Chapter Text
Hubert awakens refreshed in the hour before dawn. It's a lustrous, velvet-dark night outside, the sky just barely beginning to tint shades of red and orange at the horizon. The early autumn breeze blows the damp scent of overnight rain and moist earth through his open window, and he instinctively turns his face to his pillow and huddles deeper beneath his blankets to ward off the chill it brings.
These are the first three signs that something is terribly wrong.
The most benign offender among the list of anomalies is the hour at which he has awoken. He can't recall a single night in his entire life in which he's considered himself "well-rested" upon awakening, much less at such an early hour of the day. To call himself a morning person would be a dusty and desiccated joke. At best, it would make Lady Edelgard force a polite, unwilling smile. At worst, it would….
Unimportant, and completely irrelevant to the matter at hand. The second anomaly, the open window, is significantly more severe than the first. Leaving a window open overnight in one's bedchamber serves no purpose but to invite assassination. Worse still, Hubert has no windows anywhere in his quarters. His bedroom and study are both locked away in the deepest interior of the castle. The breeze playing across the back of his bare neck chills him more than he is willing to admit.
The final anomaly is the bed itself—Hubert cannot remember falling asleep in it. He was working only a few hours previously at his desk, workspace well-lit with candles, still dressed for the day, when…
…He must have fallen asleep? But that explains neither the open window, nor the bed, nor the bone-deep satiated satisfaction of a luxuriously long rest. Without opening his eyes and still feigning the slow, steady breathing rhythm of one deeply asleep, he prods with his magic at the corners of the room for any sort of human or magical presence. There is none. Good. He's alone. Whatever situation he's found himself in, he has yet to be fully captured or restrained. He needs to analyze the layout of the room and escape quickly before his position is compromised.
Hubert opens his eyes and sits up, disentangling himself from the sheets and swinging his legs off the side of the bed in one smooth, fluid motion. His pajamas are plaid-patterned and not his own. The bedroom he finds himself in is tastefully furnished and not his own. There is a long twisted plait of penny-bright copper hair falling over one of his shoulders, and it is most certainly not his own.
When he looks down to his palms, his hands are free from knotted scars and chemical burns. He finds calluses instead. Well-kept nails. A stronger and more capable grip than what he's used to. There's no need to look into the tiny mirror over the washbasin—at this point, Hubert already knows, the jagged rock in the pit of his stomach growing ever larger as it gashes his innards to shreds—but he does so anyway.
Ferdinand von Aegir stares back at him with jewel toned eyes. When Hubert lifts his hands to untie the ribbon at the end of his braided hair, so too does Ferdinand. When he marvels at his reflection, leaning in more closely to brush feather-light fingers across his handsome features, Ferdinand mirrors his actions in turn. He prods at his soft, full lips and his immaculately groomed eyebrows. He taps his nails over the hard ridges of bone at the bottoms of his eye sockets.
His gaze drifts down to Ferdinand's neck, the uncovered slice of collarbone exposed by his pajama shirt, and his mouth goes dry. He's never seen Ferdinand in such a state of intimacy before. With his hair mussed from sleep, half-tangled into a braid still, and an unusually pensive expression on his face, he looks soft and bare and vulnerable. It has nothing in common with his usual desperate, late-night fantasies, but—
But—
He shakes the thought from his mind. If Hubert is in Ferdinand's body, then someone else (The culprit behind this exchange? Ferdinand?) is in Hubert's body. Without Hubert's arcane knowledge of dark magic, they'll get themselves killed by his security measures as soon as they wake up from their nap and step away from his desk. He can't let that happen. He needs his body intact and unharmed.
To be stuck as Ferdinand von Aegir forever, however tantalizing the physical appeal, would be an utter disaster.
Hubert dresses himself hastily, pulling on a high-collared jacket over a clean black shirt and a pair of Ferdinand's trousers. For good measure, he knots a lacy jabot around his neck, and then tops off the Prime Minister Aegir charade by running his fingers through the soft hair that isn't his, letting it fall free in gentle waves around his face. He laces his feet into the well-worn leather boots next to the entryway and stalks off to his own study in the bowels of the castle.
