence of reincarnation as we do.”

“It is quite strange that we met,” Hubert says, slowly, taking a sip of his coffee. “Who would have known I would have the misfortune of sitting next to the single student at this University who is studying reincarnation?”

He says misfortune , but it doesn’t hold any of his typical Hubert malice. It’s almost… teasing. Also, this is the first time Hubert has talked about Ferdinand’s area of study without a hint of sarcasm or reproach.

Ferdinand finds himself smiling. “So, Hubert,” he says. “I meant to ask: how did you know where to find the book with the entries containing our names?”

Hubert regards him for a moment, like he’s unsure whether to trust Ferdinand with whatever information he’s about to share. His brow furrows before speaking.

“My best friend and I, growing up, were told that we were named for some of the nobles in the First Adrestian court,” he says. “We were told we had noble blood. I tried to learn about our namesakes for a while, but it was not until I came to Garreg Mach that I had the resources to even find them.”

Hubert’s eyes are far away. “I read that book when I was a freshman. I never knew it could be connected until now.”

Ferdinand nods, intrigued by Hubert’s sudden vulnerability. He’s like a different person— quiet, introspective, not incredibly annoying. For the first time, Ferdinand sees past the prickly exterior that Hubert has had bristling against him the whole time. Like a rose bush, Ferdinand has cleared the thorns and is beginning to see the first hint of the vermillion petals hidden beneath.

“This friend of yours,” Ferdinand says. “I would like to meet him someday. Does he go to school here?”

Hubert scoffs. “ She does not. And I assure you, you two will never meet.”

“Well that’s pessimistic,” Ferdinand mutters, determined not to look as slighted as he feels.

“I just think your personalities wouldn’t… mesh well,” Hubert says.

Ferdinand huffs, and then puts on a fake, shiny smile. “I think I could charm her,” he says, co*ckily.

“I doubt it.”

“Well if she ever visits, I would like to meet her and prove myself,” Ferdinand says. “I won you over, didn’t I?”

“If she ever visits,” Hubert says, “You will be blissfully unaware of her presence.”

He lifts his coffee cup to his lips, finishing the dark dregs with one final sip. “And what makes you think you’ve won me over?”

From behind his cup, Ferdinand can see Hubert smirking.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

They agree to meet on Tuesdays and Saturdays at 9 PM, until both Ferdinand and Hubert realize that Saturday night research sessions are not healthy for their social lives. While it may be a bit of a stretch to call Ferdinand’s life “social,” he does want to be able to take the opportunities that he’s given. On top of that, the library has a habit of closing early on Saturday nights, which Ferdinand begrudgingly respects them for. (The library staff has a better work-life balance than he does.)

After missing two weeks in a row, Ferdinand moves a few meetings around, and they decide to meet at 4 PM on Saturdays instead. On Tuesdays, they go to the Political Sciences building, where Hubert has class until 8 and lets Ferdinand into the building once finished with his meetings for the day. Then, on Saturdays, they meet at the library, where Ferdinand scouts the rare books room and sneaks Hubert in when the desk attendants aren’t paying attention (he’s being careful, and he makes sure Hubert doesn’t touch anything)! It’s a little bit of Ferdinand of showing off, and a lot of him slapping Hubert’s untrained hands away from the old books

The library is nice, and Ferdinand feels like he has a bit of a home-field advantage, just because he spends so much time in the stacks. But as collaborative work goes, the library is hardly the place.

But the political science building— it’s a thing of beauty, all sharp angles and open concept spaces everywhere. There are floor-to-ceiling windows on each floor, which can’t be good for birds, but the natural light is absolutely exquisite, and a far cry from the other academic buildings which are old and feel like dingy concrete jail cells (were the architects allergic to windows, perhaps?).

Hubert and Ferdinand meet in front of the building on Tuesday nights. Sometimes Hubert is already studying on one of the floors, and he’ll walk down to the entrance to let Ferdinand in after his late-night meetings. Ferdinand makes a point of trying out as many study spaces as possible, from the small breakout rooms, to the clusters of captains chairs, to high tables with bar stools that are nestled in every odd corner of the building. There are even individual, soundproof pods that Hubert will shut himself in if Ferdinand is talking too much.

And whenever Hubert shuts himself into one, Ferdinand will shut himself into an adjacent pod and video call Hubert over and over until he either blocks Ferdinand’s contact or reluctantly answers the call.

“Stop bothering me,” Hubert will answer.

Ferdinand tries to stretch out in the cramped pod, knocking into the fuzzy, soundproof walls. He grimaces. “We need to work together, Hubert!” he says.

“Why? Can we not work in silence?”

“This is a collaborative effort!” Ferdinand shouts. He chose the pod so that he could call Hubert without being disruptive to the other students studying on the floor. He sees Hubert wince in the pod next to him. Serves him right for locking himself away.

“For instance,” Ferdinand continues, “What if I make an incredible discovery that I must show you immediately? And you are all the way in a completely separate pod?”

“Ferdinand, we are right next to each other,” Hubert rolls his eyes and looks pointedly at Ferdinand through the glass. Ferdinand smiles and waves. “Are you saying that it is so much of a burden to open my door and show me whatever discovery you’ve found?”

“Think of all the time we would lose, Hubert!” Ferdinand says, and to demonstrate his point, he opens his glass door, hops out of his pod, and wrenches Hubert’s door open. Hubert looks like he wants to flee, but he is trapped in his little study pod. His hubris is his own undoing.

“That took so much time,” Ferdinand says, lowering his voice to an appropriate indoor level. “We only have so much time dedicated to research per week. We have to be efficient.”

He swings Hubert’s door closed and open again. “This won’t do. Think of all the precious time I have wasted on this journey from my pod to yours.”

Hubert must understand that it is no use arguing with Ferdinand on this point, because he always ends up begrudgingly gathering his papers and exiting his bubble of safety, and they return to the long, white tables in the middle of the common space that have outlets nestled into the wooden legs.

Their progress is slow but encouraging, because each piece of evidence they find, each journal entry, each offhand comment in a book’s footnote is like a puzzle piece, slowly clicking together to reveal the greater picture. Most of the time, their work consists of digging through time logs and court records and other such dry literature, but the feeling of elation when either of them finds another puzzle piece is a high that Ferdinand could chase forever. It keeps him going through the late nights, after full days of meetings and piles of problem sets he hasn’t started yet.

Although, every so often, even the best students need a break.

“Hubert, what kind of dog am I?” Ferdinand asks on one such night, as he’s clicking through a quiz on his laptop. He doesn’t hear an answer, and so he looks up to meet Hubert’s very confused, very annoyed glare.

“Aren’t we supposed to be working?” he asks. “Didn’t you say, last week, how very important our time was? How our research is of the utmost importance and could not be slowed down by even the time it takes to open a door?”

Ferdinand grins anyways. “I am studying,” he says. “But an important part of studying is taking breaks. Without taking a break now and again, my studying ability will diminish, and I will lose more time researching inefficiently than I will lose by taking a short break.

“So, yes, I’m not currently making progress, but I am learning how my selection of home decor will reveal what kind of dog I am,” he explains. “I suggest you take a pause from your research as well. We don’t want to burn out.”

“I was in the middle of a sentence, and now I’ve lost my place,” Hubert grumbles.

Typical. If Hubert were truly a scholar, like Ferdinand himself is, he would know that he should highlight his current sentence on his screen before looking up, lest he lose his place .

While Hubert does not take Ferdinand’s advice, he does stare at him a moment more before saying, “Golden retriever,” and returning back to his computer.

Ferdinand does not mind being compared to a golden retriever. In fact, he quite respects the breed. “Well,” he says. “I think you are a poodle. One of those black ones that’s very tall.”

Hubert whips his head up from his laptop in utter disgust, sneering at Ferdinand. “I am obviously a Doberman Pinscher,” he says, and then his eyes narrow on Ferdinand’s own computer.

“Let me take the quiz,” he says, and Ferdinand cannot contain his excitement.

He refreshes the page and walks Hubert through the questions (apparently he has never taken a Buzzfeed quiz before). When Ferdinand thinks this night cannot possibly get any better, Hubert’s results diagnose him as a Pomeranian.

Ferdinand laughs loud enough to earn a shushing from the grad students working nearby, and Hubert sulks for the rest of the night.

A couple weeks into their research, and the going is slow, but Hubert and Ferdinand have landed on a plan of attack that they’re currently making their way through. Thanks to Linhaardt’s help and the inter-library loan system, Ferdinand recently discovered Ferdinand von Aegir’s death date and, not long after, Hubert von Vestra’s as well. Since the discovery (which was celebrated with a single lackluster high five from Hubert), they have been looking into birth records from around the times of death, to see if they can identify potential reincarnates and go from there.

It’s tedious work. Hubert is tasked with searching for birth records from different provinces in old Fodlan, while Ferdinand is sorting through birth certificates from the time individually. Sometimes, it makes Ferdinand want to pull his hair out.

At those times, he tries to make conversation about the names he finds, kind of like a game.

“You know,” Ferdinand says. “There were quite a few “Edelgards” born in this generation, after Emperor Edelgard I was crowned.”

Hubert does not look up from his computer, but he nods. “That makes sense. It was a very popular name for a while.”

And then, he adds, “My best friend growing up is named Edelgard, as well.”

Hubert’s close friend was named Edelgard? Naming girls after the first (and second, and third, and fourth) emperor was not uncommon, but it was more of a fad in the generation before. All of the Edelgards he knew were over 50.

“‘Edelgard?’ Is she, erm, older, perhaps?” he asks, trying to conceal a smile at his cleverness.

Hubert looks offended, and Ferdinand realizes he may have made a mistake. Considering this was one of the few details Hubert has offered up, willingly, about his personal life, Ferdinand quickly tries to recover.

“It’s a beautiful name,” he says. “I would bet that she is quite beautiful as well.”

Hubert smirks a bit, just the corner of his mouth, an odd expression Ferdinand has not seen much on him. It looks wistful, perhaps— nostalgic? But with a hint of cynicism to it as well.

“Most would say so,” Hubert says, causally.

Ferdinand raises an eyebrow. “Most? And how about yourself?”

Hubert looks up from his screen to roll his eyes at Ferdinand. “If you are trying to surmise whether or not I am in love with my best friend, I will assure you that that trope is overdone and, if you would believe it, she and I are simply companions.”

“Oh, I see,” Ferdinand responds, and goes back to reading his screen, but for some reason, he cannot comprehend the sentence that he reads over and over again.

He had always thought— assumed, in fact— that Hubert would be romantically involved with the “girl that doesn’t go to our school,” and while he is not surprised to learn that Hubert isn’t, he is surprised at his reaction, which feels something like… relief?

Perhaps it’s the feeling of learning such an intimate detail of Hubert’s own life, or, more likely, that Ferdinand simply feels closer to him. But for a moment, his heart had quickened and his palms had grown damp, and his gaze lingered on the top of Hubert’s forehead even after he returned back to work.

—

His relationship with Hubert is an odd one.

Ferdinand wouldn’t consider them friends, maybe more like colleagues. But that was in the beginning, before they were meeting regularly: two or three nights a week to work. Things start to shift, in the slow, subtle way that they do— so slow, in fact, that Ferdinand doesn’t realize a month has gone by and his relationship with Hubert has evolved into something else.

Maybe it was to be expected, since they were spending so much time together. First, it was only a few nights a week, scheduled, regular, always with a strict start and end time. Then, the times became more fluid as Ferdinand would have a meeting postponed and Hubert would welcome him into the poly sci building an hour earlier than planned, or they got caught up in research and the hours blended until 11 PM melted into 1:30 AM under the harsh fluorescent lights of common areas, and the two men would reluctantly pack their bags and bid each other farewell for the night.

Hubert even gave Ferdinand his phone number, unprompted, so that Ferdinand could get his coffee order correct. (They had a habit of buying one another caffeinated drinks from the coffee shop in the library— whoever arrived before closing would buy the drinks for the night.)

And then, perhaps most peculiar and also most wonderful of all, is that Hubert and Ferdinand began meeting outside of their regularly scheduled meeting times, sometimes to slip in a few minutes of key research, but other times, just to do some homework.

Ferdinand is surprised the first time Hubert says yes to one of these meetings.

“Want to do some work today? I’m free 3:30-5 and would love some motivation!”

Ferdinand’s text is a bit of a cheap ploy, one he knows Hubert will see right through— Ferdinand has no trouble motivating himself, but working with others makes it feel more like a competition of sorts, and Ferdinand loves any opportunity to prove himself. It’s possible that Ferdinand has enjoyed spending time with Hubert over the past few weeks, and perhaps they both sense that they are verging on, potentially, a friendship.

Besides, Ferdinand has been oh so very patient, waiting for Hubert to warm up to him.

Hubert’s response is a single, “Sure,” but Ferdinand feels like he’s soaring above the clouds when he reads that word.

Hubert meets him at the café half an hour later, and Ferdinand makes sure there is a black coffee waiting for him.

He nods a thank you and pulls out his laptop when he sits down. They quickly fall into their work rhythm, occasionally exchanging quick words of quips.

An hour in, Ferdinand receives an email.

“The library is going to be closed all of Saturday,” he reads from the screen, frowning. “Renovations or whatnot.”

Hubert nods. “I suppose that happens.”

“Should we try to meet somewhere else?” Ferdinand asks. He and Hubert only have so much time to work, and he has a meeting with his advisor scheduled in the next few weeks. He wants to have a little more progress on his thesis before he presents it to his advisor.

“Where do you suggest?”

Ferdinand shrugs, mirroring Hubert’s gesture. “You could come over to my apartment,” he suggests cautiously. It’a new territory, since they’ve never met anywhere other than public spaces, but Ferdinand lives close to campus and his apartment has a mini-library of his own.

And, of course, it might be fun.

Hubert mulls it over for a minute, literally leaning back in his chair with his hand just above his chin (like he’s stroking an invisible beard). He’s wearing a black vest today, and Ferdinand wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a pocket watch tucked into one of the pockets. Oftentimes, Hubert dresses like he’s from another century, but Ferdinand supposes it fits his aesthetic and all.

“If I move some things around, that might work,” Hubert says, and Ferdinand couldn’t be more pleased with himself.

“Would you like to meet later?” he asks. “We can do work over dinner, order takeout or whatnot.”Ferdinand stops himself. “Unless you have plans, that is.”

He’s not sure what kind of “plans” Hubert would get up to on a Saturday night, other than maybe experimental drugs or possibly a cult meeting, but it is rude to assume.

Hubert shakes his head. “I don’t have plans. Saturday night is fine,” he says, and then returns to his laptop.

Ferdinand is about to celebrate this most recent victory, when he suddenly remembers the state of his apartment, and, consequently, the amount of cleaning ahead of him.

—

The week rolls on, days blending together even though time is standing still.

On Saturday morning Ferdinand tries to straighten up a bit, resigning himself to the fact that he does not have the time to do more than place things in piles and try to dust off some of the more unused surfaces. His living room, kitchen, and dining room are all one big space, but Ferdinand is so busy that he hardly occupies it, instead using it as a large storage area.

It’s been a while since Ferdinand has had a friend over, simply because he and his friends prefer to meet out of their houses— for dinner, drinks, or, of course, to study.

It’s not that he thinks Hubert is going to judge his living “quarters” (as the man would so aptly call them), and even if he does, Ferdinand has withstood his fair share of teasing from Hubert, so what’s a few more pokes? He can’t quite place his unease, other than the possibility that this sharing of space, one so personal as Ferdinand’s own apartment, is oddly intimate; while Ferdinand has overshared many a trivial fact about himself, this feels... bigger.

It’s probably the fact that— only a month ago— he and Hubert were complete strangers, and now they are entangled in an epic line of reincarnations that spans back thousands of years. With that, there is always bound to be some unease.

Yes, that is most likely the culprit.

Hubert arrives at seven, and after a passing glance around the combined living room/kitchen/dining room, he offers no more than a, “Quaint.”

A month ago, Ferdinand might have been offended. But today, the pseudo-insult slides off of him like raindrops on a roof.

He and Hubert get to work quickly, predicting a long night of work ahead of them. Ferdinand shows Hubert his collection of overdue books and his own rare materials (a personal library); even though their current vein of research won’t be aided by any of Ferdinand’s resources (he’s checked), it’s nice to have someone who views them with careful hands and the same curious fascination that Ferdinand feels so fondly.

Afterwards, the two of them set up at Ferdinand’s dining room table, quickly filling the empty space with scattered papers, open-faced books, and hundreds of tiny notes crammed into every margain imaginable. Luckily, Hubert has provided his own coffee (as if Ferdinand would own a coffee maker), and his paper to-go cup leaves rich, round stains on some loose sheets of paper.

They fall into their comfortable rhythm, the one they’ve almost perfected over the past month; a few comments here, a few questions there, and too many distractions on Ferdinand’s part. Ferdinand works on his presentation for his advisor, and once he finally moves on from picking the perfect template, Hubert helps him with an outline— what they know, what they are currently looking into, and what questions they still have (this section, unsurprisingly, is the longest).

