Chapter Text
Robin had woken in a field before, to faces peering down and a hand extended forward.
It had been warm then.
Now it was cold. The grass, once long and waving, was charred to nothing. The dirt was dry and cracked.
Robin lay huddled in the tattered remains of their cloak. Their eyes were as listless as the stagnant chill, sunken into dark rings; from these descended two more pairs, cut into cheeks mottled with bruises and caked with blood.
Pain lanced through their body. Each breath was a gasp.
Shaking, Robin hefted themselves to their knees and stared at the ground between their fists. Their eyes burned, but no tears came.
Chrom.
Robin’s eyes fell shut. A groan seethed through clenched teeth.
“Chrom…”
Their head spun as they climbed to their feet. They staggered then froze.
Corpses.
Thousands of corpses tangled into an endless sea--
--Stewing in the stench of blood, shit, and urine--
--Torn, bloodied, eyes rolling to the sky—swords gouged through armor, mouths stretched into grotesque but silent screams.
Robin fell heavily to their knees, gripping their elbows with white knuckles and shaking arms. They retched until nothing came out.
“CHROM,” they screamed.
The silence suffocated their cry; they wondered if they’d made a sound at all.
Don’t lie down, Robin, they thought. With some difficulty, they stood, one sleeve pressed to their nose to filter the air.
They blinked past dark blotches—scanning—for anything—anything that was Chrom or even the gleam of Falchion among the dead.
Robin knew that the battlefield stretched impossibly far—knew that Chrom was one man out of countless corpses—knew that finding him was like seeking one grain of sand in a desert.
But they also knew that Chrom was never more than ten feet from them in battle.
Had never left their side, in all the years that they’d known him.
“Don’t be dead,” Robin whispered. Their prayer weighed more heavily than their screams.
They walked until their knees buckled with each step and their limbs sank into numbness.
Toward the edge of the plateau, the corpses had thinned out to a few stragglers. Robin sat, legs hanging out into the chasm.
“Stay.”
Robin still heard his voice so warm against their neck, Chrom’s lips brushing the skin there as he wrapped around them from behind. They’d retreated to their shared tent, the Ultimatum still heavy on their minds.
Falchion lands the final blow, and Grima sleeps for 1000 years.
Robin lands the final blow, and Grima is destroyed forever. At the expense of their life.
Delay and shove the problem off on their ancestors, or nip it in the bud.
Pragmatic as always, Robin had already made their mind up.
They reached a hand up to caress Chrom’s cheek. Chrom leaned into their touch and rubbed his jaw into their palm. His breathing was soft, but his heart pounded; Robin felt every panicked pulse seep into their own shaking body.
“Stay…”
How broken he sounded. How desperate he seemed for some reassurance that Robin knew they couldn’t give.
The words died in their throat and they closed their eyes with a small groan, hands falling limp against their sides.
“Don’t leave me, Robin.”
Robin sagged into his arms but stared at the tent wall; Chrom’s kisses trailed down to the base of their neck and one shoulder. Their breath hitched. A moan scraped them raw.
Finally, they turned, lips catching Chrom’s. They held him captive there, slowly, fingers pressed into his face to memorize every groove, lips so familiar with his taste, his sighs, his tongue. Then, parting slowly, they took a step back, eyes locking with Chrom’s.
“I’m afraid,” they said simply.
“You don’t have to do this alone,” Chrom said.
His voice battled with the activity of camp outside, fires blazing, armor rattling, hoofbeats striking. But to Robin, they were in a pocket of the world all their own, and there was only Chrom and the glow of the lantern on the table. This moment was the only one that mattered.
“I know I’m not alone,” Robin said. They brushed their knuckles against Chrom’s face, then over his shoulder where the mark of the exalt lay.
Chrom captured their hand, studied the mark of the defiled, then raised it to their lips and pressed a kiss to it. “And you never will be.”
“Whatever happens,” Robin murmured, “Promise me you’ll forgive me for it.”
Robin’s eyes slipped open again. Numb to their core, they felt little of the sun bearing down or the humidity eating through what little relief the wind brought.
Their hand curled into fist by their side. Grima’s mark leered up at them.