———
Hubert quickly and painfully learns that Ferdinand has no capacity for dark magic. Mires and miasmas prove impossible to summon, instead manifesting as tiny black and purple lightning bolts that crawl across his skin and fizz off of his fingertips with a nasty, numbing jolt. His fingers are a few millimeters thicker and a centimeter shorter than they should be. It takes him six clumsy attempts to correctly disable the complex locking mechanism on the door to his study.
When he steps inside, he's met with his own eyes staring back at him. The other Hubert—the person in Hubert's body—sits ramrod straight at his desk with their hands folded neatly in front of them, their off-color sickly gold gaze leveled at Ferdinand. Or, in this case, the real Hubert.
It's complicated.
"Hubert," the other Hubert says simply, with an unguarded, genuine smile. "I have been waiting for nearly half an hour. I do not wish to unwittingly trigger any of the traps you use to protect against intruders. To do so would be to risk damaging both of our lives, as well as your work."
Hubert thanks his most cursed and infernal fell stars that Ferdinand's always been quicker on the uptake than he acts. Then he pauses—there's a peculiar sort of willing trust present in this situation that's been laid at his feet. For Ferdinand to realize the peril of waking alone in an unfamiliar body in a dangerous location and to lay his faith utterly in the real Hubert to assure his safety? It's a precious gift. A certitude that the Ferdinand before the war never would have granted to him. He feels his cheeks flush far more easily than they ever would have in his own body.
"Ferdinand," Hubert begins, and then colors an even deeper shade of pink when he realizes that he's speaking in Ferdinand's pulled-caramel voice. He clears his throat. "Ferdinand—I assume that is who I am speaking to, yes? No one else would deliver such an over-explanatory monologue as a greeting."
Ferdinand pulls a wry, self-deprecating smile over his lips. "Says the man wearing the only three articles of black clothing that I own. You give yourself away more easily than I do myself."
Ridiculous. Black is fashionable, functional, and one of the few colors that does not soil easily. Hubert easily sidesteps the jab and presses on. "As the castle does not seem to be in an uproar, I will assume that this is a singular, isolated incident."
Ferdinand nods. "Do you have any idea of the cause? I do not wish to be rude, but this—" and he spreads his gloved hands wide, gestures at himself and the surrounding area "—is not exactly a suitable role for me to play."
Oh, thinks Hubert, and the dried-up jerky of his heart shrivels and rots away even further. Of course not. There's no way anyone would wish to be trapped in his gangly and menacing body and then locked away to work in the dark. Ferdinand must be used to his own classically beautiful profile, his silken hair, his becoming features and his well-muscled limbs. To look in the mirror and see Hubert, resplendent in all of his ugliness….
His own appearance has never bothered him before, but he sees Ferdinand tilt his own chin up to meet his gaze and it bothers him now. It bothers him immensely.
"…Not yet," Hubert finally answers, snapping his focus back to Ferdinand's question. "This is a situation best handled one step at a time." He flexes his left hand—Ferdinand's hand—in front of him, clenching his fingers into a fist and splaying them out again to feel the flux of power in the room. "To begin, I'll need to siphon my own magic from your current body in order to disable my wards."
"How can I aid this process?" Ferdinand asks.
"Don't resist," Hubert responds flatly.
He takes one step into the room, then two. He raises his arm to chest height, hand pointing towards Ferdinand, and then he grips and pulls, noble fingers curled into claws around what must be his own wet, beating heart. A piece of something comes loose, and Ferdinand lets out a strangled whimper. He pulls it. It stretches, putty and taffy in his hands, and Ferdinand moans, eyes rolling back in Hubert's head, and then—
It snaps free and coils up in his palm. Ferdinand heaves a great jagged sigh. Hubert hefts the weight of the curl of magic he's taken and murmurs, "Above adequate."