The night passes in a blur, hours blending into each other, until a sudden crack of lightning followed by a loud burst of thunder startles Ferdinand out of his reverie.

Hubert looks around suddenly, like he’s forgotten where he is, and Ferdinand gets up from the table to look out the window— it’s pouring, rain pounding against the fragile glass. Another peal of lightning makes him jump.

“It’s coming down out there,” he says, even though Hubert can hear the drum of the raindrops.

Hubert chuckles. “I’ll admit, that frightened me a bit.”

“The great Hubert Rolfe was frightened by the elements?” Ferdinand teases, clutching his hand over his heart in mockery.

“You’re so pretentious,” Hubert replies, and Ferdinand is about to point out his incredible hypocrisy, when he sees Hubert shuffling his papers into a pile, as if he’s packing to leave.

“What are you doing?” Ferdinand asks.

Hubert scoffs. “Packing up. It’s nearing one in the morning; I should go.”

Ferdinand blinks slowly. “Surely, you can’t be thinking about walking home in this weather?”

“Not immediately,” Hubert snaps. “Whenever it passes.”

Ferdinand sits down at his computer again, pulling up the radar on his local weather site. He frowns.

“It doesn't look like it’ll pass for a while. Not until 5 in the morning, at least.”

“Let me see that,” Hubert says. Ferdinand turns his laptop to show Hubert his screen— a storm has blown in over the past hour and has planted itself right above Garreg Mach University (and the surrounding area), and isn’t predicted to dissipate until the early morning.

Hubert narrows his eyes. “I don’t trust radars,” he says.

Of course he doesn’t. Hubert probably reads the moon and stars to figure out the next day’s weather patterns.

Instead of fighting that particular battle, however, Ferdinand asks, “How far do you live?”

“About a mile and a half.”

“So you’re going to walk then, is that it?” Ferdinand asks. “I don’t suppose you brought an umbrella?” Hubert is not dressed for rain in the slightest— he’s wearing tight, black jeans and a black button-up with tiny floral patterns woven across it, both of which will be instantly soaked if he steps foot outside.

Hubert crosses his arms and leans back in his chair, his frown almost verging on a pout “No, I did not.”

“You’ll catch a cold, Hubert,” Ferdinand says pointedly.

“And? What else am I to do? It’s not like I could get a ride at this hour.”

Ferdinand pauses, regarding Hubert for a quick moment. It’s one thing to study together, in Ferdinand’s apartment, it is another entirely to—

“— Stay the night,” Ferdinand blurts. “You can take my bed. I’ll sleep on the pullout couch.”

Hubert looks absolutely stunned. “I couldn’t possibly—”

“You don’t have to take the bed, you can take the couch, if it’s more comfortable. I’ll lend you some sweats to wear to bed, and I have some extra toiletries.”

“— I wouldn’t want to impose—”

Another crack of thunder cuts them off, shaking the walls of Ferdinand’s apartment.

“Please. I am worried about you.”

The way Ferdinand says it sounds like some kind of a confession. In all honesty, it’s not far from one. Over the month of their friendship, neither of the two have said anything as vulnerable as this.

Ferdinand means it, as well. He has grown quite fond of Hubert’s company, possibly even Hubert himself. Their bickering is hardly bothersome anymore, and well, perhaps, Ferdinand would be remiss if Hubert were to get struck by lightning on the way home because they lost track of time doing research on their past lives.

“Why do you care about me?” Hubert asks.

Ferdinand shrugs. “Do you not?”

Hubert furrows his eyebrows in thought, and then looks up again. “Perhaps, it would be safer if I stayed the night.”

Ferdinand smiles. “Ok, it’s settled.”

The rest of the night’s procedures are brusque and orderly, as Ferdinand can feel Hubert’s apprehension radiating off of him in waves. He sets some blankets, a change of clothes, and a fresh pillowcase on the couch and then excuses himself to his room to give Hubert some privacy.

As he’s changing into his pajamas, Ferdinand swears he can hear the softest knock on his door, and a mumbled thank you. By the time he leaves his room, however, Hubert has turned off the living room lights, so Ferdinand quickly brushes his teeth and then heads to bed.

He watches an episode of a TV show (his favorite baking competition the Great Adrestian Baking Show) on his laptop at a soft volume, listening for any sound of a stirring Hubert over the sound of rain pounding against his bedroom window, but he doesn’t hear anything. Perhaps Hubert has fallen asleep; Ferdinand realizes that he doesn’t know the hours that Hubert keeps, and perhaps even more puzzling, that he wants to know.

The thought keeps him awake until sleep pulls him under.

—

The next morning, Ferdinand awakens to the smell of food and sizzling oil.

It’s strange for a moment, since Ferdinand lives alone, but then he remembers that Hubert slept on his couch last night, so he figures Hubert is making himself breakfast.

Ferdinand yawns, stretches, and then gets out of bed to put on something other than pajama pants.

When he emerges from his bathroom in jeans and a white t-shirt, the noises coming from the kitchen have stopped, and as Ferdinand walks into his living room, he sees a nicely set table and realizes— Hubert has cooked breakfast for the two of them.

There’s a stack of pancakes, fluffy and golden brown, and two place settings at Ferdinand’s dining room table. The papers and books from the night before are sitting in a neat pile on one of the chairs, and Hubert has even set out two glasses of water for the both of them.

Ferdinand could not be more shocked. His mouth hangs open, dumbly, for many moments.

“Good morning, Ferdinand,” Hubert says, clearing his throat. “I’ve made us some breakfast.” He is standing by the table, hands clasped behind his back like he’s waiting to serve, shifting his weight back and forth a little awkwardly. It’s the first time Ferdinand has seen him look so… unsure.

Ferdinand doesn’t know how to respond. Hubert’s wearing his clothes from the night before— a black button up with floral patterns tucked into black skinny jeans, and Ferdinand’s sweats are folded neatly on the couch that Hubert slept on.

The sunlight beams through the curtain-less window, tracing Hubert’s stark features. Ferdinand watches intensely as Hubert brings one hand to the table in front of him, tracing the grains with his long fingers in slow, swirling patterns. The sight alone of Hubert in the sunlight, standing over a meal he prepared is almost too domestic. It is warm, and lovely, and Ferdinand is utterly taken with him.

“Goodness Hubert, you shouldn’t have!” Ferdinand beams. “I can’t believe this.”

He sits down at the table, and Hubert follows suit. “Thank you so much.”

“It’s the least I could do to repay you for your hospitality,” Hubert says. “You didn’t have many ingredients, so I apologize for only being able to provide pancakes.”

Ferdinand laughs. He is not one to eat breakfast at home, usually choosing to grab a bite on campus between his first and second class, so he hardly has any breakfast foods available. It’s a miracle Hubert found enough pancake mix for the two of them.

“Please don’t apologize. This was so kind of you,” Ferdinand says.

The microwave beeps and Hubert jumps. He quickly runs to the kitchen to fetch a mug out of the microwave.

“What’s that?” Ferdinand calls.

“I heated you some water for tea. I didn’t know what kind you wanted, but I presumed you would want some with breakfast,” Hubert says, bringing over the mug. Ferdinand wants to laugh at Hubert for heating up his water in the microwave, but after everything he has done this morning, Ferdinand graciously accepts the cup and begins to prepare his morning Earl Grey.

“Really, this is too much,” Ferdinand says, serving himself a few pancakes. Hubert has brought out the syrup as well, one of the few staples Ferdinand keeps in his fridge.

Hubert shrugs. “I am simply repaying your kindness,” he says, like he thinks nothing of it.

Ferdinand then wonders if this is nothing more than a transaction to Hubert, a quid pro quo repaying one good deed with another. Ferdinand was not expecting any type of repayment for letting Hubert spend the night, in fact, it was the least he could do, considering Hubert had been indulging in his research and sharing the Political Sciences building with him.

Sharing spaces was one thing, though, but cooking breakfast? That was an entirely different thing in general. And Ferdinand was beginning to wonder if it meant more to him than Hubert.

For instance, several times over the course of the meal, Ferdinand catches himself watching Hubert with an intense curiosity. Ferdinand has always been fascinated with Hubert’s fingers— it was the first thing he noticed about Hubert von Vestra in their portrait— but today, Ferdinand finds himself unable to stop staring at them. Watching him maneuver the knife with a delicate precision is captivating, almost mildly erotic. Ferdinand is not sure where these feelings arise from, other than the fact that they do— bubbling up insistently, hotly, making Ferdinand flush and look away.

The man is just eating pancakes, for God’s sake, but Ferdinand feels like he might faint.

Perhaps it’s the kindness that Hubert is showing, the little bits of it seeping through the cracks of Hubert’s surly exterior, that is the most intoxicating to Ferdinand. The fact that he gets to see a side of Hubert that he knows very few people do. Or, perhaps, it’s the growing friendship between the two men— the hours arguing over theories, the late nights of eye strain and headaches, the moments in between: walking from class together, joking about silly things from their day, commiserating over frustrations. The man Ferdinand originally met on the bench is a distant memory, now, and Ferdinand would go so far as to even call the two of them friends.

“What do you think of the pancakes?” Hubert asks. Is he self-conscious?

“They are divine. Thank you again, Hubert,” Ferdinand replies, and as Hubert looks down at his plate, lips curling into a tiny, proud smile, Ferdinand realizes that his feelings for Hubert may be further from friendship than he understands. Perhaps, they are starting to look something like love.

Ferdinand stops himself from going down that path, because only he would jump to a conclusion that quickly. There’s something about the way Hubert’s hair brushes over one eye in the gentle morning light that makes his heart quicken, but love? Perhaps that was too strong of an emotion, perhaps—

And then Hubert says, “I’ve never had a sleepover before. My only friend growing up was Edelgard, and my parents didn’t want girls staying the night.”

Ferdinand fights a smile. “Was this a sleepover? We didn’t even play truth or dare.”

Hubert blinks at him, and then his face lights up with the most glorious laughter that Ferdinand has ever heard.

Ah, perhaps it is love, indeed.

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

In the next few days, Ferdinand does not have the luxury to think about his revelation. He’s too busy preparing for his meeting with his advisor.

All things considered, he finds it quite helpful. While the delirious clutches of a crush would usually occupy all of his time (mentally and physically), Ferdinand simply does not have any of it to spare. His meeting with his advisor is a big one— he’ll be pitching his senior thesis for approval— and he needs to be prepared.

It’s because of this that he doesn’t see Hubert for a few days, either, which in its own way is helpful. Ferdinand isn’t sure that he wouldn’t spend all of his time staring and making up scenarios of Hubert suddenly blinking, looking up as if in realization, and leaning over to kiss him. Or something of the like.

So Ferdinand attends his classes, meetings, and works on his presentation tirelessly, all the while not thinking about Hubert.

Wednesday morning rolls around, and Ferdinand stands outside of his advisor’s office, rocking on his heels. He’s a little nervous. Dr. Hanneman is his thesis advisor, so they’ve only met a handful of times prior to Ferdinand taking his class. He’s also the head of the history department, so his words hold weight.

A head pops out from an adjacent door. “Dr. Hanneman is ready for you now!” the department secretary says. “You can go on in.”

Ferdinand nods a thank you and opens the large oaken door. It’s something out of the eighties, with tempered glass and blocked numbers on the window.

Hanneman’s office is reminiscent of a movie itself, complete with high-backed velvet seats and piles of books lining the floors in front of the bookshelves (which themselves are overflowing with books). There is a large, marble globe standing by itself in the corner of the office, which Ferdinand wonders briefly if it ever is even used, or if it’s solely for decoration. The curtains are drawn across the windows so the light peaks through in dusty, speckled rays.

“Mr. Baker, delighted to see you,” Dr. Hanneman says from behind his almost comically large desk. “How are you?”

Ferdinand sits down in one of the plush chairs, springs squeaking. “I’m well, thank you for asking. Just the normal amount of stress.”

Dr. Hanneman chuckles. “I would expect nothing less from a student such as yourself! Now then,” he says, clasping his hands together, “I’m excited to dive into your thesis presentation. Please give me the outline of your proposal, and I will give you some feedback.”

Ferdinand pulls up his presentation. Clearing his throat, he begins— the presentation is titled “Interpersonal Relationships Throughout the Ages: A Connected Past,” and the title slide features the portraits of Hubert von Vestra and Ferdinand von Aegir of the first Adrestian Empire. Might as well lay all his cards on the table. That was Hubert’s idea, actually, to feature them so prominently. The memory of their discussion helps soothe some of his nerves.

“Recently, a colleague and I found very convincing evidence of reincarnation, as you can see from these two fellows here. This one actually shares the same name as myself. My colleague, Hubert Rolfe, a fourth year political science major, shares a similar appearance and name to this gentleman named Hubert von Vestra. We were able to find reliable information that these two were a part of the founding nobles in the Adrestian Empire, who served under Emperor Edelgard the first.”

Hanneman’s eyebrows shift slightly, but other than the subtle movement, Ferdinand cannot read his emotions. He powers through the nerves. “Now, as you may know, I have been studying this concept of reincarnation for the past four years, and to find evidence that I, myself, might be a part of a reincarnation line, well, the possibilities are endless.”

There is an air of excitement, now, charging the room with small, static shocks. Ferdinand just hopes Hanneman can feel it too.

He walks Hanneman through the next few slides. For context, Ferdinand explains the founding of the empire, the lost documents, and how he came to explore this subject. A thorough and detailed presentation, to say the least, but a true academic never assumes how much or little a fellow academic knows. Ferdinand lives by the philosophy that things can never be overexplained.

“Here is the current work I have done for this proposal, on the lives of ten different pairs of individuals I believe to be reincarnates of each other. Going forward, my research would attempt to connect the dots, per say, in order to create a complete reincarnation line. However, we are— I am not sure whether reincarnations are able to skip generations or other periods of time, but so far, the evidence suggests otherwise.”

Talking about his research without Hubert is difficult. As he slips between we and I , Ferdinand realizes how much of his research, and his life, have become inextricably tangled with his colleague’s.

“The bulk of my senior thesis, then, would be to determine one full reincarnation line, to the present. While the majority of my work has been looking at historical documents, that is due to the lack of money and resources from the department. I’m hoping that with this proposal, I will be able to apply for funding to conduct informational interviews across campus. If Hubert— my colleague and I were able to find reincarnations of ourselves, it is statistically possible that there are others just beyond our reach— but perhaps, I am getting ahead of myself.” Ferdinand pauses for a sip of water, and then flips to the final slide.

“And finally, future work would include looking at other archival texts and family lines from the lands of Brigid, to see if there are gaps we can fill in, because we haven’t ruled out the possibility that reincarnation events can happen far apart, even separated by countries,” he says. “With funding from the History department, I will be able to explore these possibilities. Now, in terms of my calendar, I hope to finish conducting interviews by the end of this semester—”

“Ferdinand,” Dr. Hanneman interrupts him. “Before you get ahead of yourself— perhaps, we ought to talk about this proposal?”

Ferdinand grins sheepishly. “Of course. I’m sorry, I realize I have not gotten this idea approved yet, but once I do, I think that things will move very quickly, and it is so very like me to plan fifty steps in advance.”

Dr. Hanneman chuckles, but Ferdinand senses that it isn’t quite genuine. “Well, Ferdinand, that was a very thorough presentation. I have to say, however, that I am skeptical of, well, the validity of these claims. This is such an ambitious topic to cover—”

Ferdinand can’t help himself from butting in. “Yes, and that is why I am choosing it for my senior thesis project! So that I may spend an entire year working on it.”

“Yes, I understand that,” Dr. Hanneman says, shifting in his large desk chair uncomfortably. “But perhaps— perhaps you ought to focus on something less… outlandish?”

Ferdinand is so stunned his words die in his throat. His research is airtight, thorough, articulate, and most importantly, four years in the making. “Outlandish?” he croaks, disbelieving.

Hanneman chuckles again, and this time it's cruel. “Seriously, Ferdinand, did you really expect the department to fund a project like this? Your thesis project needs to be something manageable— to fill a gap in the literature, not propose some—” he gestures, looking for the word “—conspiracy theory, you know?”

His words sting more than a slap in the face. “But this… I worked on this for four years…” Ferdinand whispers, the blood rushing from his face. In all the scenarios he imagined, the worst he’d imagined was a rewrite, another proposal— he never expected to be told no .

“Yes, while that was a passion project, it’s your senior year, Ferdinand,” Dr. Hanneman says. “Your previous advisors were content to let you have your fun, but you have been at this university for four years, and as a History student, you are expected to produce a quality piece of literature at publishing quality.”

Ferdinand can only sit there, mouth slightly agape, watching his academic dreams crash and burn in front of his very eyes.