“But what happened,” they said.
Their own voice sounded harsh, and so they repeated it, this time a whisper.
“What did I do.”
Robin had had a constant migraine over the past month. Sometimes so severe they could hardly crawl out of bed, but usually just a nagging throb lodged deep in their skull. It pulsed on the edge of their vision, even then.
“You know that I would,” Chrom said, lips still pressed to their hand. He eased them down onto the straw-stuffed mattresss and held them close. “But nothing is going to happen. You and me, we’ll defeat this. We’ll emerge victorious. Together.”
Together.
They wanted to believe it. They wanted to believe that Chrom and his unwavering faith could carry the day. That they both would walk free and that impossibly difficult decisions wouldn’t tear them apart.
“Robin?”
“I’m fine,” Robin said. They seized as pain seared through them. Pried into the fissures of their skull. Bit into their consciousness. Their fingers trembled as they pressed their palm into Chrom’s cheek. “I’m fine…” Every inch of them felt ragged, like a seam slowly pulled apart. “I’m fine.”
Chrom peered into their face. “Robin. You’re not fine—“
Robin shook their head. It was not the time and place for this. They would have to persevere. For Ylisse. For their future.
“Tell me what you need. Tell me what I can do to help.” Chrom’s hand lay overtop Robin’s, still on his face. His fingers curled around theirs. Pressed warmth into them.
“All I need is for you to trust me,” Robin said. “Trust that what I do is for the best…” They let their eyes fall shut, if only to soak in every point of contact between them and Chrom.
“With my life,” Chrom breathed. His lips moved inches from Robin’s. “To hell and back again.
Robin closed the gap. Silently mumbled back into him—some mix of forgotten prayers and desperate confessions. Their other hand hooked around the other side of Chrom’s jaw, and they drew close to straddle his lap, deepening the kiss as they lowered him backward. He was dressed only in his casual attire, which Robin easily tugged loose, shedding their own breeches and cloak somewhere in the process.
They’d say goodbye with every fiber of their being. Perhaps this way, something of Robin could remain behind, forever locked with Chrom.
Chrom’s body was pliable beneath them. Robin tugged his bottom lip with their teeth, hips snapping into fluid rolls against him. Chrom’s breath hitched, hands shooting up to their waist, half to steady them, half to drag them closer. Robin drove their body harder, closer, with unbridled urgency.
“It will be alright,” Chrom managed past a moan lingering in the back of his throat. “It will be alright, Robin—“ The next groan dragged into a husky whisper, “Gods, Robin…” Another gasp. “Gods…” Rough palms slid up Robin’s torso, then cupped their face. Chrom pressed as many kisses as he could to Robin’s already swollen lips. “I love you, but” He gazed with impossible tenderness, though his teeth were grit from friction and his face flushed. He felt the heat rise in his cheeks. “Robin, please just hurry up and fuck me.”
Robin blinked back a wave of dizziness. They felt the divide widen, as if they were experiencing the world from behind a wall. Chrom’s kisses and rutting hips felt miles away; his voice as if through water. They felt their hands reach down to hike Chrom’s hips up, his legs thrown over their shoulders, at the same time their consciousness was ripped stitch by stitch from their body.
They were thrown somewhere in the back of their own head, aware of the movement of their body—every burning but muffled sensation—but backseat to the presence that took the reigns. Grima’s laugh was thick in their head as he used their body to finish the deed.
“I’ll take even your last goodbye from you.”
Robin heaved again. They crawled away from the edge, retching and coughing a second time. Anger broiled through them.
“GRIMA!” They screamed. Their body seized, hands ripping into their hair, knees to their chest. They were too weak to even sob anymore. “Show yourself, you coward. Why so goddamn silent now—“
Nothing.
Not even a passing thought. The Migraine was gone.
Robin felt a laugh roll from the back of their throat, a broken thing from one pushed beyond their limit. It fell upon hollow silence and left them scraped empty. Slowly, they pushed themselves upright again.
“You think you’ve won, Grima? I’m still alive.”
They wiped their eyes. No response. The hairs stood on the nape of their neck.
“And I’m going to make sure you suffer every bit as much as you made me suffer…”
They started to walk.