Ferdinand lets his head fall upon Hubert's desk and mutters something distinctly ignoble. Hubert ignores him. He laces a web of miasma, draping the woven net over the walls, the floor, the papers and books on his desk. It sparkles with glittering points of silver light where it touches his existing spellwork. Once he's covered the entire room, he takes a deep breath and drags. There's a soft, muffled puff of air. The entire room shifts half an inch to the left and re-focuses into clarity, and—
———
Hubert wakes up on the floor with his head propped up on an uncomfortable surface and a pounding, blinding migraine. He cracks his eyes open into painful slits. He can tell that he's still in Ferdinand's body from his long and sumptuous eyelashes alone.
"That was ill-advised," his voice says to him. Then there's a cup of water being pressed to his lips. "Drink."
Hubert says something in Ferdinand's distinguished, dulcet tones along the lines of "Mmmmmmmrghghrgh", sips the water, and then realizes that his head rests in his own bony lap. He sits up with a jolt and curses every single saint he can name when his head swims.
"All of your wards seem to have been tied down," Ferdinand informs him. "However, you are to never do that again. You cannot just expect my body to act as a willing conduit for your high-level spellwork. How would you feel if I used your body to run a marathon?"
"Bad," croaks Hubert as he takes the cup and drains the rest of its contents. "I apologize."
"As you should." Ferdinand nods, but there's an unexpectedly soft look in his sole visible eye. It's an expression that Hubert hasn't willingly made since he turned ten years old. He grimaces, and Ferdinand sees his face and frowns in turn.
"For the next step, what did you have in mind?" It's clearly one of Ferdinand's opinionated rhetorical questions, as he barrels on and says "I can't be seen about the Imperial Palace in such a state."
Simultaneously, Hubert replies, "We need an audience with Lady Edelgard immediately."
"You cannot conceivably imitate any of my mannerisms," Ferdinand counters. "There is no way I can present my body before Edelgard when I look as though I've been possessed by a particularly malignant ghost of a drowned widow or by the Opera Phantom."
"Lady Edelgard," Hubert corrects irritably. "You cannot refer to Her Majesty using my voice in such a disrespectful manner."
Something fierce and bright sparks behind Ferdinand's eyes, and he proclaims in Hubert's elegantly disinterested sneer, "I am Hubert von Vestra, esteemed Minister of the Imperial Household. Lady Edelgard has sub-par taste in both tea and parlor games."
Hubert clenches his teeth. "Is that the case? If so, I am Ferdinand von Aegir and I love my horses so much that I decided to grow a mane to match them."
"Tilt your chin up more," says Ferdinand-Hubert. "You are too used to looking down at people."
He stands, offering Hubert-Ferdinand a hand up from the floor. "Edelgard has never once risen at dawn and her rest is well-deserved. Allow me to dress myself properly and then you may have your audience."
The most irritating thing is that Ferdinand is correct on every account. Hubert rubs his temples and acquiesces.
———
Half an hour later, he finds himself pressed into an armchair as Ferdinand looms over him, rubbing something cool and moist into the skin of his face. He shifts to ask a question, lashes fluttering, and Ferdinand pushes him back by the shoulder with his free hand.
"Keep your eyes closed," Ferdinand murmurs. "Don't even think of moving."
He'd be rather irritated with how quickly Ferdinand had picked up on Hubert's delicate speech patterns and threatening intonations if he wasn't doing such a damn good job at it. An adequate deception is the most he can hope for in lieu of an outright solution to their shared predicament.
Ferdinand dusts his eyelids with a powdered brush and steps back with a smug aura of self-satisfaction. "Done."
Hubert picks up the hand mirror Ferdinand has deposited in his lap, bringing one hand to his cheek to marvel at his work. Ferdinand is radiant on the worst of days. Given the extra attention, he's nothing short of stunning. He's so handsome that it hurts to look at his own reflection—Hubert feels as if his heart may give out, exhausted and overcome by longing, by the time he tears his gaze away.
Ferdinand doesn't seem to care. He hands Hubert a hairbrush. "Any style will suffice."
