Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Distantly, Felix was always aware that Ingrid and Glenn would get married. He knew it the same way he knew their family names and location of the kitchens in Fraldarius Keep — a rote thing that simply was.

It was a surprise to him though, the winter that he, Dimitri and Ingrid all turned eleven, when she fell in love with him. Or…some version of that, at least. He didn’t have much to compare it to, but the pink in her cheeks when Glenn ruffled his hand in her hair was new, the shy turn to her smile when he made a joke. They always saw a lot of each other in the winter, the five of them all stuck inside during the long cold months, shipped around to each others’ family homes to various tutors. It meant their birthdays, the three of them born to snow, became landmarks for memories like this, little bookmarks on a timeline. Felix found himself noticing, in dark evenings around a fireplace and the cold blankness of snow in the sun, all the just-there changes to Ingrid’s face when Glenn looked at her.

Glenn was born to the bloom of spring. When it came around that year, flowers burst into color just to wish him a happy birthday, he turned fourteen and he loved Ingrid too. By the time they reached Sylvain’s thirteenth birthday two months later, wreathed in warm sun as it always was, there was a shift that Felix never saw coming between all of them. It wasn’t too extreme — they were all close, strung around each other like garland, close as long as they all could remember. But there was something different about the way Glenn and Ingrid smiled around each other, and Felix remembered feeling suddenly like an outsider in his own small way.

It was silly. They would be married one day. Sometimes love accompanied that. Sometimes it didn’t, he knew already; Sylvain’s favorite pastime during hours they were presumed to be studying was to find books passed off as historical texts that were more of a collection of noble gossip through the ages. But his own parents were in love, he supposed. His mother, sharp-witted and kind, looked at his father softly. He couldn’t figure out why it startled him so much, seeing the same expression on Ingrid. They shared everything, the five of them, and it was so strange when that childhood easiness came unbalanced.

That was also the summer when Sylvain learned he was attractive. Felix had watched it happen over time, but maybe he was just now old enough to realize too, that Sylvain had a budding charm. It was different than Dimitri, who had always been handsome in the way a prince was handsome, fine features and a kind smile, earnest and striking. Sylvain had gone from a freckled all-elbows child to something smoother; he had learned how to talk, how to smile. Felix remembered wondering suddenly if he looked as awkward as he felt, standing next to Sylvain. He knew how to move quick and light, but when they had to talk to people outside of their familiar group, it was like Sylvain could perform ballet next to Felix and Dimitri stumbling in full suits of armor.

Felix wasn’t sure if Sylvain knew of his own appeal before then or not, but he learned quickly when the girls started telling him. He, Dimitri and Ingrid sat under a tree in the sun, taking turns using Felix’s small pocket knife to carve shapes lightly into the bark of a tree, and in the near distance, there was Sylvain, a light-haired girl their age nearby, both of them laughing. When he came back to them, though, his face never had that secret softness, the lingering warmth of…whatever it was people felt. He just looked like Sylvain, their Sylvain.

Glenn would find them soon, take them out to the training pitch where they could take turns practicing shooting an arrow. Ingrid would take a short break from being their Ingrid to become something else, but Sylvain wouldn’t, even if the girls who tended to the horses walked by together, looking at Sylvain and giggling between themselves as they were taken to doing.

When Felix thought back to that year, the cloud of adolescence hovering just over them, what he remembered most was Sylvain’s sly expression whenever he grabbed Felix’s arm and convinced him to go along with his disruption of the day. Ingrid and Glenn were changing, ever so slightly, and so was Dimitri — the reality of his station, the crown hovering just above his head, was impossible to avoid as they became less like children and more like young adults. Felix liked to think about that even less. But Felix could predict Sylvain like the tides, could count on his unrelenting habit of being himself.

There was a steadying comfort already in the crooked turn of Sylvain’s smile aimed at him when everything else was complicated.

Felix didn’t know how he let himself be talked into this.

“Come on,” Ingrid, Ingrid had said, of all people, “It’s…harmless, right?”

“You’re not worried about getting in trouble?” Felix asked her back, his tone biting.

Ingrid furrowed her eyebrows at him, just a twitch, and the expression made Felix think about a hundred other conversations like this in the last few years, where Ingrid tried to extend her hand to him and Felix swatted it out of the air. The recognition made him deflate a little already.

“It’s just nice to be together again,” Ingrid said quietly. Felix wanted to say Speak for yourself. But he didn’t, because despite everything between them in the last four years, despite all the conversations they couldn’t have without making each other angry, hurting her feelings always made him feel worse.