“Perhaps,” Dr. Hanneman continues, stroking his beard. “Perhaps you can still use this previous work. How about this: you can still study the interpersonal relationships between members of the Adrestian court, but how about looking at the dynamics instead? Many of the current canon has assessed the courts from year to year, but it would be interesting to pick two of three from the past thousand years or so and compare the way the courts operated— see what was conserved, what was overthrown, that sort of thing.”

Dr. Hanneman smiles. “See? We can make this work, and you can include the aspects of your court research. It’s a little like reincarnation in its own way, isn’t that right Ferdinand?”

Ferdinand forces a wobbly smile and nods. “That sounds… doable.”

Dr. Hanneman claps his hands together— clearly, in his mind the matter is resolved, having brainstormed a perfect solution that both saves his reputation and “compromises” on Ferdinand’s academic fancies. Goddess, how embarrassing.

“Now then, have you checked your audit recently? Since you are graduating next semester…”

He drones on as Ferdinand stews, both ignoring his advisor’s lecture about scheduling registration meetings and fighting the urge to clench his fists till his knuckles turn white. The most stupefying thing of all: how could Dr. Hanneman look at all the evidence— the very portraits of him and Hubert, with striking similarity— and still not understand, still not believe?

And then, a cold fear washes over his body— is this the way everyone else view’s Ferdinand’s research? Could four years of hard work and investigation have led to this: Ferdinand Baker, labeled as a crack scholar?

“Just to wrap up, because my secretary is signaling me,” Dr. Hanneman nods to the door, where another one of Dr. Hanneman’s advisees is likely waiting outside, “you’ll talk to your advisor about registering for the Senior Thesis Independent Study for next semester, six credits, and you’ll get a new proposal by next Friday. How does that sound? I have no doubt that you will get approved in no time, Ferdinand, don’t fret!”

Ferdinand swallows something sour. “Thank you, uh— thank you for your time, Dr. Hanneman,” he says.

“My pleasure, Ferdinand,” he says with a self-satisfied smug.

Ferdinand doesn’t even acknowledge the other student as he pushes out the door, humiliation flushing his cheeks.

Feeling dejected, all Ferdinand wants to do is go collapse on his bed for the rest of the day. Hell, he’s feeling bad enough to even take— and he shudders to even think about it— a midday nap. That’s how much Ferdinand wants to face the rest of the world.

But, damn , he’s supposed to meet Hubert for coffee after his meeting, to talk about the future directions for their research. Goddess, how foolish he’d been. As Ferdinand unlocks his phone to cancel his plans, he sees a missed text from Hubert.

Three missed texts, actually, which is uncharacteristic for Hubert. Hubert double- or even triple-texting is so unusual— well, it’d be like Hubert picking up a landline and calling Ferdinand like it’s the year 2,900.

Hubert: Linhardt has found journals. Important.

Hubert: I know you are in a meeting, but please come at your earliest convent.

Hubert: *convenience

Ferdinand knows it’ll annoy Hubert, but he calls him anyway. “Hubert, hello?”

Hubert picks up after the first ring. “Ferdinand. I assume this is an urgent matter for you to be calling me?”

“Hey, you texted me— nevermind. What have you found? I won’t go into detail, but my meeting with Dr. Hanneman was rather disappointing. I could use some good news.”

Hubert scoffs. “What is it you always say about time being of the essence?” (And despite everything that’s happened, despite Hubert’s tone, Ferdinand cracks a smile at that.) “It would make more sense if I were to explain it to you here. Just come to Lindhardt’s dorm… At your quickest convenience.”

Despite the beating that his soul took earlier in his advisor’s office, Ferdinand feels hope beginning to seep through the cracks. He hopes this is something good.

Ferdinand really needs a win.

—

“What did you find?” Ferdinand asks, breathless, but finally in Linhardt’s room. Both Linhardt and Hubert look up from the desk. The door was open a crack, so he just barged in, but the way that Hubert and Linhardt were looking at him, perhaps he should have knocked.

And then Ferdinand makes eye contact with Hubert, for the first time since he slept over, and Ferdinand is hit with a strange brew of fondness and annoyance, as in, Hubert is both the first and the last person he wants to see. It’s a very odd feeling, not one that Ferdinand would normally associate with a crush.

When Hubert had texted, Ferdinand was excited to see his friend again. But now, with Hubert’s hip co*cked stupidly and his eyebrow arched ever so annoyingly, Ferdinand feels a little bit like a 12 year old on a playground, as in, all of his senses are on high alert, and he wants to pick a fight.

Hubert regards him for a moment, like he’s weighing the pros and cons of making some snide comment about Ferdinand’s manners, but luckily for both of them, he keeps his mouth shut. Thanks to Dr. Hanneman, Ferdinand is about ready to throw hands at the next person who wrongs him.

Sensing whatever strange tension crackles between Ferdinand and Hubert, Linhardt breaks the semi-awkward silence. “We found journals! Isn't that exciting?”

“Publication journals?” Ferdinand asks.

Linhardt shakes his head in frustration. “No, no, no— personal journals. Like, private diaries! From Hubert von Vestra himself!”

“Come on, Ferdinand, a journal. I know you have plenty of them lying around your house in disorganized piles,” Hubert says. Ferdinand wants to be mad, but he’s also a little flattered that Hubert mentioned the time they spent at his apartment, especially since Ferdinand holds it so close to his heart.

Ferdinand crosses his arms over his chest and ignores him, which he knows will insult Hubert more than any response could. “That’s incredible, Linhardt. How did you manage it?”

“My father works at a university in Hevring. They have access to different archives than we do at GMU. I asked him to see if he could find anything related to von Aegir or von Vestra, and he emailed me these scans this morning!” Linhardt’s eyes are shining like Ferdinand has never seen. “I’ve forwarded both of you copies. I would tell you not to distribute it, but seeing as my dad’s already sent it to me through email of all things, I’d say it’s as good as public domain.”

The excitement Ferdinand feels is that of breaking a code, the high of finding that last price of the puzzle. After the morning he’s had, a breakthrough like this— well, perhaps he shouldn’t get ahead of himself. But something like this , primary source literature, he can’t help but echo the energy Linhardt gives off.

Only Hubert looks… well, like himself.

“I thought you would be more excited about this,” Ferdinand says, sitting on Linhardt’s desk chair to pull out his computer. “Seeing as this is you in a former life. Or does it take more than that to sway the stoic Hubert Rolfe?”

Hubert sits down on the ground, pulling opening his laptop as well. “I am excited. Can’t you tell?” He asks facetiously. Ferdinand has half a mind to stick his tongue out at the man, but the way Linhardt is looking at him makes him think better of it. There is nothing more telling of a crush than deliberately pushing someone’s buttons, but even further than that, Ferdinand can’t think of anything more childish than sticking his tongue out.

Linhardt would surely find out. He’s just perceptive like that. And it’s not like Ferdinand wants people finding out he has a crush on— he glances over at Hubert’s bangs, covering one eye, and his chipping black nail polish— well, all of that.

Ferdinand clears his throat. “Do you mind if we look into this now, Linhardt? I don’t want to interrupt.” Hubert, too, looks up expectantly.

Lindhart shrugs. “Not at all. In fact, I was just going to lay down for a nap. Don’t mind me.”

Hubert looks a little offended. Ferdinand knows the two don’t get along well, but put up with each other for Ferdinand’s sake.

Even though Linhardt’s eyes are closed, it’s like he can feel Hubert’s stare. “What? I already read them,” he says, before turning over and falling swiftly into sleep.

And then Hubert and Ferdinand are alone once more, aside from the slumbering body of Linhardt, snoring softly.

What was once before a comfortable silence seems now fraught with electricity, threatening to spark at any moment. Ferdinand feels tense and on edge, like any move he makes is being watched. Hubert himself seems to have a massive presence that takes up most of the small room. Ferdinand can’t stop his eyes from being drawn towards him.

He tries, instead, to focus on the journal entries. Written in long, sloping script, it’s hard to distinguish the letters from each other at times, and Ferdinand spends half of the time trying to parse out the individual words and half reading and comprehending. It’s slow going, but material like this, it’s a game -hanger. Even if it takes a little longer to decipher, Ferdinand doesn’t mind the extra work. It’s worth it.

Hubert is taking his own notes as well in a thin black moleskin, and Ferdinand observed that the handwriting of the living Hubert is very similar to his predecessor’s, although slightly more legible.

Ferdinand works through a few more passages, the content of the journal distracting him from his Hubert conundrum.

21 Garland Moon 1187

It is perhaps the slowest day of the moon, and yet, Hypatia has not found a free moment to join me for tea. Concerning the treatise of Locke, I must say, I am profoundly at a loss— perhaps I will pass it on to Carlisle (he’d find pleasure in that)...

Hubert von Vestra must be writing in code names, because none of the people he mentions in his writing have come up in either of their research. It’s also possible that the former right hand of the throne had more contacts than Ferdinand was privy to, but it seemed unlikely, considering the way the names repeated, over and over, throughout the journal pages.

3 Blue Sea Moon 1187

It seems like the seeds from Brigid have just arrived, although cultivating them with these scant instructions will require exceptional skill. Perhaps this task was foolhardy to approach, however, if the Zynthia grows in this climate, then we will have made great strides in this particular corner of botany. Carlise came by this evening, bearing news of a foal born in the stable. Together, we walked to see the creature, magnificent in birth, already standing on four legs. Would that humans could too, progress this quickly, perhaps we’d save countless hours of time...

Some entries were written as letters, and those were the ones Ferdinand takes the greatest interest in.

14 Wyvern Moon 1187

Would that I could tell you how I truly feel, my heart would, perhaps, ease in its suffering for one moment.

Each day weighs heavy upon me, but, and forgive me for how cliche this sounds— the light of your smile can drive away my demons, if only for a small time. There are many things that lurk in the shadows of my vision, but with you, I do not feel as though I need to be on edge.

For you, my boundaries weaken.

However will I continue?

Wait a moment— Ferdinand scans over the passage again, consulting his legible notes with the entry, double-checking the words. The sentences are fraught with longing, a type of hidden, burning desire.

It is jarring, to say the least, to find something so close to a love confession tucked among Hubert von Vestra’s writing. Whereas most of his entries are about the minutiae of every-day court life, or gardening techniques, or treatises— goddess, how many treatises can one man oversee?— this entry has a different tone, as do the rest that are written in this epistolary form. Strange.

Perhaps he is projecting, or perhaps something has been lost in translation, but Ferdinand sneaks a glance at Hubert, who has stopped writing altogether. His eyes are not scanning the laptop screen like Ferdinand would expect, but instead are paused, staring at one line, perhaps, or one word.

Ferdinand clears his throat. “Find anything interesting?” He asks.

Hubert seems to blink himself out of his thoughts and back into the dorm room. “No, not yet,” he says slowly. “I’m assuming you have, though?”

Ferdinand smiles a bit, because Hubert can read him a little too well for having known each other just over a month. “Perhaps. I think our dear Marquis von Vestra has a bit of a crush.”

Ferdinand avoids saying Hubert’s name, because the comparison might be a bit uncomfortable. It’s a fine line to walk, after all.

Even still, there is a trace of warm flush underneath Hubert’s collar, red and alluring. “Oh?” Is all he asks, eyes averted.

“Potentially. Go to page 34, and read the entry under 14 Wyvern Moon,” Ferdinand says.

Hubert scrolls and then settles, quickly skimming the entry. It seems like he is able to read his predecessor’s handwriting quite easily.

After a moment, he leans back from his laptop. “Well,” he says. “I suppose that makes sense.”

“How so?”

“There is another letter. Page 82,” Hubert says. “I couldn’t understand it at first, but with this context, it brings new meaning.”

“Goddess, Hubert, you read so quickly,” Ferdinand quips, scrolling through the text to find the page.

“I started reading from the end.”

Ferdinand finds the entry— it's short, yet poignant. He understands why Hubert would have been confused by its meaning at first.

24 Guardian Moon 1187

You are my jewel, sparkling brightly in the orange glow of the fire’s embers, rivaled only by myself.

He reads it twice and then, “Oh my— I know who he is talking about!” he says, the realization hitting him like a stack of library books.

“You do?” Hubert asks, and then, “I’m not sure how this is relevant to our investigation, but I have to admit, from reading about this fellow, I didn’t expect him to take a lover.”

As cringe-worthy as it was that Hubert still used the word “lover” to talk about romantic relationships, Ferdinand is too excited about his epiphany to comment.

“Hubert von Vestra— he is in love with the Duke, Ferdinand von Aegir!” He says excitedly.

For a moment, Hubert just looks at him. Ferdinand holds his breath. It’s as close to a confession as they may ever get— the knowledge that, in a past life, Hubert loved him. And that meant that maybe this Hubert could love him in this life, as well. Perhaps that is too forward-thinking, but Ferdinand is an optimist, even if it’s to a fault sometimes.

He realizes that Hubert has been quiet a moment too long. It’s not like Ferdinand accused him of something, even though Hubert and his predecessor, in theory, are the same person. But what was so accusatory about being in love?

After a moment, Hubert lets out a slow breath. “Why do you think that?” He asks, his voice careful.

Ferdinand’s brow furrows. “The evidence is overwhelming! Look at this letter— he refers to his loved one as a “jewel,” and von Aegir and von Vestra were known as the “Two Jewels” of the Empire,” he explains. “Plus, look at the use of this word “unrivaled”— we know that the two men had a rivalry sometime in their life, from various accounts of them during their time in and before the academy. This is clearly an allusion to that!”

Another piece of evidence jumps off the page. “Oh! And, see here how Hubert uses the imagery of firelight to describe the way that the light illuminates the jewel. Who else do we know that has orange hair, just like firelight?”

Not unlike myself goes unsaid, but perhaps there are too many parallels to their own lives for Hubert’s comfort.

Ferdinand’s voice seems to ring out in the small confines of the dormitory, and for a moment, Linhardt stirs, but he does not waken from his slumber. The room lapses into silence once again.

“Perhaps,” Hubert says, finally, “Although the last piece of evidence is a stretch.”

“It is a bit of a stretch,” Ferdinand concedes, a small smile tugging on his lips.

“I do have to say, your logic, however manic, does make some sense,” Hubert says. He checks his watch. “I shall have to look at more of the journals, but for now, I need to leave for a meeting.”

Ferdinand checks the time. His next class doesn't start for another half hour, but he also feels a bit intrusive staying in Linhardt’s space as he naps. “I will walk you out, then,” he offers.

The two of them pack up their things, and despite Hubert’s arguing, Ferdinand leaves a small note thanking Linhardt again for his help. Hubert rolls his eyes, but signs the note anyway with a long and thin, very Hubert-esque signature.

Once out of the building, Hubert asks, “How did your meeting go this morning?”

For a brief, blissful hour, Ferdinand had forgotten all about his disastrous meeting with Dr. Hanneman— that is, until this moment. He sighs.

“Not well. He called my proposal a conspiracy theory, and suggested that I focus on a new topic,” he says.

It’s nice to see Hubert look as indignant as he feels. “How could he possibly— with the evidence right in front of him?”

His reaction is vindicating, even when Hubert (jokingly) makes a quip about Ferdinand not presenting it well.

“I was really hoping for that funding,” Hubert continues. “But we will make do some other way. Perhaps we do not need the history department as much as we thought we did.”

Ferdinand stops walking. “You… Are you sure you want to keep working on this project?” Ferdinand asks. Today was exciting, but after getting rejected from the university, the research would have to be driven by the two of them, without any external support. Ferdinand chews his bottom lip. It was relatively easy to convince Hubert to help him when this was an academic pursuit, but now… well, who’s to say?

“Oh please, Ferdinand, you would not think me so fragile? I have never once cared for what this university thinks,” Hubert scoffs. “Besides, this is bigger than just research— this was my life, and yours. That itself is motivation enough.”

“Well, that is very— that’s good to hear,” Ferdinand says, feeling a bit overwhelmed with gratitude. “Shall we continue our meetings, then?”

“I would be amenable to that,” Hubert says.

He splits off, then, with a little wave, and as Ferdinand watches him go, he is struck by an image, so specific he can see it clearly in his mind: one of two rivers, splitting at a fork and yet endlessly joined, destined to flow into the same sea— to find each other once more.

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

The idea to consult a psychic is Hubert’s.

Despite his appearance, character and everything formidable about him, Hubert has a larger network than he’s let on, and their search leads them next to Bernadetta, the shy girl from the library that Ferdinand had encountered all those nights ago.

Apparently, she is quite good at reading psychic energy, something that Ferdinand would not have expected Hubert to engage with, much less ascribe to, much less believe in, but as he informs Ferdinand over coffee one day, witchcraft is one of the ways that one could get in contact with ghosts of the past. At the very least, it could give them some insight, spiritually, into the ghosts that they are researching in particular.