"You act as if your hair deserves the same attention as Lady Edelgard's," Hubert grumbles, running the brush through an errant knotted curl. He wishes Ferdinand's hair wasn't so shiny and well cared for. He wishes it didn't smell of wisteria and hyacinths. He wishes the strands didn't slip silk-smooth through the hairbrush like water, and he absentmindedly wonders what they would feel like between his real fingertips. How his hair would look threaded through his grip. The kinds of noises Ferdinand would make if he were to tug it.
He's grateful for his completely impassive expression as he braids Ferdinand's hair into a simple, elegant side braid that falls over one shoulder. Ferdinand hands him a red ribbon—one that matches the accents of the royal blue and gold formal jacket that he's been forced into—and Hubert accepts it with a begrudging sigh, tying it into a neat bow. He'd look the perfect picture of the Adrestian Prime Minister were it not for the hideous scowl glued to his downturned lips.
At least he's not the only one struggling with his facial expression. Ferdinand, admiring his handiwork, looks so genuinely pleased with himself that Hubert idly worries that his thin lips will split in half. He's never seen such a cheerful cast to his own features before. In a strange way, it's infectious. Ferdinand's smiling at him, a solar eclipse against Hubert's pale skin and stark bone structure, and before Hubert even realizes what's happening he's been dragged back to his own chambers and has been coaxed into letting Ferdinand attire himself in a dark forest-green vest instead of Hubert's usual black.
He practices small, tentative smiles with Ferdinand's teeth and Ferdinand's eyes as they walk side by side to Edelgard's sitting room. If Ferdinand catches him in the act, he says nothing of it.
———
Edelgard sits in silence in front of her morning tea service. Her white hair, haloed by the sun, spills loose down to her waist. She's wrapped in a fluffy dressing gown with a sharp-edged sword barely skirting the definition of "ceremonial" laying across her lap. Across the table, Hubert and Ferdinand have settled themselves on an ornately upholstered sofa.
She sits regally for the telling of the story, but Hubert can see how tense she is. Her shoulders are rigid, and she's squeezing the hilt of her sword so tightly that her nails have tinted purple. "Ferdinand, you claim to be Hubert. Is this the case?"
"Yes, Your Majesty." Hubert bows low to hide his scowl, one hand over his chest.
"Then I'm sure you don't mind answering a few of my questions." Edelgard stares him down, splintered ice in her violet eyes. "What was it you said to me the last time I was poisoned?"
Hubert meets her gaze steady and unafraid. "I said that I was going to kill the cook and serve his head to all of the other chefs on a platter." Next to him, he hears a politely choked off sound of surprise, and he adds, "I was nine years old. You were seven. It was an unintentional case of food poisoning."
"I see." Edelgard tilts her head noncommittally. "Of course, anyone could have done that research. Were I to grant you a vacation anywhere in the realm, where would you go?"
"Nowhere," he says flatly. "My decision is not made for the sake of duty or service, but because the place I wish to visit most does not yet exist."
Edelgard nods, and her grip slackens. She sets the sword aside. "One more, I believe. Let's see… How old were you the night that you vowed to me you would—"
And Hubert cuts her off, hissing a very ignoble interjection: "Fourteen. I was fourteen." He jerks his head minutely towards Ferdinand, seated to his left. Don't bring up teenage embarrassments in front of him.
Edelgard has to hide her smile behind the cup of tea she lifts to her lips. She raises one eyebrow archly, an unspoken question for Hubert. Still hung up on him? Really?
Hubert finds that he much preferred the previous interrogation to this one. In lieu of responding, he pours himself a cup of coffee from the tea service while pointedly avoiding Edelgard's gaze. He drains the contents in one long sip.
Then he promptly spits it straight back into the cup. It tastes foul, dirt and dead leaves and bitter, burning acid all wrapped into the same horrific concoction. Someone in the kitchens must have brewed this far too long. They've burnt it. One of the servants has carelessly disrespected Her Majesty and they'll lose their job for it.
Ferdinand says, with an immense amount of shame crawling through his quiet confession, "I have a sweet tooth."
"I don't understand," Hubert says. "You've drunk coffee with me before on multiple occasions and never once complained. This must be a side effect of whatever magical ailment we've been affected by."