So he let her lead him from his dormitory down the hall, past her own, and down the stairs. After nearly two weeks at the monastery, Felix was starting to get used to the twisting paths and labyrinthine layout. It felt harder to navigate at night, though; he was glad Ingrid had a good sense of direction.

Something panged in him, though, remembering Ingrid holding a map as the five of them trekked through the woods in the warmer months, ripping it out of Dimitri’s hands when he got them lost again, agitated as she inspected it closely and consulted a compass. It was always strange, remembering the children they were, before everything unthinkable happened.

They turned another corner and shuffled past the Golden Deer room. Behind the blue stained glass windows of the Blue Lions room, there was the bright shape of a flame in the fireplace, two shadows in front of it. He gritted his teeth as Ingrid pushed open the large wooden doors; he never looked forward to facing Dimitri.

In the Blue Lions classroom, draped in blue velvet and lit by blue moonlight filtering through the windows, Sylvain sat comfortably on the floor in front of the fireplace, a dark glass bottle of wine sitting to his side. Across from him, looking stiff, maybe at the rebellion of it all, sat Dimitri. A familiar rush of anger struck him, a sick twist in his stomach. Felix looked away from him, back to the fire and then to Sylvain and his bottle of wine.

“You made it,” Sylvain offered with a friendly smirk, leaning his weight back on his hands planted behind him on the floor. “Join the party.”

“Some party,” Felix said with a scoff, but he sat down next to Sylvain, leaving an open spot for Ingrid to sit between him and Dimitri. Before two weeks ago, the four of them had been together three times since Glenn’s funeral, and only once since that battle two years later. After that, when Felix couldn’t be within ten feet of Dimitri without feeling the urge to scream, this was their standard seating chart.

“Won’t the kitchen notice this is missing?” Ingrid asked, gesturing toward the wine and sounding skeptical. Now she has doubts, Felix thought to himself bitterly.

Sylvain leveled her with a look that was almost condescending in its worldliness. “Ingrid, they have entire store rooms full of nothing but bottles of wine. I think we’ll go undetected.” At that, he grabbed the bottle by the neck and tipped it back, letting red wine spill between his lips. A drop slid down the side of his chin, then down the muscles in his throat as he swallowed, and Felix watched it, without much else to look at. When he had enough, he sat back up, and offered the bottle to Felix with a lazy sort of gesture.

Felix didn’t have much experience with drinking as a recreational activity. He had drunk wine and ale before, it was part of every feast, but that was part of a meal, the way bread was. Drinking to become inebriated, stupid and silly as the drunk always seemed, had never appealed to him. But Sylvain looked at him with a relaxed posture and without expectation, an earnest invitation, and after two weeks of unrelenting tension, Felix wanted to believe he could relax too. He took the bottle, tipping it back just as Sylvain had, taking a more modest swig. When he finished, he passed it on to Ingrid beside him.

“Well,” Sylvain said, “It’s been interesting so far.”

“I went to Seteth’s seminar on class specialties yesterday,” Ingrid said, wine splashing back down into the base of the bottle as she took it away from her lips. “I thought it was very interesting.”

Sylvain’s lips twitched. “Of course you did.”

Ingrid rolled her eyes, but Felix could tell it was good-natured. “It wouldn’t kill you to plan for the future, Sylvain. We only have a year here, you know. I feel like there’s no time to waste in our training.”

“I can plan for the future later,” Sylvain countered. On the other side of the fireplace, Felix heard a sound that must have been Dimitri taking his own sip of wine. Felix wasn’t looking at him, but his outstretched hand reaching in front of the fireplace to Sylvain with the wine bottle entered his field of vision. Felix looked at the floor.

“I don’t like him,” Felix said. “Seteth, I mean.” In front of him, Sylvain was leaning back to take another drink, jawline sharp in profile. He felt like Sylvain looked noticeably older since the last time they saw each other, which was only last year.

“I thought he seemed so knowledgeable,” Ingrid said in a familiar voice. An eager tone, the way she got when a knight would let her hold their lance, coach her on her stance in front of the stables. The image triggered a memory of his brother in his armor, laughing as Ingrid admired the sword their father gave him after he was knighted, and Felix had to look back at the fire until dots of color blinked in his vision to make himself stop thinking about it.

“He seems like a stick in the mud,” Sylvain argued. “Just your type.”