In the past week, Ferdinand had reworked his thesis, presented it to Dr. Hanneman, and unsurprisingly received the go-ahead to apply for grants. Between that and his regular classes ramping up for the first season of midterms, Ferdinand and Hubert barely had time to work on their newly-labeled passion project. They met up, sure, but often they studied separate subjects in near-silence, content in each other’s company.

Which was a win in its own way, but Ferdinand wishes he had more time. He was finding himself yearning more for time than anything these days— even Hubert.

But Ferdinand still finds moments in the small hours of the night to reread von Vestra’s journals, committing the almost-love letters to memory, surging in him the want to continue his research, his real research, the academic’s urge to know— if not for history, then for himself.

Ferdinand thinks Hubert’s joking about turning to witchcraft at first, but he’s quickly shut up when Hubert does not laugh with him at the suggestion. Apparently, he occasionally seeks counsel from Bernadetta’s readings as well.

“Okay,” Ferdinand says, treading more carefully, as he must know more, immediately, about these readings. “When are we meeting with her?”

“Tomorrow night, if you’re able,” Hubert says.

Ferdinand had plans to meet his friend Dorothea to catch up over dinner (it had been ages, and he’d been so busy with his proposal), but he couldn’t miss the opportunity to see Hubert reading tarot.

“Tomorrow works,” Ferdinand says with a very wide grin. He can push his dinner with Dorothea back an hour or so.

But as Ferdinand learns as he arrives the next night, that Hubert wouldn’t actually be the one doing the reading; the real witch work is to be conducted by Bernadetta.

She’s a small girl, barely reaching five feet, drowning in an oversized hoodie and white sneakers. Ferdinand has never seen her outside of the library, but she doesn’t seem to recognize him as she’s still quiet upon their meeting.

Hubert, however, she seems more acquainted with. They don’t talk much, but her shoulders are more relaxed when he stands near, and she doesn’t flinch when he approaches her.

After clearing the table, Bernadetta pulls out a few decks of cards, a plain white candle, and two black ceramic bowls. Ferdinand excuses himself for a glass of water as she starts setting up.

Hubert’s apartment is sparsely furnished. Like Ferdinand, it appears that he does not spend much time in the space, but unlike Ferdinand’s place, Hubert’s is much cleaner, almost sterile, mostly devoid of decor and housing the bare minimums: a wire-frame pantry, a kettle, a bare, dark desk. Definitely unbefitting of the almost gothic aesthetic Hubert has curated with his fashion.

On his fridge, however, are two pictures hung up by tiny grey magnets.

One is unmistakably a portrait of Hubert and his family, likely his mother and younger brother. At first glance it seems like it was professionally done, but the three are dressed in strangely anachronistic suits that Ferdinand realizes, with glee, are butler outfits.

The sepia-toned photo tells of a story of a trip to one of those old-timey photo studios found on beach boardwalks and strip malls, but Ferdinand can’t imagine Hubert on a beach (he figures the man would probably disintegrate in the direct sunlight).

The younger boy has a gleeful expression, while Hubert appears slightly annoyed (although, Hubert always appears slightly annoyed). His mother looks remarkably similar to Hubert, but her eyes are softer and droop at edges into fine laughter lines.

Even at 12, or whatever age he’d been, Hubert looked so undeniably like himself that it fills Ferdinand with inexplicable joy.

The other photo looks to have been taken more recently; a girl with stark, purple eyes and white hair has her head tilted towards Hubert, posing for a selfie.

Ah, so this is the friend from back home. Jealousy licks its way up Ferdinand’s chest, stinging and shameful.

Edelgard is stunning; everything about her is sharp and in perfect focus. Her hair is so snow-white it’s almost blinding— Ferdinand has never seen anyone with hair that light, and he wonders if it is natural.

Ferdinand pulls open the fridge door, banishing the image of Hubert’s childhood friend from view. After filling a glass, he sets the water pitcher under the sink to refill it. It should have been a nice gesture, but Ferdinand needs to unknot his stomach before returning to the table.

He’s never felt jealous about his crush on Hubert before, since it seemed built on an assuredness that they would end up together as they seemingly had in the past. His face burns with humiliation at his first reaction towards seeing Edelgard for the first time, as if her image makes her more real.

Hubert hadn’t even insinuated a romantic relationship between him and his friend, or even spoken of previous feelings for her— in fact, he’d told Ferdinand the exact opposite. But there are a lot of things Hubert doesn’t tell him, too.

On top of a failed grant, a disinterested advisor, and a senior thesis, is this yet another battle Ferdinand has to face?

Ferdinand unclenches his body with an exhale, trying to push the blatant, mortifying resentment from his mind. Why would he try to compete with someone that, in Hubert’s words, he would never meet?

The water spills over. Ferdinand has to wipe the pitcher down before returning to the table.

“I thought there’d be a little more ceremony,” Ferdinand says jocularly, upon seeing a relatively empty surface. When both Hubert and Bernadetta stare up at him, he adds, “You know, tablecloth, floating candles, crystal ball, the works?”

Hubert narrows his eyes, a nonverbal signal Ferdinand has recognized as his queue to shut up.

So he relents and sits down without another word— he knows what it is like to try to mesh friend groups, and Hubert was trying to combine the likely most disparate personalities on campus. So Ferdinand tries a different course of action.

“I like your photo on the fridge,” he says. “The one of your family.” It’s an assumption, yes, but Ferdinand feels confident in his assessment.

Hubert’s face gives away very little. “It was my mother’s idea,” he says. “We never had time for any professional portraits.”

Another dead end. The air is more tense than usual between them, so Ferdinand turns to Bernadetta.

“So how might all of this all work?” He asks, pointing to the very unassuming bowls of water. They are made of dark ceramic, turning the tiny bowl into unending depths of darkness.

Bernadetta, having seemingly zoned out, snaps to attention once summoned— her back literally straightens up in one swift, mechanical motion and she blinks back at Ferdinand.

“I’m afraid I don’t have much experience with these arts,” Ferdinand offers, restraining from adding any inflection to the word arts . “If you could explain a bit about how we ought to begin, perhaps?”

Bernadetta nods, seemingly more at ease having been given a proper task. “Hubert thought that we would start out with a tarot reading, um… to get us in the right frame of mind, I think.”

“That sounds like a lovely idea,” Ferdinand says, trying to be as gentle as possible. He throws on a charming smile.

“Um, well, okay, so you usually start with a question…” she trails off, glancing nervously towards Hubert like a lifeline.

Hubert clears his throat. “Try to think of a topic for which you’d like some direction.”

“Can you be more specific?” Ferdinand asks, despite Hubert’s annoyed look, which rests just above his eyebrows. Well, it’s not like it’s Ferdinand’s fault he’s inexperienced— he literally doesn’t know where to start.

“Think of tarot like a guide,” Hubert says, gesturing to the deck. His fingers are long and lovely. “The cards won’t predict your future, unless you let them, so don’t ask a yes or no question.”

Bernadetta nods along, entranced by Hubert’s explanation. Ferdinand is entranced by his forearms, exposed by hastily pushed-up sleeves, pale in the dim light.

“Is there something for which you need advice, perhaps?” Hubert asks.

Ferdinand laughs, but frustration bleeds into it, turning it into more of a scoff than the light, joyous sound he intends. “If only I could narrow it down.”

Hubert, in turn, narrows his eyes. “Try.”

Well, that’s new. Ferdinand’s stomach flips unexpectedly and he fumbles for his words. “Um… perhaps some guidance on… on my thesis?”

It seems like an innocuous enough question, one that Ferdinand mostly knows the answer for, but he’s curious to see what advice the cards will provide.

What he really wants to ask is how Hubert feels about him— what their past held, what their future may yet hold.

Bernadetta chews her bottom lip as she begins to shuffle the deck, the cards anonymized with a blue and white quilted pattern.

“Ok, focus on that question,” she says. “We’ll do a three card spread based on decision making. The first card will explain your strengths, the second your weaknesses, and the third will provide some advice for moving forward.”

Hubert watches the cards shift and mix in Bernadetta’s hands. Ferdinand watches him.

She splits the cards into three stacks. “With your question in mind, pick your pile. You can try hovering your hand over them to feel their energy and see which one calls to you.”

Feeling a bit silly, Ferdinand waves his hands over the piles one at a time. He tries to focus on his research project, but his mind keeps drifting to Hubert, who’s now gazing at him with mild curiosity.

Ferdinand thinks he feels a slight warmth coming from one of them, likely psychosomatic.

Bernadetta flips the cards one at a time. The first two are relatively straightforward (the names of the cards are present), and two figures sit on thrones before him. The brightly-colored drawings are almost medieval in style but darkly-inked with a nouveau twist. Ferdinand is quite enchanted with the king and queen before him.

The third card, however, is an image of a crimson heart pierced with three swords topped with the Roman numeral three.

“The high priestess, the emperor, and the three of swords,” Bernadetta says. Hubert hums rather mysteriously.

“Is that… good?” Ferdinand asks.

Hubert scoffs. “Is that good,” he says, and Ferdinand bites his tongue in a very chivalrous display of self restraint.

Bernadetta studies the cards, carrying an air of confidence she lacked just moments ago. “These two” —she points to the priestess and emperor— “are from the major arcana, which usually symbolizes a more significant reading.”

“So that is good, I take it,” Ferdinand repeats, unsure.

He’s quite uncomfortable, the only one at the table without an idea of what’s going on as the other two analyze the cards with deep concentration in their expressions.

Hubert’s eyes flick up, almost burning Ferdinand’s as they meet. “If you’d let Bernie explain, you might get your question answered,” he says.

Ferdinand crosses his arms and then uncrosses them quickly, so as not to seem like a child.

Bernadetta places her hands on the table.

“Got it,” she says, then points to the first card. “This is the high priestess. She’s very in touch with her inner voice and intuition. When she comes up in a reading, she usually advises people to turn inwards— in a way, listen to your gut.”

She looks at Ferdinand for a moment, inscrutable yet searching in her gaze. “In your case, your strengths lie in your intuition. Have you encountered anything in crafting your thesis where you feel like your head is telling you one thing and your gut is telling you another? In those cases, you should trust your intuition.”

Ferdinand raises his eyebrows. He’s never really been one to trust his inner voice, especially when it came to academic matters— the books always knew more than he did, and that’s why Ferdinand consulted them.

But then again, he did trust a feeling to ask Hubert to coffee that day, and look where they’d ended up.

“I see,” is what he admits to.

Bernadetta points to the next card. “Your weaknesses: the emperor represents rules, order, playing by the book. Your weakness is just that— a strict adherence to the rules.”

She thinks for a moment. “I know the history department has very strict criteria for thesis projects, but maybe you have to bend those rules to succeed, or just think outside their prescriptive box.”

How could Ferdinand bend the rules when his advisor had completely rejected his ideas? But maybe there is a way to slide in some of his reincarnation theory into his project, anyway, just so the past three years of research wouldn’t go completely to waste.

“I am beginning to understand how this could apply to my work,” he says. “My original proposal was… unsuccessful, and I’ve had to pivot my topic of study.”

Hubert already knew, but it still hurts to admit it like this, when Ferdinand’s psyche is being spread out and dissected upon the table in front of him. All he does is nod, however.

“And for the final card— the three of swords. It’s usually known as the heartbreak card, but that meaning doesn’t really apply here,” Bernadetta says with a little laugh.

For Ferdinand, however, it makes his blood run cold. He knows the tarot cards are meant to be giving advice about his thesis, but hearing the words “heartbreak card” in any proximity to Hubert isn’t assuring in the slightest. Even if it didn’t apply literally, Ferdinand would rather have not seen the card appear in his spread at all.

“It’s a little challenging to interpret, but we can think about the three of swords in two ways: it can foretell doom, but it can also look beyond the heartbreak, disappointment, betrayal, and all the other things the card may promise.”

She pushes the card toward Ferdinand so he can take a closer look. In the background of the heart, there are clouds depicting a downpour. He isn’t convinced the card could be anything but a harbinger of bad times.

“The card reminds us that pain can make us stronger, and failure is sometimes necessary. You said your first proposal was rejected?” she asks.

Ferdinand nods, pressing his lips together to suppress a frown. He’s not sure how well it works.

“Okay, so take that in stride, and use that failure to be better,” Bernadetta says, uncharacteristically firm. “Do you know how to do that?”

Truthfully, he doesn’t, but he nods mechanically and says, “I may have an idea.”

“Great,” Bernadetta says, and a very small, brief smile flashes upon her face before she shuffles Ferdinand’s cards into the deck once more.

Feeling quite exposed, Ferdinand gestures to Hubert. “It’s your turn, then,” he says, as nonchalantly as he can muster.

Hubert tilts his head with a mild smile, somehow also sinister. “I prefer to conduct my readings in private.”

“Well that’s hardly fair!” Ferdinand’s pout is visible. “I didn’t know I had a choice.”

“You didn’t ask,” Hubert says. Bernadetta does not look pleased with their bickering; she’s probably biting back a remark about their “negative energy.”

Hubert turns back to Bernadetta. “Shall we try the other technique?”

She nods, and pushes the ceramic bowls in front of each of them, slowly so as not to spill the water sloshing precariously near the edge. She places the plan, white candle— one you could find at a dollar store, if you wanted— between them, and ignites it with the flick of a lighter.

Not the person Ferdinand would expect to have a lighter on hand (he certainly doesn’t), but Bernadetta is clearly full of surprises.

“Okay, so, you’re gonna look into the bowl and really focus your energy. Like tarot, you have to set an intention,” she explains, although Ferdinand assumes this is likely for his benefit rather than Hubert’s.

“And then… observe, I guess,” she says, lifting her shoulders in a slight shrug. “Hold the images in your mind, and then you can reflect on them after you are finished.”

Ferdinand clears his throat. “If I may, what are we supposed to look for?”

This question, Hubert doesn’t mock. He drags one hand over his chin in thought before speaking.

“Bernadetta and I spoke about this,” he says. “And I think our best course of action is to try and visualize the lives of our ancestors.”

Bernadetta doesn’t look confused by “ ancestors,” so it seems Hubert briefed her thoroughly before their meeting— possibly during his own readings, even.

“I will try.” Ferdinand tries to draw up the image of Ferdinand von Aegir in his mind, scarlet doublet, long locks and all.

“Um, it’s good to have some paper out, just to write it all down after,” Bernadetta adds.

In synchrony, Ferdinand and Hubert reach into their bags and pull out their writing implements of choice (mechanical pencil and fountain pen, respectively) and set them down next to them like they’ve done countless times over the course of the previous semester.

“I’ll be here in case something gets too intense,” she says. “In case I need to pull you out.”

With the ominous tone set, neither Ferdinand or Hubert offer a response.

“Okay, I guess you can just go ahead,” Bernadetta says.

Ferdinand looks down at his bowl. Just as he assessed earlier, it’s plain, dark, wet— utterly unremarkable.

Ferdinand has always been hesitant to believe— he had grown up with a skeptical father that taught him only to believe in himself. Religion had very little place in the household, despite how pious his mother was— she was mostly forced to practice on her own, and Ferdinand was never allowed to accompany her to the church.

Either way, all of this scrying business is definitely beyond him. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to see as he stares into his gloomy bowl of water— other than his own still reflection.

Ferdinand tries a peek at Hubert. Quite quickly he’s been entranced by the water, completely fixated on the bowl in front of him. His eyes are heavy and unfocused, as if in a dream, and the small, flickering light from the candle casts a gentle shadow on the sharp lines of his face.

Ferdinand wants to believe. He wants to learn more about himself, his past self, and every life in between. So Ferdinand closes his eyes, takes a very deep, (hopefully) cleansing breath, and opens them once more on the bowl in front of him.

At first, it’s nothing— just the sway of a single candle’s flame in the bowl. It tinges the water orange, like the way a hearth can paint a room in warmth.

He stares deeper still, letting his surroundings fade from focus as he watches the dark water. The walls disappear first, then the table, then Bernadetta and Hubert, until he is the only one left in the world, succumbing to a vast emptiness.

That’s when he sees it— or at least Ferdinand thinks he sees something— at first, it’s still the glow of the candle, but he watches with amazement as the flame grows into a hazy fire. One shadow crosses before it, then another. Two gloved hands, backlit in the flames, join together, one on top of the other as if asking for a dance.

Ferdinand reasons that he might be daydreaming, fantasizing about himself and Hubert as he’s been wont to do recently. But as he peers deeper into the vision, he sees the wall is stone, lit with torches that sway back and forth in the water’s rippling surface.

The two shadows embrace. One shifts his head into the glow and Ferdinand can make out long hair before the scene shifts quickly, knocking Ferdinand out of orbit and onto a battlefield.

The vision blurs with dark blue sheets of rain. There are two more hands, naked, covered with mud and blood. One grips a lance, the other holds leather reigns. He is on a horse, and he is slipping.

The ground comes at him fast and morphs into a chamber of colorful people with shifting faces and bodies. Their mouths move wordlessly, happily. He is holding a parchment, the words blurry, but a hand signs it with a feather quill. The room cheers.