Softly—very, very softly—Ferdinand curls in on himself, curls away from Hubert, and speaks to the floor. "No, it's not."
It's only then that Hubert understands the full implications of what Ferdinand is suggesting.
He wants to sink into the sofa and die. He wants Edelgard to put a swift end to this conversation by stabbing him clean through with her sword. But most of all, he wants to rip out the bloodied, pulsing muscle of his own heart and present it to Ferdinand von Aegir. Ferdinand, a man so magnanimous and graceful he was willing to down at least two dozen cups of something he loathed just to spend time with Hubert. A man forgiving enough to do so without complaint even after Hubert had insulted him, beaten him, and attempted to mangle him for the better part of a school year and a five year long war. Someone charming and kind enough to inquire after Hubert's thoughts every single time they took tea together, even as the months blended into years.
He drags his white-gloved hands down his stupidly handsome face. Ferdinand's cheeks blush too easily—he's bright red all the way up to his ears.
Edelgard saves him before the seconds can tick into an eternity.
"As my Imperial Ministers, I trust you to resolve this predicament as quickly and efficiently as you can." She sets her teacup and saucer down on the low table between them with a sharp clack. Ferdinand and Hubert both jolt to attention.
"Yes, Lady Edelgard," says Ferdinand's voice.
"I will fix it, Edelgard," says Hubert's voice.
Edelgard pinches the bridge of her nose in frustration. "You are to secret yourself away until both of you are yourselves again. Hubert, seed the rumor that you've both left for missions away from Enbarr."
"It will be done." Hubert says, perhaps a touch too menacingly. Edelgard shifts to massaging her temples.
"Minister Vestra," she says, turning to Ferdinand, "stop acting so chipper. Slouch a bit more. Act as if you haven't gotten a good night's sleep in the past eight moons."
"And you, Prime Minister Aegir," she adds as she turns back to Hubert, "Why do you look as if your favorite horse just died? That's inexcusable. Pretend everyone you're speaking to is Bernadetta. No sneering. No looming. Are we clear?"
"I, ah, of course. Edelgard." Hubert squeezes out through gritted teeth, and it hurts to say it, it's almost unbelievably disrespectful—
"Anything for you, Your Majesty." Ferdinand intones smoothly. He rises to his feet and offers an understated bow, a small smirk playing at the corners of his lips.
Hubert is going to kill Ferdinand.
———
Hubert sorts paperwork in companionable silence with Ferdinand for the next several hours.
They've holed themselves up in Ferdinand's cozy office, Ferdinand with a stack of requisitions that need review and Hubert with five dusty books on magical toxicology and hex-breaking. Every so often, Ferdinand passes him a form and Hubert will sign "Ferdinand von Aegir" in a flourishing signature that comes naturally to his hand.
Whenever he catches Ferdinand flagging, he pours him another cup of coffee.
"This cannot be good for me," Ferdinand objects after Hubert innocuously pushes the third cup onto the corner of his desk.
"You slept for three hours last night at most and you've had a not-insignificant portion of your magical reserves pulled out unwillingly through your veins," Hubert counters.
"I am enabling your severe caffeine addiction," Ferdinand says with a sigh. "Once this mess has been sorted out, we are going to have a long discussion about your unhealthy habits."
"Duly noted," says Hubert. "I have several objections about your midday skincare routine."
"Hush," says Ferdinand, but as he turns away Hubert can see that he is smiling. It's a terrible expression on Hubert's features—tender and vulnerable and compassionate—and it makes the heart that is not his own ache in his unfamiliar chest.
———
The sun sets. The candles he's lit have not yet begun to burn low, but Hubert cannot stop yawning. His vision fuzzes pleasantly over the page and he re-reads the same paragraph once, twice, and then a third time before he realizes that he's languorously dozing off, comfortable and content in a way that's completely foreign to him.
