freshly reconciled lycahugo post bury your tears accompanying belle in one of phaethon’s inter knot assigned missions together and Hugo intentionally slipping in a sly remark once every while to tease lycaon as they make their way across the obscure hollow with eous nestled snugly on Lycaon’s arm. The budding tension is natural, expected yet intense, so much so that even Belle has to force herself to focus from where she’s hunched over behind the hdd’s glowing screen.
Lycaon feigns normality. He huffs and grunts and occasionally drops a glare in response to Hugo’s incessant taunting. Except when they’re ambushed by foes and Eous tumbles out of Lycaon’s grasp and lands face first on the solid ground. Its a pointless battle and belle wants to avoid combat of any kind, so she rushes to find a way to the nearest fissure. Once they’re out, Lycaon remarks, with a low, sincere voice, “Your reputation precedes you Proxy, you saved our necks,” and Hugo grins in agreement, Belle smiles, through Eous, thanks him for the compliment. Its professional, polite, so Lycaon-like, earnest even, it nothing worth making note of except when they’re cornered only a minute later and Hugo swings his scythe out and rips through a hoard of deformed ethereals, he turns on his heel, faster than expected, over to Lycaon, slips his scythe back into its case, and says innocently, “No praise for me, Lycaon?”
Ideally Lycaon should’ve sighed and kept moving, finished the job and keep the momentum up for the rest of the day. Ideally, he should’ve let the comment slip past, make nothing of it, its Hugo after all. But he pauses uncharacteristically, turns to Hugo with pursued lips, jaw clenched tight and furrowed brows. Hugo doesn’t notice, already making his way ahead into the hollow with eous skipping alongside him. And Lycaon has to force his feet into motion, mechanically push himself forward to match their pace.
The third time they fight, its a brutal and bloody thing. There’s no place to escape and way too many foes cornering them all at once. Hugo takes the initiative to clean up the larger masses, propels himself along his weapon, waltzes between bodies, clears out the area with as much precision as he can. When they’re done, Eous crawls through a gap to retrieve the items they came for. Simultaneously, Lycaon steps forward, places a gentle hand on the small of Hugo’s back, his claws are curled inwards, they catch onto a frayed thread of Hugo’s shirt, he feels the weight when the base of his palm presses down on his back.
“You did well,” He whispers leaning into him, and its a slow reverent thing.
Hugo’s not sure where this comes from. But its so earnest, gentle, tender in a way a confession is, that it completely catches him off guard. He flares hot red and steps back, watches Lycaon blink in confusion. He’s embarrassed too, he can tell by the way his ears press down against his head, and Hugo wants to incentivise on that embarrassment, double down and say something to fluster him perhaps, but when he opens his mouth, nothing comes out and he has to run an angry hand through his hair to calm his beating heart down.
When Eous pops back out of the tunnel-like structure, papers clutched to its chest, Belle’s not sure if she’s walked in on something she was not supposed to be seeing.
