#tells

All but Gatrie, who barges in and heaves himself onto the stool beside Shinon with just a little too much force, which is how Shinon knows that despite Gatrie’s perpetually amiable face, he’s angry.

Shinon doesn’t look at him, although it takes far more effort than he would like to admit to keep his gaze forward when Gatrie’s face is in his peripheral vision and Gatrie’s body is close enough that he imagines that he can almost feel its gravity. “If you’re not here to buy me another drink, then leave me alone,” Shinon snaps with all the venom he can muster. He’s not drunk enough to lose control yet, just the right level of tipsy for his emotions to feel huge and wild enough to seep through the cracks of any control he might care to exert. Which, once he gets to this stage of the evening, usually isn’t that much.

Gatrie responds by snatching the half-empty tankard out of Shinon’s hand, finishing it in a single gulp, and slamming it back on the table uncomfortably close to Shinon’s fingers.

Shinon turns toward him then. “Well done,” he says, sardonically. “Now you truly owe me another drink.” 

Gatrie is smiling, like always, but it’s the pinched kind of smile that Shinon knows from experience means that Gatrie is angry, angry enough that the smile is the only thing holding it all in.

“Were you planning to come talk to me?” Gatrie asks accusingly. “Or were you just planning to have a fresh start where you pretend you don’t know anybody but Rolf?” 

“I wasn’t planning anything,” Shinon snaps. “Least of all to rejoin the Son of Greil Mercenaries.” 

“Then why are you here, Shinon?” Gatrie’s smile has moved from twitching to simply fading, leaving a serious look on his face as he stares searchingly at Shinon. 

“Because I’m a sucker, alright? If Rolf hadn’t been there, I’d be dead on the battlefield right now, and better off for it. But I care about the kid, goddess knows why, and I couldn’t let him see me die. Especially not by Ike’s hands,” Shinon practically spits the name. 

“That’s not good enough, Shinon. You didn’t have to rejoin us for Ike to let you live. He’s young, but he’s honorable,” Gatrie pauses, “like his father. He would have let you go.”

“Ha!” Shinon laughs bitterly. “And go on living, knowing that I’m only alive through little Ikey-wikey’s generosity? No, I can’t live like that.”

“Then what would you call this? Because from where I stand, that’s exactly why you’re alive.” 

Shinon thinks about that for a moment. “And at least I’m paying for the indignity by working under him. Better to live under his shackles than go free knowing I was bested by a whelp like him. At least here I can be of some use. Maybe keep an eye on Rolf from a far enough distance that I don’t get my stink on him.” 

“And what about me?” Gatrie asks.

Shinon cocks his head, confused. “What about you?” 

“We were friends, Shinon,” Gatrie says, just a little louder and rougher than usual. “We left the Greil Mercenaries together, in case you don’t remember. I didn’t leave because I didn’t believe in Ike. I left because you left.” 

His sentence hangs in the air between them, expectant, but Shinon says nothing. Gatrie looks away for a moment, gives a rueful chuckle. “Do you know what everyone said to me when I came back with Astrid?” He looks back, his eyes boring into Shinon’s. “They said they were proud of me for finally leaving you. For breaking free of your bad influence and walking down a better path. ‘You might finally make something of yourself now that he’s not holding you back, Gatrie. You may even find love.’”

“They were right,” Shinon says. “You are better off without me.” 

“The point is,” Gatrie continues, voice raising, “is that they’re telling me all of this assuming that I’m the one who left you. And what can I say to that, Shinon? ‘Actually, I just woke up one morning and he was gone. I was worried that he was dead in a ditch somewhere because I never thought that he would just abandon me like that until I heard rumors of a mercenary fitting your description moving towards Daein, cutting swathes through bandits and taverns alike on his way.’ Would that be better? So I smiled and laughed and said nothing. But it stung. Because even though they were complimenting me, they were praising me for abandoning you, which I didn’t even do.” Gatrie’s voice drops low. “Which I never would have done. And I still don’t know why you did it.”

Shinon looks away, reaches for his tankard to take a sip before realizing that it’s empty. He puts it down on the counter and runs his finger along the rim, staring off into the middle distance.

After some moments, he speaks. “Do you know what Soren said to me when he saw again?” 

“What did he say?” Gatrie says. “Nothing complimentary, I’m sure.” 

“He said, ‘To whatever extent that you hate yourself, it isn’t enough.’” Shinon’s finger stops its journey along the tankard’s lip, its stillness only interrupted by the faintest of trembles. He looks back at Gatrie. “And he’s right. It isn’t enough.” 