The crowded chamber darkens into a night lit by candles burning on tables. A man with dark hair and green eyes stands across from him. A hand reaches out to stroke the man’s face, and the black-haired man kisses it—

Ferdinand’s phone rings.His cursed phone rings and it feels like the scream of an alarm clock pulling him from a deep sleep.

And just like he’s waking up in the middle of a sleep cycle, Ferdinand is forced to pull himself out of the water like he’s weighed down with plate armor, struggling to the surface to emerge with a gasp.

He opens his eyes (how long had they been closed?) and sees it was a text from Dorothea saying she’d secured a table.

“sh*t,” Ferdinand mutters, trying to keep his voice down, but the notification was enough to knock Hubert from his reverie as well. He blinks slowly up at Ferdinand, who has already begun packing his stuff.

“I am deeply sorry I interrupted, but I have to go,” Ferdinand says. “I’m afraid I am late for my dinner plans.”

Bernadetta looks troubled. “But we haven’t talked about what you saw… and reflection is an integral part of the process!” Her voice is unsure, yet defiant.

“Do you not have a few minutes to debrief?” Hubert asks. His shoulders are tense but his face remains placid. Ferdinand desperately wants to know what he’d seen in his scrying, but he had already blown Dorothea off once and he owed it to her to be at least somewhat on time.

“I am sorry,” Ferdinand repeats. “I’ll make sure to write it down so I remember.”

As if Ferdinand could forget the sensation of looking into that bowl and being transported into the past through the eyes of what— a stranger? Himself?

“Can we meet tomorrow?” Ferdinand says. “Grad lounge at, say, four?”

He is out the door before he can hear Hubert’s answer, but Ferdinand is confident he will show up.

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

Dorothea does not look pleased when Ferdinand sits down across from her.

In truth, he is 30 minutes late, and after already rescheduling their engagement for some spontaneous witchcraft, Ferdinand has much to apologize for.

“Thea, I am terribly sorry I am late!” he says, taking a large sip of water from his glass, sweaty with condensation and half-melted ice cubes.

Dorothea doesn’t say much while she sips her wine (dark red, mostly empty). Ferdinand attempts a cursory glance at the menu, but the waiter arrives less than a minute later.

“I see our party is all here,” says a shorter man with a mushroom cap of blond hair and round glasses. “Are we ready to order?”

“Pasta salad, please,” Dorothea says, already holding out the laminated booklet.

“Another glass of wine?” he asks her.

“Please.”

He turns to Ferdinand. “For you, sir?”

Ferdinand hums pleasantly. “I’m rather torn between the mushroom linguine and the bruschetta. Do you have a favorite?”

“Personally, I like—“

Ferdinand catches Dorothea’s look of annoyance. “Actually, I will just have the bruschetta,” he says quickly.

The waiter nods. “More bread for the table?”

Dorothea hands him a basket, which is empty save for a few crumbs peppering its inlaid napkin.

“We’re fine, thanks,” she says in a clipped tone.

When the waiter leaves, Ferdinand sighs. “Dorothea, I know you’re upset with me for being late—“

“Is that all you think this is?” she snaps. Her arms are folded over her chest. “We’ve barely seen each other all semester, Ferdie, and we finally agree on a time for dinner and you reschedule, first and foremost, and then you arrive half an hour late!”

She sighs. “I thought you were blowing me off, again. I don’t know what’s worse— you not showing up, or this.”

Her face crumples, frustration falling into despair. Ferdinand had been busy recently, but he thought it was just ordinary, college busy. Wasn’t it always like this for him and his friends— meeting to study over coffee, over dinner, even over drinks if they got a chance?

But when he really thinks about it, Ferdinand can’t remember the last time he’d hung out with someone other than Hubert. There were, of course, club meetings and classes, but aside from an occasional visit to Linhardt’s dorm, Ferdinand found himself spending most days peering over his laptop at the very sullen yet charming man who had stolen his heart a few months back before he even knew that they loved each other in a past life— maybe ever since the day they met.

“And you haven’t shown up to acapella in weeks,” Dorothea continues. “Did you know they took you out of the lineup for next Friday? Hilda didn’t know if you were going to show up.”

Ferdinand’s face falls. Goddess, when was the last time he had been to an acapella practice? He’d had to audition for the spot, but since he was a general member and had no leadership role, rehearsals had fallen low on his priority list.

Dorothea looks down at her hands, fidgeting with her napkin. “Be honest, Ferdie, have you been avoiding me?”

“Goddess, no! That is not it at all,” Ferdinand says. He takes those hands in his, knocking his bread plate in a very uncivilized manner. “I am so sorry, Thea, that I’ve been such a terrible friend. But I promise, it is of no fault of your own.”

Dorothea looks like she’s about to cry— eyes unfocused, nose wrinkled slightly, lips pressed tightly together— but she doesn’t pull her hands away. Ferdinand presses forward.

“I’ve been… busy, recently— I know, I know, we all are, it’s just…” he sighs, wishing he didn’t have to admit it all— the failed thesis proposal, Hubert, and an all-consuming romance that had caused him to abandon everything that wasn’t his personal research project in the past few months.

“My thesis proposal was rejected,” he says, trying to offer a sad smile, but it comes out as a grimace. “So I’ve had to start over, after putting in all this work, and, well— I’m afraid I’ve rather overcommitted myself.”

Dorothea sniffs. “Even I could tell you that much,” she says, but it’s less of an insult this time, and her words carry a playful taunt.

“Yes, and well, there has been someone, recently,” Ferdinand begins.

Dorothea rolls her eyes. “And there it is.”

Ferdinand is slightly affronted, although perhaps he doesn’t quite have the right to be. “I beg your pardon?”

“Oh come on, Ferdie. You always get this way with crushes,” Dorothea says.

“First of all, I never said anything about a crush—"

“But it’s the way you’re saying it,” Dorothea says, because she can always see right through him. Like a surgeon, she can slice him open and point directly to the problem, even finding it in even the deepest recesses of Ferdinand’s heart. She’d always been able to, even back when she despised him. Especially then.

Ferdinand sighs, maybe for the hundredth time that day, which is not quite a record as the past few months have been some of his most tiring, but he had started to notice an uptick in sighs recently, and it was likely due to the influence of one perpetually-sighing man.

Of course, everything came back to Hubert.

“I suppose, in a manner, you are right,” Ferdinand says.

Dorothea claps happily, all traces of misery forgotten. While Ferdinand knows he’s not off the hook (no one keeps a grudge like Dorothea), the situation has at least diffused enough that Ferdinand doesn’t feel bad about the smile that blooms on his face.

“We met near the beginning of the semester, and you know— it is funny, he was absolutely maddening to talk to, at first. But he was instrumental in helping me with my proposal, and even since I’ve had to pivot my project, we just spend time studying together,” Ferdinand says. He tries to paint Hubert in somewhat more of a flattering light than his usual facade, and if he ever tries to introduce Hubert to his friends, he’ll likely have some explaining to do.

“He sounds… academic? You’re not giving me much to work with here, Ferdie,” Dorothea says.

Ferdinand shakes his head. “Apologies, I’m not doing a very good job describing him. His name is Hubert Rolfe— have you, by chance, heard of him? He studies political science and biology, formerly pre-med, carries around a briefcase, broods a lot, you know, that kind of thing.”

“Hm. Doesn’t sound like your type,” Dorothea says, then leans forward. “Is he tall?”

“Thea!” he shouts, affronted. When eyes from other tables turn towards them, Ferdinand slinks lower in his chair. Dorothea does not seem affected by the attention, as she just grins.

“I’m serious. Is he tall?”

Ferdinand blushes. “Yes, he is. Quite tall.”

He continues, detailing their harrowing first encounter: the oak tree, the coffee shop, the flash of disappointment on Hubert’s face when Ferdinand had explained his scholarly pursuits— then the pallid, uneven color of his skin when they gazed upon their portraits for the first time. All the hours of studying, Ferdinand’s newfound predilection for coffee, the jolt in his heart whenever he receives a message from Hubert— even the time they had spent the night in the same apartment. (Dorothea seemed rather excited by that until Ferdinand informed her that they had slept in separate rooms.)

“He did make me breakfast, though,” Ferdinand says to play up the intrigue, the longing. “Pancakes!”

“And how does he feel about you?” Dorothea asks.

Ferdinand pauses, worrying his lip. “That’s the difficult part, I’m afraid. In our research, we found evidence of a love affair between Hubert von Vestra and someone, given a false name, in his journals.”

Dorothea nods along slowly.

“While my feelings for him are quite clear, I am not sure what I am to him,” he says. “It all seems so sure— that we would end up together, that is. But that is also the issue, you see: I feel deeply for him, as did, I’m sure, Ferdinand of the past for his Hubert, and because of this, my entire thesis now rests upon myself and my relationships.”

He shakes his head, undoing his roll of silverware to lay the napkin on his lap with a dramatic flourish.

“It’s all been abstract up until now, and it’s been easy to remove myself from my research. But if my theory depends on Hubert and I falling in love, well, what happens if we do not? In a sense, that would disprove the past four years of my research and all of my academic scholarship thus far.

“But then,” he continues, “what if we do fall in love? Will I be forced to watch my relationship through a lens of the past, doomed to a narrative? Will I watch love crumble before my eyes as I try to fit a partnership into a pattern I’ve meticulously researched? I still have doubts myself that it may be real, but after everything I saw today—”

“Hold on,” Dorothea interrupts, raising a few fingers from the table. “What happened today?”

“Oh, Goddess! I’m talking myself in knots,” Ferdinand shakes his head with a smile. “I was with Hubert before this, and his friend Bernadetta. They were educating me on the various uses of witchcraft.”

Dorothea’s eyes light. “Bernadetta from the library? Short, purple hair?” When Ferdinand nods, she says, “I know her! She’s read my cards before. She told me I’d find love soon if I stopped trying so hard and let it come to me.”

Ferdinand can’t resist the bait. “And?”

Dorothea tilts her head, and on her face, a secretive smile rests. “And I’ve been seeing someone.”

Ferdinand’s mouth drops, just as the waiter places their food in front of them. After a few polite thank yous, Ferdinand leans forward, fork and knife in either hand. “Thea, why didn’t you tell me?”

She shoots him a look.

“Right, sorry,” Ferdinand says sheepishly. “Anyways, we— Hubert and I— we practiced some scrying… I’m not even sure if that is how you would phrase it, but Saints, Thea, I actually saw something.”

He shakes his head, almost barely unable to believe it now. “I saw… him, I think— Ferdinand von Aegir, that is. The visions seemed to correspond with the time period with which von Aegir lived, although I’d have to do some digging to be more certain.”

“And did you see Hubert?” Dorothea asks in rapt attention, stabbing a piece of lettuce without looking. A bright red tomato rolls off her plate.

“I did,” Ferdinand says, feeling a little embarrassed about the whole thing for the first time. Were they actual visions of the past he saw in the bowl, or just delusions from a love-addled brain? Ferdinand couldn’t be certain.

“The situations were…” he fumbled for a word. “Romantic in nature, I’d say.”

Dorothea raises an eyebrow.

“No! Goddess, not like that,” Ferdinand says, fully blushing at this point. He’s always been sort of splotchy when he blushes, due to a naturally pale complexion and a well-functioning circulatory system— perhaps too functional, in situations like these.

“It was simply intimate. Just two people by a fireplace, looking into each other’s eyes,” Ferdinand clarifies. “That’s how I could tell it was Hubert— there’s no mistaking him.”

The images he’d watched in the water are already starting to become hazy, and Ferdinand is beginning to regret not writing them down immediately after he’d awoken back to reality. But he knows deeply that he had seen Hubert, and that is enough for him.

Dorothea, ever the wise, grabs hold of the omissions in Ferdinand’s story and asks, “What did Hubert see?”

Ferdinand grimaces. “I’m afraid we didn’t get to discuss it, you see, I was, ahem, running late for dinner.”

To his delight, Dorothea laughs. “You chose me over discussing your love affair with Hubert? I know I should be mad that you were so late, but honestly, I’m feeling kind of honored,” she says, and her eyes are sparkling.

“You are very special to me, Dorothea, and I promise I’m going to be a better friend from here on out,” he says, resisting a strong urge to reach across the table and grab her hands, silverware be damned.

Dorothea waves her fork. “Yeah, yeah,” she says. “We can talk about that later. For now, I have to update you on my life.”

“I’d very much like that,” Ferdinand says.

With enthusiasm, he digs into his meal. He wants to soak up every detail from the past months of his friend’s life, and he’s always been a better listener with his mouth full.

—

For the first time in a while, Ferdinand is nervous to see Hubert the next afternoon.

They hadn’t been in contact that morning, and an inkling of self-doubt appeared when Ferdinand didn’t see him at their usual table when he arrived, just a few minutes after four. He’d even had to let himself in.

Should he have confirmed? Ferdinand can wait a few more minutes, he reasons, before he sends his onslaught of texts, a habit he is working hard to lessen if not break.

But like the ever-dependable man he is, Hubert arrives— albeit slightly later than expected. (But given Ferdinand’s recent track record, who is he to judge?)

Ferdinand greets Hubert with a smile. It's somewhat returned.

“I apologize for running out so quickly yesterday,” Ferdinand begins. He hasn’t taken out his laptop or books yet, hands clasped on the table.

“It’s no trouble,” Hubert says. He begins to unpack his things— a sleek pencil case, black laptop sleeve, his meticulously organized planner, bound in leather.

“I was hoping we could debrief our… session with your friend Bernadetta yesterday,” Ferdinand tries.

Hubert looks rather distracted as he sets down his planner and says, “Oh yes, of course.”

“Did you and Bernadetta talk a bit last night?” It’s not accusatory, or at least Ferdinand hopes it doesn’t come across as such.

“A bit,” Hubert echoes.

“Okay,” Ferdinand pauses. “I’d love to hear what you discussed.”

The ultimate conclusion Ferdinand had come to while running out of Hubert’s apartment yesterday was that Ferdinand von Aegir and Hubert von Vestra were, without a doubt, in love.

Ferdinand saw the face from the visions in his dream last night— one from which he woke up sweating and blushing profusely— and he sees it every day, sitting across from him. Older, more angular, and graying slightly, but definitively Hubert.

He is quite anxious to hear what Hubert has seen.

Hubert steeples his fingers in a very villainous gesture, but one Ferdinand knows to mean he is thinking deeply. His brow furrows too, and it’s rather charming.

“What I saw in the water… it was primarily focused on the war,” he says. “Or at least, what I believe to be the war fought for the establishment of the Adrestian Empire. I was able to make out a scarlet eagle on one of the banners, one of the symbols of House Hresvelg from which the Emperor came, as well as a golden lion shrouded in blue, which I seem to remember was the house sigil from the former territory known as Fhirdiad.”

Ferdinand nods. “I also saw a battlefield from that same war. Although you were able to parse far more details than I was,” he says.

“Then how did you know it was the same?” Hubert asks.

Ferdinand shrugs. “A feeling.”

“A feeling, Ferdinand?” Hubert squints. His question is so accusatory, Ferdinand has to laugh.

“Oh please, as if this whole exercise wasn’t anything more than a lesson in intuition,” Ferdinand says.

“At least I have evidence to back it up,” Hubert says, mounting his very high horse once more. “I researched the sigils last night.”

“I, for one, am confident that it was the same war,” Ferdinand says.

“Pray tell.”

“I was wearing plate armor,” he says. Yes, there were other wars fought by knights in shining armor, and yes, both Ferdinand and Hubert know this. But Ferdinand is willing to die on the hill of his battle’s vibes, and Hubert likely knows it, so he continues.

“The visions jumped around quite a bit, but I saw many of Hubert von Vestra— so I assume— and the Emperor. Fighting side by side, signing paperwork— it almost seems like he was the Emperor’s personal attendant.”

Hubert chuckles momentarily. “Goddess, what was her name again? It’s such an important detail, but I’ve been swimming through so many names recently, and von Vestra’s damn code names— well, it seems I can’t remember clearly.”

Ferdinand almost chokes, then.“Edelgard von Hresvelg,” he responds, thinly. “Just like your friend.”

Hubert frowns. “I suppose I should have known that.”

“Did you see… myself? Or von Aegir, I suppose?” Ferdinand says. He's awfully afraid of how small his voice sounds to his own ears.

“Not that I remember,” Hubert says. He raises one hand to stroke his chin, another gesture that Ferdinand would usually find endearing if it weren’t for the blood roaring in his ears.

Ferdinand saw Hubert, but whose hands did von Vestra hold? Whose face did he stroke?

Surely it had been Ferdinand von Aegir. But Ferdinand never saw his own face, only shadows.

His stomach turns as the emperor card comes to mind, the harsh lines and cold eyes of the ruler sitting on the throne.

It is possible Hubert could have loved another, an emperor with hair as stark as snow, one with the same name as his friend back home—

The three of swords, piercing the heart. The heartbreak card— Bernadetta had called it.