“He’s a little…hm,” Dimitri started, like he was thinking. The sound of his voice grated at Felix, reminded him inexorably of a boy covered in blood, screaming in rage. Another twist in his stomach. Felix took the wine bottle again and drank a larger sip, the sweet taste of the pilfered wine easy to swallow.

“Intense? Rule-obsessed? Weird?” Sylvain offered.

“I was going to say serious.” From his tone alone, Felix could imagine the expression on his face, the confused little frown he made sometimes. A face that used to belong to their Dimitri, pasted on whoever this was, whoever he had become in the last four years.

Sylvain laughed lightly. Ingrid huffed, but didn’t argue. Felix passed the bottle along.

“You’ve been busy,” Dimitri said accusingly to someone, and from the faux-confused look on Sylvain’s face, Felix figured that was who he meant.

“Who? Me? Only with preparing for classes. So many supplies to get from town. My father sent me with hardly any paper or ink.” Sylvain delivered it all with a smirk, looking pleased with himself. Felix, already used to seeing Sylvain leaned against walls of the shops in town with giggling audiences of girls in front of him, snorted.

“Just don’t flirt with anyone who works here,” Ingrid scolded him. “Keep your exploits to town, don’t make things so messy. I’ve seen you make a pass at three servants in the last week. They have jobs, you know.”

“Then they should do them, instead of talking to me,” Sylvain defended himself. “I don’t invite them! It’s not my fault the chamber maids are taken with me.”

“And the stable boys?” Dimitri asked in a droll voice. Sylvain just laughed brightly in response. Felix looked up in confusion, looking between them, but they were busy looking at each other.

“There was one stable boy!” Sylvain said. “Is it so wrong to have a tryst in the hay every once in a while?”

“You didn’t,” said Ingrid, scandalized. Felix felt like they had all slipped into another language. He tried not to let his confusion show on his face — he didn’t need to publicly be the last to know anything — but the three of them were talking like this was just something they talked about. Like it was common knowledge that in addition to chasing skirts, Sylvain was perfectly content to chase a trouser or two. Was it?

“No, I didn’t,” Sylvain assured her through laughter. “It was a kiss, and that was bad enough. Those horses stink. I didn’t think it through.”

“Oh, shocking,” Ingrid said with a roll of her eyes.

“It’s nice to socialize,” Sylvain said with a pleased shrug. His posture was loose, maybe from the wine or maybe just from being Sylvain. He was so goddamn nonchalant about everything. Felix felt a new itch of irritation bloom, come to join the low frequency of frustration he seemed to vibrate with these days. The wine probably wasn’t helping.

He was tired. These last two weeks had been so tiring. Hearing Dimitri talk too much and being around so many people, so many vapid idealistic nobles, had him feeling permanently on-edge at Garreg Mach. The only relief was how often he could get himself to the training ground, how many people he had waiting to spar with him. Classes hadn’t even started yet — soon he’d be in this classroom with Dimitri for hours every week. He felt drained at the thought. He had forgotten how tired it made him when the spark of anger that refused to go out in his chest was stoked day and night, burning instead of smoldering.

And now Sylvain was in front of him, and everyone else knew something about him that Felix didn’t. He knew about the wedges between himself and Ingrid, about the way Dimitri was content to slash through any thread of connection he had with Felix, but he didn’t know there was a barrier between him and Sylvain too.

But then, he thought, listening to the other three laugh and talk distantly, ears ringing, of course there was. All Felix was anymore was a reminder of who was missing. For a moment, the slosh of the wine hitting him all at once, he felt completely alone.

“I’m going to bed,” Felix announced, standing up from the stone tile and brushing his pants off. “Goodnight.” He was sure Ingrid was looking at him with a frown, but he didn’t look at her.

“We’re heading back in groups of two, pal, I’m not letting you walk around by yourself out there. You got lost on your way to the dining hall yesterday.” Sylvain stood then too, hands on his hips. “We’ll find you in the pond in the morning if we let you go alone.”

“I don’t need a chaperone.” Felix’s voice came out cold, which didn’t surprise him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Sylvain said with a smile. Felix’s blood was hot and his pulse was loud in his ears.

Nauseous and furious, Felix didn’t dignify that with a response. He just turned around and walked out the door, his pace determined. Behind him, Sylvain made a questioning noise, and Felix was only barely aware of Sylvain’s heavy footsteps catching up behind him as he stormed across the courtyard.

“Hey!” Sylvain whisper-yelled behind him as he turned a corner, like he didn’t want to disturb the empty night air around them. “Wait for me. I don’t know the way back!”