“I’m not sure I agree,” Gatrie says, “but what does that have to do with you leaving?”

“Don’t you get it, Gatrie? They’re right. Soren’s right and Titania’s right and everyone who thinks you were better off without me was right. Things got worse and worse for you after we left the Greil Mercenaries, and usually it was me and my mouth or my drink to blame. You never complained, but I saw. I saw the jobs dry up, I saw the women walk away, I saw the first lines etch themselves into your forehead. So I left.” Now that he’s begun, the words continue to pour out of Shinon’s lips almost desperately. “And now I’m back, and I’m damn sorry for it, because you’re one of the only three people I’ve ever cared about and my plan was to let you live out the rest of your life without me ruining it.”

Shinon slumps just a little, deflated. Breathing hard, he avoids meeting Gatrie’s eyes.

Gatrie bursts out laughing, the hysterical kind of laughter that signals absurdity more than humor. 

Shinon stares at him, uncomprehending. “What’s so funny?” 

Gatrie is laughing so hard that he cannot speak, which only makes Shinon’s frustration grow. Finally, Gatrie catches his breath. “You’re so stupid, Shinon. I can’t believe you thought that you could save me by leaving me.”

“Why?” asks Shinon, aiming for sardonic, but landing closer to desperation. “Because you’re too good, too pure, so you’re immune to my corrupting influence?” 

“Maybe,” Gatrie says, face suddenly serious again, all traces of laughter gone. “Or maybe it’s because the damage has already been done.”

Shinon stares.

Gatrie goes on, almost tauntingly, “Which would you prefer, Shinon? The idea that you can’t corrupt me, can’t ruin me?” Gatrie leans towards him, voice lowered. “Or the idea that you already have?” 

Shinon shivers at the intensity in Gatrie’s normally lighthearted voice. Suddenly unable to bear the eye contact, he turns away. “Do you want the truth?” he says quietly in the direction of his tankard. 

“Shinon, look at me,” Gatrie says firmly. Shinon turns to face Gatrie, body moving before his mind can catch up. Gatrie looks at him, unblinking. Shinon doesn’t blink either, though he wants desperately not only to blink but also to run away and never to make eye contact with anyone with shockingly blue eyes ever again. He tries unsuccessfully to remind himself that they’ve been in this position — sitting together in a tavern, Shinon just a little drunker than Gatrie — dozens of times before.

“I want the truth,” Gatrie breathes.

Something inside Shinon breaks. “Alright then. You want the truth?” A wretched, spiteful laugh wrenches its way out of him. “I’m a bad person, Gatrie. However much I hate myself, it truly isn’t enough. But I want the second option. You’re one of the few people in the world I can stand and I should want only the best for you, but the best for you would mean a life without me, and all I want to know that our time together has left a mark on you like a jagged, ugly scar, one that stings when it’s going to rain and reminds you that you’ve been through hell and come out alive, but worse for it. Every time you talk to a beautiful woman, I want you to hear my voice pointing out all of her flaws and then all of yours, all the reasons why you can chase love all you want but you’ll never catch it. I want to ruin you, Gatrie, and you don’t deserve that. So I left. I didn’t want to do it, but it was the one good thing I’ve ever done — first leaving the mercenaries, and then leaving you.” 

Shinon’s breathing is ragged, like he’s just sprinted off a battlefield with enemies behind him and arrows flying on either side. Gatrie’s breathing hasn’t audibly changed, but Shinon can see his eyes darken and his throat bob. “So,” Shinon says. “Did I make it? Or by the time I got the courage to leave, was it too late to save you?”

Gatrie reaches up a hand, ghosts it over Shinon’s cheek. “Far too late,” he says, voice husky as his hand curls around the nape of Shinon’s neck and squeezes, somewhere between possessive and threatening. 

Shinon can feel his pulse in his throat, his veins throbbing against the warmth of Gatrie’s hand. His mouth goes dry. “Good,” he says, lifting his own hand to grasp Gatrie’s wrist, not to pull the hand away from his neck, but to hold it there as he digs his fingernails into Gatrie’s skin, hoping that it draws blood, leaves a mark.

Shinon cannot tell if he succeeds because suddenly there is another huge hand tugging his hair tie loose and then that hand is buried in his hair, pulling hard enough to be painful but he can barely notice because now Gatrie’s lips are on his with bruising force and it’s all lips and teeth and tongue and pressure and Shinon cannot move, cannot do anything but cling to Gatrie’s arms like a drowning man.