“I have to go,” Ferdinand says, too stunned to think of a plausible excuse. He almost stumbles over his chair as he tries to stuff his books into his bag before he realizes he hasn’t taken anything out.

Hubert looks rather concerned, which would be touching in any other scenario. “Are you ill, Ferdinand?”

Ferdinand shakes his head, wanting to clutch his chest at the way Hubert says his name, Ferdinand, like a fletching to the heart.

Has he really been imagining it the whole time? Ferdinand desperately needs to look over the journals again. In times of crisis, Ferdinand turns to facts, to books, to real things, which are far more reliable than thoughts and feelings.

“I’m fine,” he says, raking some fingers through his hair. It’s sweaty at the roots. “I will message you, ahem— at a later time.”

He tries a wobbly smile and a thumbs up, but it just makes Hubert’s eyes tighten further.

Ferdinand runs out of the building before he can say anything else.

—

It isn’t like Ferdinand Baker to flee a scene, but the thought of experiencing the full five stages of grief in front of another person— Hubert, no less— is enough to send him bolting.

He makes it to his apartment out of breath and fishes out his laptop before throwing his backpack to the laminated wood floor. He pauses at his dining room table, but the memory of Hubert sitting there, idly sipping coffee, makes Ferdinand wince. He turns to his bedroom instead.

The journals are already open in a window on Ferdinand’s computer.

He skims them quickly, searching for any reference of “Carlisle,” the man he’d presumed was Ferdinand von Aegir.

21 Garland Moon 1187

It is perhaps the slowest day of the moon, and yet, Hypatia has not found a free moment to join me for tea. Concerning the Treatise of Locke, I must say, I am profoundly at a loss— perhaps I will pass it on to Carlisle (he’d find pleasure in that)....

And then the love letters, the ones Ferdinand had foolishly assumed were to von Aegir. Each letter spoke of someone— unnamed, ungendered.

24 Guardian Moon 1187

You are my jewel, sparkling brightly in the orange glow of the fire’s embers, rivaled only by myself.

The colors of House Hresvelg were red and gold.

Ferdinand remembers Hubert’s uneasy silence when he suggested the two men were in love, and every strange, averted gaze every time he mentioned it since. He’d always assumed Hubert was just being coy.

Ferdinand collapses to the mattress. He’d been blinded by love, and he twisted the facts to fit his chosen narrative. He wishes to hide in shame like a hermit, withdraw from society and take back his almost confessions spun as reincarnation theory.

Goddess, who had he been kidding? Dorothea saw right through him, his advisor saw through him, and Hubert likely had too.

How can he even face Hubert again, knowing he’ll have to admit his visions in the scrying bowl were just intimate fantasies, two people embracing by firelight? What good would that do their research, if Ferdinand could even call it such, at this point?

Has it been this way all along— Ferdinand pursuing his theories under the guise of getting Hubert to fall in love with him? Perhaps it hadn’t started out that way, but the moment Ferdinand had seen their faces in the history book, he wanted it to be true.

Ferdinand still wants to be a part of it: this theory of reincarnation that is greater than him, stretches far beyond him, but he’d gotten too close to the research, and he’d tangled his heart into it as well.

Ferdinand pulls his phone from his pocket. He would rather give it more time, but he’s always done things best when he faces them head-on.He finds his text thread with Hubert and rips the bandaid off.

—

Ferdinand is awoken by his phone ringing.

Bleary-eyed and confused, he fumbles for it. He must have fallen asleep mid-afternoon and the phone is unplugged. It’s Hubert calling him, and according to the screen, it isn’t the first time.

“Hello?” Ferdinand answers.

“You’re dropping the project?” Hubert asks. There’s acute venom in his voice.

Ferdinand rubs his eyes. He’d expected a terse response, or at the very worst, to be left on read, but in no universe did Ferdinand expect Hubert to be angry.

“No! I mean— yes, I need to step back from our research… indefinitely.” Ferdinand’s eyes screw shut. He hates the sound of his voice—formal and indifferent. When was the last time he’d spoken to Hubert with such guarded airs?

“Why,” Hubert asks it not as a question, but as a demand. His words seethe through the speaker.

“I am simply… overwhelmed,” Ferdinand says. A bit of truth to sprinkle into the glaring omission. “I am overworked, I have neglected my friendships— and this is not even my thesis project anyways, which Goddess knows I am behind on anyway.”

Hubert says nothing on the other end. Ferdinand almost misses the anger, now, rather than this empty space, begging to be filled.

After a moment, Hubert responds. “And you think I’m not?”

“I know you are,” Ferdinand says. He presses the speakerphone button, drops his phone to his lap and his head to his hands. “I do not know what you want me to say, Hubert.”

“I want you to be honest with me! This sudden behavior is unlike you, and while you may spiral on your own, I’d prefer not to be in your destructive path,” Hubert says tersely.

Ferdinand sets his jaw injuriously. “That’s not fair,” he says.

Hubert says, “That’s rich, from you.”

Ferdinand snaps his eyes open to a dark room with curtains pulled— he hadn’t opened them before he left this morning, and it’s early evening.

“Rich?” He bites the words through his teeth.

“Do you think this was ever fair for me?” Hubert asks. “I did this for you.”

Ferdinand scoffs. “I gave you the option to leave— but you insisted we were in this together!”

His heart beats loudly in his ears. This is not how it was supposed to go, it was supposed to be easier than this. Hubert was supposed to go quietly, he was not supposed to fight back—

“May I remind you, you were the one who pulled me into this,” Hubert says, deadly calm. “I accommodated your schedule, your thousands of meetings and extracurriculars— we met on your terms, on your time, and I did it because I believed in this project!”

He has not raised his voice, but the effect is the same.

Ferdinand deflates. He believed in it too.

Hubert scoffs. “Nothing to say?”

Ferdinand swallows, and his words wither and die in his mind. “It is not the right time,” he manages, sounding so weak he wants to hang up.

But Hubert says, “Goddess, what a waste,” before he can push the button. It’s as close to a gut punch as Ferdinand would likely ever get.

“I’ll see you around, I suppose,” Ferdinand says.

Hubert hmmphs and the line goes quiet. It’s silent enough to think Hubert’s hung up the phone, but in a surprisingly calm voice, Ferdinand hears him ask, “Would this have anything to do with what you saw in your vision?”

Ferdinand’s cheeks flush. He hadn’t shared any details with Hubert about that evening. He hated— hates— how Hubert can read him sometimes, even over airwaves.

“No,” he says quickly— perhaps too quickly. “I just saw a battlefield, like I told you. And some parliamentary proceedings.”

“Is that all?” Hubert asks.

He sounds far away. How fitting.

“Yes, I’m afraid it was uneventful,” Ferdinand says. “I’m glad… you were able to glean something from it, but—“ he sighs. “I’ve hit a dead end. I need to focus on other things and this— this just can’t be a priority.”

Ferdinand is grasping at straws, wishing to keep Hubert on the line, to explain himself in circles so that their call might go on forever.Ferdinand hopes, as much as he dares, that Hubert will stay with him, long enough to sort out his mess, to abandon their research and maybe have a friendship outside of this pretext, this singular plane of existence.

A few moments pass. Finally, Hubert says, “Well, while you may choose to 'step back' from this project” —the words are thick with resentment— “I will continue the research on my own then.”

“Are you sure?” Ferdinand’s voice is small, alarmingly close to a whisper. “Maybe it was a mistake, getting so tangled up in this, pretending like I was— related to the noble Ferdinand von Aegir.”

Hubert scoffs. “Please. This was never about us. Do you think I ever wanted to be that vile man, von Vestra? All of that talk of poison, deceit, and betrayal? That man lived in the shadows, and I never for once mistook myself for him, nor you for von Aegir. They were merely a means to an end.”

“I… I am not sure what you mean by that,” Ferdinand says.

“I do not hedge my bets on the dead, Ferdinand. I bet on you,” Hubert says.

It could almost be mistaken for a confession, but it hurts: it hurts so deeply Ferdinand wants to fold in on himself, smaller and smaller until he is nothing more than the dust on his duvet.

Ferdinand can almost hear Hubert frowning, can picture the way his eyes narrow and his brows hunch low on his temple. Maybe he’s pushing a piece of hair out of his face as he blows out a breath into the speaker— it was always getting in the way.

“We could…” Ferdinand falters but tries again to salvage the situation. “Even if we do not work on the research together, it does not mean we have to stop working together.”

Hubert huffs. “I was under the impression that you were too busy to spend your time with anything other than your work.”

“This isn't about you, Hubert, it is simply a matter of—“

“Isn't it, though?” Hubert asks, cutting him short.

And what can Ferdinand possibly say to that?

After the lull, Hubert says, “I suppose this is where we part ways, then.”

The words ring in Ferdinand’s skull. He has a funny feeling in his throat, like the start of a cry, but his lips are parched and his eyes are painfully clear.

If it has to be so, then.

“I suppose so,” Ferdinand echoes.

Hubert hangs up. As if the phone is still listening, Ferdinand lies down on the bed carefully and stays very still.

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

Even without his reincarnation research, Ferdinand’s schedule is still jam-packed with commitments.

He attends the regular student council sessions, apologizes for general meeting absences, and finally makes it to an acapella rehearsal. Even though he isn’t able to perform, Ferdinand is front and center to lead the standing ovation for Dorothea’s first solo with the group. There are even a few tears in his eyes as he cheers, but none of them are reserved for jealousy.

Ferdinand finally pays attention, not just lip service, to his thesis project, and he does actually use his newly freed time to work on it. His first step is a literature review to be approved by the semester’s end, which will then translate to a second semester of research and writing.

As per Bernadetta’s advice, Ferdinand builds on his previous theories, spinning the webs of reincarnation into tapestries of family histories, relationships, and patterns of behavior. After a few weeks, he has a pretty good sense of his thesis outline— he’s working backward, but Bernadetta had also advised him to break from the rigidity of academic policies— and has a few more weeks to gather his journals and letters and histories into a tidy literature review.

The research is grounding and distracting. Ferdinand needs no more motivation to work other than a place to settle his spinning mind, letting it wobble and fall to the earth like a top. It keeps him from wondering about Hubert, or missing him; it keeps his eyes trained on the work below him so that he doesn’t look up and expect to see Hubert’s surly stare, bored and beautiful, looking back at him.

But a primary source review means that Ferdinand can’t avoid the library forever, no matter how hard he tries— and Ferdinand has done his best, skirting around all of the spots on campus that feel like a breakup. But the rare books room is, unfortunately, tantamount to his thesis, and so one wintery afternoon, Ferdinand pushes open the building’s heavy doors to face the music.

All he finds in its stead is Bernadetta, who feels less like an omen and more like a familiarity, thankfully— close enough to Hubert to remind him of better days, but not enough for the memory to deal a blow to his already aching heart.

She’s already shuffling for the key when she sees him enter, still wrapped in a large, chunky scarf she is in the process of knitting (the plastic needles lay on the desk in front of her, still looped with yarn.

Bernadetta smiles nervously as she holds out the key. She’s added a glittery, gold ribbon to it instead of the innocuous metal loop it’s usually hooked on. It’s a nice touch.

“It’s been a while since you’ve been here,” she says.

Ferdinand nods. “I have been busier than normal,” he says. The perfect university student response, brimming with solidarity and just enough subtext to assuage anyone who wants to pry for details.

He does want Bernadetta to pry, though. Just a little.

“Too busy for the library?” she asks. He sighs, but before he can say anything further she adds, “That’s okay. I’ve been there, too.”

Something swells inside Ferdinand, something he hasn’t felt since he made his last, close friend sophom*ore year. He hadn’t really branched out since then— having established a reliable circle— and Bernadetta may be the first new kinship he’s felt in years. That is, except for Hubert.

He takes the key from Bernadetta’s hand, the brass warm from where she’s been holding it between her fingers.

“Oh, have you talked to Hubert lately?” Bernadetta asks, and Ferdinand supposes later it shouldn’t have been all that unexpected, but in the moment it feels like a bolt from the blue.

He stiffens. “I have not,” he says.

She sighs. “That’s okay. I haven’t heard from him either. I was hoping you’d know how he was doing.”

Talking about Hubert in the library is almost akin to seeing him there, but it stings differently. If he were to see Hubert, he could at least walk the other way; in a conversation, he is trapped.

But Ferdinand is also morbidly curious, as he’d forbade himself from peeking around Hubert’s socials (notoriously barren, but he couldn’t help but check) or asking around in casual conversation, “Oh, have you heard from Hubert lately? What’s he been up to?”

(This also isn’t logistically hard, as Ferdinand and Hubert’s circles run rather small and divergent, but the task still feels monumental.)

So, as casually as he can, Ferdinand leans in a little and asks, “You have not heard from him either?”

“It’s not like we talk often,” she says. “But he’s been eerily quiet for a few weeks. I thought he might want to consult me about his research some more, but he hasn’t.”

She shrugs, and the scarf shrugs with her. “I just assumed he was busy with you.”

Oh, how Ferdinand wishes. “He has come to you before? About our— his project?”

Bernadetta doesn’t look suspicious. “Yeah… we used to talk a lot about it. It’s how we got close, actually. He would ask me all of these questions about spirituality and stuff, and how he could communicate with ghosts. I thought he was talking about ghosts in the general sense, but after a while, he let me in on your findings, and I guess… you know the rest.”

Ferdinand has to bite his lip to suppress the wave that knocks into him. These days, it was harder to control his emotions, to compartmentalize the proper reaction for the proper time.

“I wish I knew more,” he says, trying out a sympathetic grin. “I had to step away from the project recently—“ he gestures his hand to conjure the general image of, you know, busy— “and I am afraid my contact with Hubert has diminished alongside of it.”

“That’s okay,” Bernadetta says, for a third time. “I bet he’s fine. He’s Hubert. He can do just about anything.”

Ferdinand didn’t know Bernadetta had such an image of Hubert, too. And she is right: Hubert should be fine. He is the most capable man Ferdinand knows, besides himself— well, perhaps even including himself, given recent circ*mstances.

Though it pains him, he knows Hubert will succeed in his research, whatever that meant to him, with or without Ferdinand. And the thought brings him some comfort, despite his season’s chill.

“Thank you for the key, Bernadetta,” he says.

The walk to the rare books room is quiet— many students have opted to stay out of the buffeting winds, it seems. The room greets him like an old friend, and the smell of books gently guides his mind back to the task at hand.

Ferdinand retrieves his notebook, slips on his plastic shoe covers, and tries not to think about the last time he was here, when Hubert dropped a laminated leaflet, and as they both reached to pick it up, their hands touched above the cold ground.

—

A few days pass, and Ferdinand thinks enough time has gone by that he can bring it up to Linhardt.

He is not exactly not checking up on Hubert, which he’s promised Dorothea he’d do for the sake of “moving on,” but he reasons that doing the checking up from a distance was a good compromise.

Linhardt let slip a week ago that Hubert was still coming by, occasionally, to collect materials from Linhardt’s interlibrary loan connection or briefly discuss hang-ups in his approach. It’s gratifying, somewhat, to hear that Hubert hasn’t abandoned the project, but it also feels vindictive, too.

Ferdinand is not sure how to raise the subject of Hubert’s well-being other than saying, during a particular lull in he and Linhardt’s conversation, “Have you seen Hubert lately?”

Linhardt raises one very amused eyebrow and taps his pencil against the table, fluttering his fingers.

He plays coy. “Mhm.”

Ferdinand huffs. “I was just concerned for his well-being. His friend— Bernadetta, from the library, with the tarot— she has not seen him, and I worry he is isolating himself from his friends.”

“From you,” Linhardt says pointedly.

“That’s not what I mean! I merely—”

“Please,” Linhardt stops him. “I’m caught up.”

Ferdinand hmmphs, and crosses his arms. Linhardt sips on one of his favorite espresso drinks he orders on his rare trips off campus— a traditional macchiato, not one of those “bastardizations that spits in the face of 50 years of tradition,” as he likes to call them.

He waits, and thus so does Ferdinand, pouting a little despite his age. The coffee shop buzzes around them.

“Fine,” Linhardt says. “He’s doing fine.”

Ferdinand blows out a breath and takes a sip from his water bottle, just to pause time for a few moments.

“I am glad to hear that,” Ferdinand says, genuinely relieved. But something still nags at him, and he asks, “How did you know?”

“Know?”

“About what transpired,” Ferdinand grimaces. “Between Hubert and I.”

“Oh. He told me.”

“He told you?” Ferdinand sounds delirious, his own voice pounding in his ears. “What did he say?”

Linhardt looks him over. “You sound quite jealous.”

And what can Ferdinand say to that? He’s spent an entire month pretending he doesn’t care, hoping that if lied to others long enough, he’d start to believe it himself.

Instead, it keeps him pent up and worried, searching for crumbs of Hubert in every conversation he has. Instead, it has turned him into this.

