Expedition

One-shot

"You love them, don't you?" Those words kept on repeating in his head. He had lost his cool at that moment, still feeling his face turning red as he stuttered to give an answer while his senior just laughed at his panic. "It's fine, kid, I won't tell", he wasn't a kid anymore but those moments of innocence certainly made him feel like one.

He shook his head, trying to forget, trying to think about something else, anything else. The snow had reached his knees during the storm, and the sun had set a few hours ago, he certainly wasn't going to make it to a camp that night. He laid his back to a big rock, breathing had started to be painful, his eyes were too tired to keep open, it felt like he could just give up at that moment...

"Young man, are you awake?" A female voice woke him up, she was standing in front of him with a small girl next to her, holding a torch to her face, she kneeled down to his face, taking his temperature. "He covered you up for so long, it was almost too late."

The small girl also got closer, cupping his face between her small hands, giving him her own heat. "Let's take you home."

He lost consciousness again, but this time he knew he was safe. Fischl came back from her expedition with a bag full of fowl, she had been gone for ten hours so the sun was starting to set when she arrived at the gates of Mondstadt. She gave her left overs to Katherine, in reality she just wanted an excuse to ask her something that had been eating her up since morning. "Katherine, do you happen to know if the adventurer Bennett has passed through your stand today? Or if anyone has said something about his possible location?" Her eyes were cold and piercing, howling for an answer.

"We haven't received news from or about him, sorry", Katherine looked sad, having to repeat the same line over and over again. Fishcl didn't even say thank you back, she just keptnwalking and muttering curses under her breath.

"Prinzessin Fischl, you shouldn't get so worked up about this, you should trust your fellow mates as the courageous and strong knights that they are!"

"For gods' sake, shut up, just, shut up", she covered her face with her long blonde her, masking what could be an expression of either pure rage or extreme sadness.

Oz tried talking to her more, but she was too mad to even pay attention to his tries at reassurance. She was tired of worrying about him, and what upset her even more was that it wasn't only her who was like that, Razor also spent the last days trying to find him around Mondstadt and was unsuccessful. Weren't they friends? Why had he gone off for an entire week without telling anyone or even leaving a note? Did he want to get rid of them that badly? The horrible questions filled her mind with self doubt and gloominess, only being able to think about the worst case scenario. She got to the Favonius headquarters without even realising, Razor already waiting for her inside. They tried to avert her eyes when her sad gaze asked for any news without a word; she just let her head rest in Razor's chest at the silent answer, incredibly tired, trying to forget about her worries. A single tear slid down her cheek when the muscular hands patted her head.

"He is such a bad guy to fall for...", she whispered with frustration.

"Razor knows", they had discussed their feelings for Bennett during the last year and decided to keep things in the same way as always. There wasn't anything they wanted to change about their friendship and that was completely fine, Bennett's feelings were unknown and a platonic relationship made all of them just as happy.

They went to sleep after their comforting moment of silence.

The thud of a door woke Razor up in the middle of the knight, it was the front door and they could smell Klee and Jean and... a familiar smell but too frozen to tell who it was. Lisa also came out of her room, so they decided it was just appropriate to follow. The entrance was full of life like it was the middle of the day: Lisa was trying to calm Jean while she was anxiously explaining the situation to her, Klee was talking to someone wrapped in a blanket while rubbing their hands to give them some heat, Albedo and Fischl came downstairs, both looking like they weren't getting much sleep. Razor focused on the person in the blanket, trying to figure out who it could be, they gasped and whispered "Benn-.."