To say that the feeling is strange would be an understatement. Hubert is used to red-eyed, catatonic exhaustion, a fatigue that sinks its claws deep into his bones that can only be countered by the jitter of caffeine-induced adrenaline. Indulging in the pleasure of natural, well-earned drowsiness after a long day feels heavenly. He lets his eyelids slip shut as he rests his cheek on his palm.
"Go to bed," Ferdinand murmurs. There's the feather-light pressure of a hand on his shoulder, hovering and unsure. It moves to caress his temple, tucking an errant stand of hair that's pulled free from the braid behind his ear.
Hubert only dares to open his eyes when it finally retracts. Ferdinand's an arm's length away from him, which is far too close, and Hubert wishes he weren't meeting the gaze of his own countenance.
"I am a morning person," Ferdinand says, not unkindly. "Unlike you, I maintain the rigor of a set sleeping schedule. We can resume tomorrow after you've had a chance to rest."
Hubert pushes the bleariness back and sits up to correct his posture. "I can keep going. I—"
Ferdinand shakes his head decisively and Hubert shuts up. "You have already sabotaged and undermined your own body. I will not allow you to treat mine in the same manner."
"Then I have no counterarguments," says Hubert. He takes Ferdinand's proffered hand and pulls himself up from his chair. He allows Ferdinand to lead him down a deserted hallway of the castle to his own chambers, and he tries not to flush as Ferdinand fusses over his teeth, his face, his skin, his hair. Ferdinand smooths the bedsheets Hubert left crumpled, neatly hangs up the clothes Hubert discards in his closet, and tugs a fresh pair of plaid pajamas onto Hubert's unwilling body before Hubert is able to finish formulating his argument on why none of this is even remotely necessary.
———
Ferdinand is a whirlwind and an unstoppable force of nature. Hubert only manages to process that he's been left alone in Ferdinand's bed—in his body and wearing his clothes—after he's already snuffed the lamp and swept out the door.
Everything in the room smells of Ferdinand. His scent is pressed like rose petals into the sheets and pillowcase, floral shampoos and heady golden summer and the faintest woodsy, earthy underlayer of sweat. Hubert suddenly finds himself both painfully awake and not at all.
If he's asleep, he doesn't have to think about what he's doing. He can write the entire thing off as a lurid dream.
Yet simultaneously, he's captivated by the feeling of warm fingers on warmer skin, how his heart speeds up and his mouth salivates when he runs his hands across Ferdinand's muscular chest and down the flat planes of his stomach. He traces the ridges of a mottled scar along his ribs and a second that snakes down his hip. Hubert's left hand winds its way from his torso up into Ferdinand's hair, grasping silken fistfuls, and it's exquisitely painful when he pulls. There's a choked-off little moan caught in his throat, something broken and musical, and it's been minutes at most but he's already so hard that it hurts.
He parts his thighs, slips his other hand past the waistband of his pants and into his underwear, and wraps his fingers around Ferdinand's cock. The sensation is enough to make him moan again, he's so sensitive, and he wonders if it's due to the intoxicating feedback loop he's created for himself or if Ferdinand only ever rarely jerks himself off, a matter of business rather than pleasure. The thought is hotter than it has any right to be. Has he taken anyone to bed since the end of the war? What kind of partner does he prefer? Is he experienced, or would he blush with embarrassment in response to Hubert's touch? If Hubert were to entangle his fingers in his hair, slip them into his mouth, or rake his nails across his tender chest as he does now, would he be able to extract the same noises from Ferdinand? Or would he have to sink to his knees and take him into his mouth, a leather-gloved hand stroking his—
He feels his orgasm crash over him, the relentless towering rush of a deep-sea wave, as he comes stickily over his elegant, noble fingers. His mind sputters out and fritzes into a pleasant grey fog. It's on autopilot that he wets a handkerchief in Ferdinand's washbasin and cleans himself as best as he can before collapsing back into bed, locks of hair pooling over his shoulders like bronze filigree.
To think too deeply of anything he's just done would be treacherous. But as Hubert mulls his half-conscious thoughts over, sinking into a soft, hazy sleep, he can't help but idly wonder at his own inexplicable prominence in his fantasies.