Maybe it is too much to tiptoe around the truth, to put up the facade that he isn’t devastated to lose Hubert— not just the idea of a romantic relationship, but the loss of his presence, his brilliant mind, his single-minded devotion to everything he gets his hands on— even their incessant bickering that keeps Ferdinand’s mind sharp and eager for the next strike.

What Ferdinand needs is to truly cut himself off, so that he can untangle himself from his Hubert of the past, and maybe begin again with Hubert now.

But Goddess— his impulse control! He knows it not when it came to Hubert, and it drives Ferdinand absolutely mad. He’s never felt a love like this: one that never really had amounted to anything, and yet ended feeling like a heartbreak anyways.

“Will you… will you just let me know if you see him, occasionally? Tell me how he is doing?” Ferdinand asks, desperate.

Linhardt stretches his arms above his head and says, “I make no promises.”

–

Ferdinand makes time for Dorothea, too.It’s not just because his friend is a delightful distraction from the world, or that she picks him up and forces him out of his apartment when he’s feeling particularly mopey. But that is part of it.

While it’s harder to plan traditional study dates, as her operatic studies require more rehearsals than problem sets, she does still have to read occasionally. So she and Ferdinand would find a quiet spot in the student center, with stiffer seats than the grad lounge of the poly sci building, which Ferdinand longs for as much as Hubert sometimes. And then they would sit, arrange their books, plug in their laptops, and do everything except study.

Dorothea tells Ferdinand of her new girlfriend, who he had a class with once, back as a freshman. They were probably still friends on Facebook— a steely-eyed English major named Ingrid, who was likely the most competitive student a seven-person seminar had ever seen. She seems to have chilled out a bit in the years since.

Dorothea does not ask about Hubert, but Ferdinand knows both of them want to. It’s only a matter of who will break first.

He feels like all his conversations revolve around Hubert these days. If he’s not trying not to talk about him, he’s trying not to think about him, and if he’s not doing that, he’s asleep. Ferdinand has not been this motivated yet this distracted in ages, besides possibly his campaign for student council.

It was the same thing then, too— it was all Ferdinand could talk about, think about, or even dream about. At least his dreams about Hubert are far more pleasant, even if they do leave him lonely at daybreak.

Dorothea, Goddess bless her, does bring it up first.

“I know you want to talk about it,” she says. “So how are you doing, you know, with the whole Hubert thing?”

Ferdinand hides his face— half of him shameful, half of him shamefully gleeful. “We have not spoken in a while,” (“Good for you,” Dorothea gives him sweet, supportive thumbs up,) “and while I have barely heard anything about him, Linhardt did mention he was still coming by to work on our project.”

“Linhardt told you? Out of the blue?”

Ferdinand flexes his hand a few times before saying, “I asked.”

Dorothea sighs. “Do you think it’s really a good idea to keep tabs on him?” she asks. “You won’t stop thinking about him in a romantic way if you don’t cut yourself off. You just have to wait it out.”

“I know,” Ferdinand whines. “But you know how much trouble I have always had with waiting.”

Dorothea pats his hand, and it’s both sympathetic and patronizing. “I know. But what you’re doing— asking around, fixating on him— it will only make it worse for you, in the long run.”

She says, “You can always start over, Ferdie, but what you need now is time. And look!” Dorothea gestures to their untouched work. “We have plenty to distract us.”

Ferdinand rests his elbows on his knees and his chin in his palms. “I know,” he repeats, merely an echo chamber at this point. “It just feels like all I do these days is try not to think about him, and then I end up doing it anyway. Am I crazy? I feel a tad crazy.”

“A little,” Dorothea says. “I looked through those pictures you sent me, and it feels like the right time to tell you that I honestly don’t know what you see in him. He looks like a cartoon villain, he dresses like he’s from a period piece, and that hair? A bit messy for your taste, isn’t it?”

When he doesn’t reply, she asks, “Was that helpful?”

Ferdinand huffs, but he sits up, at least.

“Marginally,” he says. “But now I am thinking about his hair.”

–

Dorothea brings him to a movie the following weekend, and they spend a full day without touching a single textbook. (Ferdinand has to be dragged at first, as he always does, but it ends up being a lovely day.)

Enbarr has a small theater with plush seats that shows artsy movies, the kind that only show for a limited time and are often in foreign languages. They watch one about a warrior princess in Brigid, and then they get crepes.

It is another week of academic solitude before Linhardt contacts him— with a phone call, no less.

“Can you come pick up your… associate?” Linhardt asks. It sounds like he’s possibly stifling a yawn.

“Who?” Ferdinand asks.

“Hubert. He’s fallen asleep on my desk,” Linhardt says.

“I–” Ferdinand stands up so quickly that he nearly knocks his paper coffee cup off of his table where he’s hunkered down to study for the day. “I thought you were going to let me know when you saw him!”

“I said no such thing,” Linhardt says. “I usually try to keep my relationships separate, but Hubert has fallen asleep on my desk, therefore I thought it was a proper time to alert you.”

Ferdinand scrubs a hand down his face. “Okay,” he says. “I’m coming.”

“Great, I’ll swipe you in,” Linhardt says.

—

Truthfully, Ferdinand is not prepared to see Hubert, despite how much he wants to.

Instead, Ferdinand wishes there could be more build-up, some better pretense than “our friend, whom I also asked to keep tabs on you, has done just that and alerted me to your presence in his dorm, oh, and by the way, could you leave? He’s trying to nap.”

But life hardly goes the way Ferdinand plans, ever, so he gets to speech writing on the fly.

Serving on the student council provided Ferdinand ample opportunities for speeches, so it isn’t difficult to whip up something quickly in his mind, editing explanations and apologies as he hurries over to Linhardt’s dorm.

It doesn’t have to be an event, Ferdinand thinks, to see his (former?) friend, but it feels like one. It’s almost like a reunion of two lost souls who have finally found each other again, but perhaps Ferdinand is being dramatic. He’s just there to escort Hubert out of a dorm room, and maybe check in on him, if things go his way.

He has a few variations of his soliloquy: one if Hubert is happy to see him, one if he scorns him, and one for if he’s left already.

The last one would be a text because the squeezing, suffocating feeling in his chest as he walks to Linahrdt’s dorm makes it plainly clear that Ferdinand cannot go another day without at least speaking to Hubert. Even if it’s just for Hubert to tell him to f*ck off, Goddess, Ferdinand would take anything.

He wonders, briefly, if Linhardt had planned it this way.

It’s almost winter break, so the wind cuts through Ferdinand’s down jacket, buffeting him backward in an apt show of symbolism. He rounds the corner just as Hubert exits the building.

The door is hard and heavy, pushing against the wind that sweeps Hubert’s hair from his face like swirling leaves. It’s devastating.

Hubert huffs then straightens quickly, holding some expanding file folder that accordions open, threatening to spill documents to the sidewalk.

Ferdinand startles Hubert on his approach— he’s lost in thought, or at least distracted, as he almost runs into Ferdinand head-on.

“Ferdinand?” His face lights up for a moment— Goddess, how long has it been since they’d seen each other? Ferdinand has been trying not to keep count of the days.

(25 days).

But then expression sharpens, narrowing his eyes as he raises his parapets. “What are you doing here?”

“I was–” Ferdinand has to clear his throat. “I was coming to see you.”

If possible, Hubert’s eyes squint even further. “You haven’t seen me in weeks.”

Everything comes crashing down in Ferdinand’s mind, the words he’d rehearsed on the way over jumble and spill about. Hubert’s so unassumingly handsome that it is physically painful. Or maybe Ferdinand is having a heart attack— he’s unsure which one is more probable.

“I spoke to Linhardt,” he manages. “He told me you were spending a lot of time here, and you fell asleep. He asked me… to come pick you up.”

“To pick me up?” Hubert asks, skeptical. “He’s one to talk, always sleeping when I’m over to work.”

Hubert glances to the side, twice, like he wants to leave. Somehow, seeing him again is neither magical nor heartbreaking– it’s just so disdainfully average. No cherry blossom petals swirl in the breeze, no words are shouted, no books thrown.

Deep down, Ferdinand wishes for something more explosive, if he is forced to confront his feelings head-on like this.

Maybe that is why he asks, “Oh, so now you’re studying together?” And jealousy leaks into every word, petulantly thrown to the wind without caution. As if Ferdinand has a monopoly on Hubert’s company, especially since he’s all but cut him off for the past month.

“What is this really about, Ferdinand?” Hubert counters. He sounds exasperated like he could flee at any moment, so Ferdinand attempts to backpedal.

“I just thought I’d check on you,” he says. It’s a weak excuse, caring for Hubert’s well-being, but the longer he looks, the more he sees that Hubert’s eyes are more sunken, and the surrounding skin has a greyish tint. His demeanor, while dashingly windswept, is wholly unkempt.

“Hubert, have you been sleeping enough?” Ferdinand asks, wide-eyed.

“What does it matter to you?” Hubert snaps.

Then, Ferdinand makes a mistake. He lifts his fingers— to what, touch Hubert’s brow, perhaps lay a palm on his cheek, maybe check his temperature— but what he ends up doing is very gently pushing a lock of hair from Hubert’s forehead, just out of his eyesight.

Hubert turns away with a grimace.

Ferdinand yanks his own hand back; it curls awkwardly by his chest. “I’m sorry—"

“I wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Hubert says through crushed teeth. “I wasn’t ready to see you.”

Ferdinand’s stomach falls. He chokes out his next breath and says, “I will go, then.”

His nails bite into the skin of his palms as he turns to leave. As long as he puts one foot in front of the other, Ferdinand will eventually leave the campus, and he can take solace in the shadows of his bedroom while he waits for the next day—

Hubert’s fingers close around his wrist. Ferdinand whips around.

“I wasn’t ready to see you, Ferdinand,” he repeats, which, at this point, adds insult to Ferdinand’s already bruised injury.

“I was just about to leave, if you would only allow me,” Ferdinand bites back.

“If you just stop talking for one second.” Ferdinand looks up from his wrist to see Hubett pinching his brow, eyes squeezed shut.

“I have been researching,” Hubert begins. “I wanted to find proof— for you.”

Hubert seems to stumble over his words, like each of them amasses a larger hurdle than the previous. Ferdinand has never seen his composure wane like this, nor watched him fight sentences as they battle their way to his lips.

“Go on,” Ferdinand says.

“I wanted to find a way to prove that von Aegir and von Vestra were in love, for you,” he says.

Ferdinand smiles sadly. “Ah, it seems I have been made,” he says softly. “How long have you known?”

Hubert’s grip tightens. “Please, Ferdinand, Goddess— let me finish,” he says. Ferdinand closes his eyes and nods.

“I strayed off course, yes, because it was clear that their love was important to you, and therefore it became important to me,” he says, but pauses long enough that Ferdinand feels it’s appropriate to respond, despite having the ocean in his ears.

“Am I that predictable?”

“Perhaps,” Hubert says. “But I also might have been reading your actions under my own predisposition.”

He looks into Ferdinand’s eyes, then, with a frightening, piercing urgency. “Because you have enraptured me, Ferdinand.”

Ferdinand’s throat dries, and for maybe the first time in his life, he is unable to conjure a single response.

Hubert continues, “I wanted to prove it to you— that I could love you, just like Hubert von Vestra loved the Ferdinand of his time— that we have a historical basis for our mutual fondness. But I realized— it doesn’t matter.” Hubert laughs, suddenly joyous. “It doesn’t matter what happened in the past, I do not plan on being constricted to another man’s lifetime, or his story.”

At least one of them had their speeches prepared. “I—“

“Be with me, Ferdinand,” Hubert says. He grasps both of Ferdinand’s hands, leaning forward on the sidewalk right outside of a freshman dorm. Inside, Linhardt is likely napping, not knowing that Ferdinand’s world tilts on its axis just outside his window.

“Be with me, not because of von Aegir and von Vestra, be with me because I have chosen you in this life, and you have chosen me,” Hubert says.

A student walks by with his hands in his backpack straps, eyeing the two of them with curious judgment.

“You have chosen me?” Ferdinand asks, blood rushing in his ears. It’s almost too good to be true, after weeks of silence, to hear something like a confession— could he be misinterpreting it in any way? Ferdinand cannot turn off his mind, racing through scenarios in which he’s misconstrued Hubert’s meaning, dancing around every situation in which he can mean what Ferdinand really wants.

But the way Hubert stares at him, too deeply to be platonic— Ferdinand is sure.

“I will, of course, I will, Hubert,” Ferdinand says in a single rushed exhale. “It is all I have dared to think about this past month.”

Hubert’s shoulders fall. His eyes close, and he breathes a sigh that turns into a small, shared smile of relief. There’s no mistaking it.

Hubert releases his wrist, only to interlace their fingers, palm to palm, to touch his lips to the back of Ferdinand’s hand. It’s chaste, almost ironically historical in its ritual.

The sky does not fall, and no pink petals dance in the wind (there aren't any cherry blossom trees for miles). Hubert does not lean in for a kiss as music swells, but Ferdinand feels lighter than he has in months— maybe even years.

And Ferdinand plans to kiss Hubert later, when they aren’t in public.

“I do not want to be Ferdinand von Aegir anymore,” Ferdinand says, almost surprising himself with his honesty.

“You were never him,” Hubert replies. “You are Ferdinand Baker through and through, for better or for worse.”

Ferdinand chuckles. Their hands remain joined at the palms. He swings them a little, and wishes he had gloves— or better, one of those ridiculous, two-person mitts where two people are able to walk hand in hand in the snow.

He would bet anything that Ferdinand von Aegir didn’t have that particularly nifty invention in his time.

He wants to kiss Hubert’s hand, as he has done, but they are still standing in front of a dormitory, and it’s reaching the hour’s 50th minute, when the large lectures will begin to let out and weary students will head back to their dorms for a brief respite.

“How does all of this work?” Ferdinand asks, still swinging their hands. It’s a little childish, but it’s also all Ferdinand can do to stop himself from embarrassing himself by jumping in a circle or whooping very loudly. (Time and place.)

Besides, Hubert doesn’t pull away.

“Does it matter?” Hubert replies. “We have the histories to consult if we so choose.”

He pauses. “But I, for one, am tired of looking towards the past. Those two seem like they were quite repressed, from von Vestra’s journals on the matter, and I would go so far as to say we’ve already surpassed them in our relations. I doubt we could learn much from them.”

Ferdinand does miss the research, looking back through the eyes of the dead, poring over journals under fluorescent lighting and searching for yearning in turn of phrase, every omitted word.

“It is getting chilly,” he says instead, cognizant of the time, wanting to get Hubert alone. “Would you have time to… come over?”

It’s a charged invitation, but Hubert’s smile is as wicked as it is deadly. He nods, and he still doesn’t release their hands.

They walk off campus together, and Ferdinand’s abandoned coffee in the student center doesn’t matter, the next six hours of homework he had lined up don’t matter, it has all been erased in a feat of surprising flexibility Ferdinand didn’t know he was capable of.

For one moment, Ferdinand is not planning ahead for the next week’s work schedule, for classes and meetings and clubs; nor is he looking back, trying to slot himself into a puzzle spanning hundreds of generations.

He is only walking, hand in hand, with Hubert.

“After all your research, Hubert, do you think they got it right?” Ferdinand asks, finally.

Hubert shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “But I believe we could.”

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

Ferdinand must have left his door unlocked, which is alarming only until Hubert slides his hands around Ferdinand’s waist and eases him into the apartment. It’s quiet inside, despite the cold wind whipping against the windows, and Ferdinand’s heart pounding in his chest.

Hubert doesn’t kiss him at first. His hands linger on his waist, meander up his chest, his shoulders, where they come to rest on either side of his face, just above his jaw.

Ferdinand’s breaths are shallow as he tries his best to keep from panting, out of desire, out of novel proximity. He wants to say anything to fill the silence, but the moment Hubert holds in his hand is so fragile— their peace is so fragile.

So he shuts his mouth and watches.

Someone leans in for a kiss, Ferdinand isn’t sure— his eyes are closed in one moment, and then in another Hubert’s lips are touching his and time shrinks and bends and finally stops underneath their pulses.

Ferdinand, as himself, kisses Hubert. And Hubert kisses him .

—

Kissing Hubert turns out to be quite nice.

And if kissing Hubert is nice, then dating him is even better.

Ferdinand likes the knowledge that he and he alone has all of Hubert’s affections (so crucify him for being a little possessive), but more than that, he loves being in the select, inner circle of people who have seen Hubert’s soft side.

If Hubert is an, “I hate everyone” trope, Ferdinand is delighted to be the addendum, “except you.”

But Ferdinand is trying not to fit their budding romance into someone else’s narrative, not anymore.

Winter break arrives and Hubert is torn from his arms once more, and no matter how many activities Ferdinand throws himself into while at home, it only proves to be a repeat of his final month of classes, and his mind always wanders its way back to Hubert.

With the power of modern technology, something their previous selves did not have the luxury of, they are able to keep in touch quite well. Instead of letters penned by candlelight, Ferdinand’s face is illuminated by a phone screen. They text, they call, they leave messages, and they do, in fact, write letters back and forth (only a few of which make it to their destinations on time before they return to school).

And when Ferdinand returns to his apartment after a long winter, he finds one letter waiting for him.

Even holding the letter in his hand, reading it over and over, cannot put Ferdinand’s mind at ease for their reunion. He sits nervously on the edge of his bed, waiting for the minutes to tick by. His foot taps in time, but eventually his tempo takes off and he’s just bouncing his knee restlessly, checking his phone every few seconds.

Hubert will be landing in the next hour, and Ferdinand is desperate to hold him close once more.

It has only been a month apart, in reality, but Ferdinand only has a single week at the end of the semester to dote on Hubert and live out all of his daydreams of traipsing around the campus hand in hand, of leaning over his laptop to grab Hubert by the collar and kiss him, of bringing him his morning coffee in an obviously and profusely romantic way.

Ferdinand hasn’t drawn a heart on their cardboard sleeves yet, but he has considered it very strongly.

And now, Ferdinand is only an hour (and change) from pressing play on his college rom-com and living out his fantasies once more.

He stands up, brushes off his khakis (he’d already tried to pass the time by ironing them, but it only took his anxiety-addled brain about four minutes), and paces around the room, and then returns to his bed.

Ferdinand is struck with a bit of a stupid idea to go pick Hubert up from the airport. He ponders the option for a few moments, weighing its pros and cons in his mind, but Ferdinand is about to truly lose his sanity within his apartment, so he opens his phone and within ten minutes he’s driving in a rental car towards the airport. It’s about 30 minutes outside of the city, but driving gives him a purpose and soothes his fluttering heart to a reasonable rhythm.

Standing at the baggage claim, Ferdinand wishes he’d brought a poster— something to really round out the grand gesture, but he settles for coffee. It’s more them, he reasons, giddy with anticipation.

And while waiting in the airport doesn’t pass the time any faster, it’s better than waiting at home, even if the parking meter ticks higher and higher in Ferdinand’s mind as Hubert’s flight is delayed by 20 minutes, then 45.

When the plane finally lands, Ferdinand takes to pacing circles around the luggage carousel. Hubert alerts him that he has landed, but Ferdinand leaves the message unopened. He wants to surprise Hubert, and he’s so close, his pulse is racing, he’s more than a little sweaty— he has to tie his hair back and roll up his sleeves.

The coffee is definitely cold by now. Ferdinand considers getting fresh ones, but what if he misses Hubert stepping out from the terminal? What if he grabs his luggage and catches a cab and Ferdinand has to race him back to campus? His head spins, and then he sees Hubert enter the baggage claim area amidst a throng of people.

Coffee be damned.

Ferdinand runs frantically, shamelessly, into Hubert’s arms, burying his face into his shoulder, enveloped by the scent of stale airplane air and black coffee.

“Ferdinand!” Hubert starts. He’s wearing a backpack, jacket draped over one arm, but he embraces Ferdinand swiftly, strong arms lifting his feet a fraction off the ground, fingers splayed on Ferdinand’s ribs.

What a sight they must make, like old friends or lovers reuniting after years— Ferdinand holds Hubert like he hasn’t seen him in a lifetime, but reality, it’s only been a month.

Ferdinand grabs Hubert’s face between his hands and kisses him with dizzying swiftness.

“My love,” Hubert murmurs into the embrace.

Ferdinand blinks his eyes open to see Hubert staring with heavy lids and a drunk, delirious smile. “My love?”

“My love,” Hubert repeats. Who knew Hubert was capable of such effusive proclamations? It seems distance did make the heart grow fonder.

“I’m surprised to see you here— I’m afraid I’m a little disheveled from my flight,” Hubert says. He laughs a little, then his eyes soften. “But I’ve missed you terribly, Ferdinand.”

Ferdinand's smile could brighten a runway. “I’ve missed you too.”

Hubert’s look quickly grows concerned, and Ferdinand worries about his lack of pomp and circ*mstance, as well as the coffees he’s left abandoned in their caddy by the bench, but Hubert says, “Ferdinand. It’s seven in the morning.”

Ferdinand shrugs. “I could not sleep a wink, thinking about seeing you again,” he says earnestly.

He tugs Hubert’s sleeve towards the seating. “But look! I brought coffee.”

Hubert grumbles about “floor coffee,” likely due to his red eye — “It is not floor coffee, Hubert, I simply left it unattended for a moment to greet you,” Ferdinand says— and then they’re off, elbow in elbow, back to campus and the start of a new semester.

—

Ferdinand introduces Hubert to his friends. It goes about as expected.

Dorothea will take some warming up to— Ferdinand expected as much. She and Hubert aren’t the sort to have become unlikely friends unless they’re forced into each other’s paths like immovable objects; even still, Ferdinand sees a glimmer of hope when Dorothea starts calling him “Hubie” when it’s just the two of them, and she does comment on his height.

Bernadetta has a moment of excitement, hopping up and down for a few seconds from behind the library desk when she sees Ferdinand and Hubert enter holding hands. She doesn’t pepper them with questions, and Ferdinand wonders how much she’s predicted already— maybe how much Hubert has consulted her.

Linhardt nods thoughtfully like he already knew. He probably did— it wasn’t like Ferdinand had been subtle. And Linhardt was the one to procure their documents— pages and pages of journals, he was the first one they’d consulted, and he’d been there when Ferdinand all but declared his love for Hubert in a past life.

He’d probably figured it out long before Hubert and Ferdinand ever did— he is the smartest guy Ferdinand knows.

Ferdinand hopes that Hubert will bring up Edelgard on his own, but he’s loathe to wait, so he broaches the subject on his own during a late-night study date in Hubert’s apartment.

Ferdinand begins with a tentative, “How is your friend, Edelgard?”

Hubert offers a cursory, “Well,” without pausing his pen.

“Have you told her about me?” Ferdinand asks, and he wants to cringe at the boyish nature of his question— but he presses forth. “Since she is your closest friend.”

Hubert sets aside his pen like he knows where things are headed. Goddess, he can read Ferdinand’s subtext so plainly at this point; he can understand the direction of a conversation before Ferdinand himself has worked out an objective— he only hopes Hubert also can say the same about him.

“I have,” Hubert says, slowly yet forthcoming. “Are you interested in how I describe you when you’re not around? Let me save you some rumination: sharp, brilliant, stubborn, determined, handsome, ginger.”

Well, Ferdinand wouldn’t have described “ginger” among his best qualities, but the list is still pleasing.

“And how did she react?” Ferdinand asks.

“To?”

“Us, dating,” Ferdinand waves his hand nonchalantly, as if the gesture will unknot his stomach. When it comes to talking about Edelgard, he is always uneasy. Ferdinand wants to lay it to rest, to be able to look upon Hubert’s fridge without a tinge of uncertainty upon seeing her picture, which hurts him in an inexplicable yet deeply personal way.

“This again?” Hubert sounds slightly exasperated. “I thought we had cleared the matter of my relationship with her. She is my close friend, yes, but our relationship is wholly different.” He lays a hand atop one of Ferdinand’s, holding it firmly in place.

“I must admit, the entire subject still feels… confusing,” Ferdinand says. “First, with your vision, and you’re just so secretive about her, which of course, you have every right to be, but you’ve met all of my friends—”

“I thought we agreed we were— we are not von Aegir or von Vestra, and their past relationships are not ours either,” Hubert says.

“Do you think he loved her?” Ferdinand asks.

Hubert, to his credit, genuinely considers the question. Ferdinand knows the speculation is outlandish, but it helps to air out his fears and to have them be heard.

“He may have. In my research, I came upon many examples of their closeness, of his devotion to her. But I have reason to believe their relationship was strictly platonic, more familial love than romantic.”

“And what reason might that be?”

“A feeling, ” Hubert says slyly.

Ferdinand huffs.“In the tarot cards, when the Emperor came up, I was worried. And that heartbreak card…” he trails off. “I know I’m taking their meanings incredibly literally, but how am I not supposed to take that as a bad omen?”

“You asked about your thesis,” Hubert points out.

Ferdinand presses his lips together. “I was thinking about you.”

Hubert stares at him for a few moments before laughing, louder than the occasion called for.

“You must have had a terrible time,” he says, unfairly jovial, handsome as ever.

“Just awful. Waiting for you to look up from that damn bowl,” Ferdinand says, feeling lighter, even if not wholly healed yet.

“If I must convince you of my devotion, I will, do not get me wrong,” Hubert says, tilting his head. “But I must say, I do like seeing you jealous.”

Ferdinand’s face flares, his cheeks puff. “I am hardly jealous,” he sputters.

“I beg to differ.”

“Well you have put me fully at ease, Hubert,” Ferdinand says. “And thus you will not see me ‘jealous’ any further.”

“Perhaps Edelhard ought to visit, then,” Hubert says slyly. He picks up his phone— possibly a mimicry of a text, but there’s a small chance he’s inviting Edelgard to campus this very minute. “Will that be a problem?” he asks.

“You ass,” Ferdinand crumples a piece of notebook paper to chuck it at Hubert’s head. This is how their conversations end, usually, with things playfully thrown, or with a biting kiss that sends both of them stumbling to the nearest flat surface.

Ferdinand loves them both, equally.

—

Hubert, it turns out, does crosswords in his free time. On easy Saturday mornings (the few Ferdinand manages to get free of activities once in a blue moon), Hubert will sit shirtless in bed and do the day’s crossword in a newspaper, of all things.

Ferdinand brings him coffee in bed. A few drops on his duvet are hardly a price to pay for keeping Hubert in bed, even for just a couple more minutes.

“13 letters, one word, clue is ‘past lives,’” Hubert posits, tapping the paper idly with his pen. He does all of his puzzles in pens, the madman.

“Mmm… first letter?”

“R,” Hubert responds.

Ferdinand scrunches his eyebrows (his thinking face, Hubert had called it many times). “Reincarnation?”

Hubert hums in return.

Ferdinand peeks over at the puzzle. “You made that up,” he says, partly amused, partly annoyed that Hubert would waste his brain power in such a way.

“That I did,” Hubert says, and with pen still in hand, he pulls Ferdinand close by the back of his hair to press his lips to Ferdinand’s forehead.

He pauses there, just for a moment. Ferdinand inhales the hint of fresh ink and last night’s sweat clinging to Hubert’s skin.

“Breakfast?” Hubert murmurs into Ferdinand’s hair.

“Pancakes?” he asks eagerly.

“Please, I have evolved since then,” Hubert says. “For you, I’ll even crack an egg.”

For the first time in a while, Ferdinand has something that means more to him than college, than classes, than research. He closes his eyes.

“…Just a few more minutes,” he says.

—

One afternoon, Hubert asks when Ferdinand first realized his feelings for him.

It’s delightful to hear Hubert delve into their strange, intensely intimate friendship that first semester— usually, Ferdinand is the one to broach the topic. Hubert prefers the privacy of his emotions, and Ferdinand delights in prying them out of him.

Ferdinand hums thoughtfully. “I remember the time that you slept over at my apartment very fondly. Perhaps when you made me breakfast,” he says and nudges Hubert.

“Yes, that was very gentlemanly of me.”

“But sometimes I wonder… if it was before that,” Ferdinand says. He would have been loathe to admit it months ago, but this new chapter with Hubert makes Ferdinand want to tell him everything, to untangle the months of friendship and yearning and lay it out, bare, for Hubert to see.

“Maybe the moment I first laid eyes on you, although I would have hardly known it at the time,” Ferdinand says.

Hubert closes his book with his fingers— he can balance a book’s spine in one palm— and tips his head in a knowing, taunting smile.

“What?” Ferdinand asks.

“From the first time you saw me, you say?” Hubert asks. His grin does not flare nor falter.

“I am just trying to be earnest,” Ferdinand says. “I think you ensnared me long before I was aware of it.”

“Well, I appreciate that,” Hubert says, turning back to his book. “Because for me, it was much later.”

Ferdinand sucks his teeth, affronted. He’s bolder these days, so climbs onto Hubert’s lap, straddling his slender waist— it still gives Ferdinand goosebumps whenever he wraps his arms around it.

“When was it, then?” Ferdinand asks. Hubert’s demeanor has shifted entirely, and his eyes slide down Ferdinand’s front.

Hubert sets the book aside. He doesn’t answer, instead wrapping an arm around Ferdinand and leaning in to kiss Ferdinand’s neck.

Ferdinand lets him, for a moment, before pulling away and holding Hubert— looking a little scattered and annoyed— just out of reach.

“When did you fall for me?” Ferdinand teases. Hubert narrows his eyes, to weigh his options— perhaps going in for another kiss, trying to see how long Ferdinand can stand to hold out (the answer is not long, but Hubert doesn’t need to know).

Hubert co*cks his head, looking through Ferdinand in the way he sometimes does— it doesn’t bother Ferdinand anymore, to be seen by Hubert. He welcomes it now, having someone who can read in between his lines, his constant announcements and declarations.

“It was a gradual feeling,” Hubert says, eventually.

“So, what you are saying is that I grew on you.” Ferdinand doesn’t mind— most of his best friendships began that way, as an overzealous, one-sided sort of relationship that budded into companionship, if not only by sheer persistence on Ferdinand’s behalf. “But did you not experience a moment, perhaps, where you knew— aha! He is the one I want to be with?”

“I don’t like things growing on me,” Hubert says. “I resisted, of course, for a while.”

“And now?” Ferdinand is feeling sharp, alight. He shifts atop Hubert’s lap.

“And now,” Hubert leans in again, breaking both of their resolves, all pretenses of a productive conversation lost in the slow descent of Hubert’s eyes down Ferdinand’s torso. “I find you wholly irresistible.”

“Likewise,” Ferdinand says, and relents. It’s an easy fall into Hubert’s embrace.

—

Ferdinand and Hubert’s research— it is theirs, now— is put on hold as time is spent on senior projects, graduation, and dreaded post-college plans. Hubert wants to go to law school and prepares for the LSATs and a year off. Ferdinand wants a PhD but is tired of research for the time being, so he traverses the job boards and tries to find ways to make his bachelor’s in history useful.

Career hunting proves to be more daunting than the prospect of five to seven more years of school, and even a meticulously color-coded spreadsheet cannot lift Ferdinand from the pit of despair that deepens every time he cannot meet a position’s minimum requirements.

“I know von Aegir and von Vestra fought in a war,” Ferdinand says, bringing up the two men like old friends, “but at least they did not have to use LinkedIn.”

Hubert scoffs. “Are you really comparing the job hunt to a five-year continental war?”

It’s a Saturday, and he and Hubert have planted themselves in an off-campus coffee shop with the sole intent of postgraduate planning— for Hubert, it’s writing personal statements and applying for grants, for Ferdinand, it is tweaking cover letters and filling out his name, address, and phone number over and over.

He’s only managed two applications thus far.

“At least they had guaranteed jobs,” Ferdinand says miserably. “If only I could inherit the prime ministry from my father.”

“You would make a terrible politician,” Hubert says.

“And why is that?” Ferdinand asks, playfully. He’s happily learned that a flippant comment means Hubert’s building to something; he never insulted Ferdinand for the sake of bringing him down a peg anymore, but to tease him, to rile him, sometimes even to push him.

“You could never run for office with an unscrupulous figure such as myself hovering over your shoulder,” Hubert replies.

“Who says I wouldn’t dump you the second I threw my hat in the ring?” Ferdinand asks. He leans back, crossing his arms.

Hubert chases him, eyes aflame, teeth glinting wickedly from behind his grin. “You would never. You need me.”

Ferdinand will bite. “You’re right, I do,” he says, leaning in again. “Who else would get rid of my political opponents for me, dig up dirt on them, and ensure my subsequent victory?”

“I am always at your service,” Hubert says, bowing his head slightly, so casually demure Ferdinand’s heart flips.

Ferdinand wants to grab him by his gaudily printed collar and kiss him. And then he remembers that he can, now, that the days of replaying scenes of their fingers brushing as they pack their bags are long gone and Ferdinand can reach over, grab the man he loves and kiss him wildly, any time he wants.

—

As his final semester of college comes to an end, Ferdinand pulls his anchor to the past aboard so he may sail forward once more. But Linhardt finds one more letter, passed on from his father as an afterthought, and he forwards it to Ferdinand.

Ferdinand,

I am attaching this letter to my person, lest something happen to me when we are apart. If I do fall, now, or sometime down the line, then let these be my final words:

Ferdinand, my love, my sparking jewel, my roaring fire: I love you. You are my sun that rises in the morning, and the moon that lights my path. If we are to part in this life, then I swear— to everything I believe and everything I hold dear in this world— I will find you once more.

I will always love you, in every lifetime.

HVV

Ferdinand keeps this one for himself.