Felix paused at that, shutting his eyes forcefully and wanting to scream. “You’re an idiot,” he said, as forcefully and scathingly as he could in a whisper. Sylvain, breath labored, caught up to him.

Sylvain looked him over, and Felix wondered what he saw. He felt a stinging, nettling anger at everything, irritating him all over. When Sylvain reached a hand out toward his arm, Felix twitched away, and Sylvain’s expression changed slightly, not in a way Felix could interpret.

“You’re like a raw nerve,” Sylvain said, voice quiet. Almost gentle. It made Felix’s hackles raise further.

“I wonder fucking why,” he said shortly, words stilted. He still felt nauseous, maybe from the sweetness of the wine or the residue of the memories he couldn’t help from sticking to the sides of his mind, being so close to the three of them again. Maybe from everything.

Sylvain sighed softly. Under the bricked arch of the walkway they were standing in, just around the corner from the house classrooms, they were tucked away from the eerie tranquility of the big empty monastery grounds at night, and Felix could feel the warmth radiating from him in the cool spring night. It was almost Glenn’s birthday, he realized dumbly.

“I can understand why, yeah,” Sylvain started, leaning against the brick behind him. “I won’t tell you how you should treat them or feel about them, because I’m not you. But I will tell you that I wish you wouldn’t run away from me.”

Felix felt like a steaming thing being doused with cold water. Ember-hot ash turned to mud. “What?” He managed.

“I never intended to stop being your friend, Felix. No matter what they are to you.” It came out of Sylvain’s mouth, loose with wine as it was, like a floating lyric in a hymn. Hard for Felix to believe, but pretty.

“He should be here too,” Felix said, the thought tripping clumsily out of his lips, instead of letting himself acknowledge what Sylvain just said. “Every second, I think about how he should be here.”

“I wish he was,” Sylvain said. Sometimes his words were artifice, means to getting what he wanted, but Felix could hear the honesty in his voice now, and he wished it didn’t make him feel exposed. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but we all do.”

He was right, Felix didn’t want to hear it. His mind flashed between images: Dimitri on a battlefield with blood on his lance and on his hands; his mother sending him off two weeks ago with that far-away look in her eyes that she got when she thought about Glenn; the five of them as children lying in their simple underclothes in front of a fireplace while their outer layers dried from the snow, together in the orange light. Happy still, the way they so often were. It all felt like too much to carry. “I’m so tired,” he admitted.

“Felix…” Sylvain started, looking tired himself for a moment. “The truth is I can’t imagine. We loved him too but it was different, and we all know that. It was different for each of us. I really fucking do wish he was here, but you’re still here, and for me…I don’t know. That helps. I know we’re all different now, but you’re still here and I just…I’m still here too. If that helps.”

Felix crossed his arms over his chest and clenched his fists, and his fingernails bit into the heels of his palms. There was a sting in his eyes that he refused to see through. Some of his sick feeling was abated, from the cool air or the quiet of Sylvain’s voice or…something. He inhaled deep and exhaled slowly to himself, closing his eyes for a moment. “Come on,” he said finally, the fight gone from his voice. “Let’s go.”

Sylvain nodded, stepped forward and reached his hand out toward Felix’s arm again. This time Felix let him, even if he braced for it, and Sylvain gave his shoulder a squeeze. It was a familiar gesture, one Sylvain had done to him many times, but it was stiff with disuse. Felix wondered when he had been touched last.

As they walked, Felix leading the way without any issue, he muttered, “I didn’t know you had boys tripping over you too.”

Sylvain gave a muted laugh. “Oh, that. What’s the difference?” He replied with no further explanation.

Felix scoffed. “You know the difference.” Sylvain’s dalliances with girls were enough of a fuck you to his father, he couldn’t imagine his reaction to learning this.

“He’ll marry me off to breed like a prized stallion eventually,” Sylvain said. Felix glanced over to him, but Sylvain was looking ahead. “He doesn’t have a say on what I do until then.”

Felix offered a short hum in acknowledgement. With everything else happening in the last quarter of Felix’s life, he’d barely even considered that particular inevitability of his noble future, or Sylvain’s.

“I didn’t know,” Felix said. He was trying not to sound petulant, but he could feel his face flush anyway.

“What, that I’m poorly behaved to a fault? Yes, you did.” Sylvain still wasn’t looking at him, and his tone…Felix could tell he was trying to brush past this, wiggle out without giving Felix an answer. Fine, then.

You’re still here. And that helps. The words echoed around his head. They were easier to think about than everything else.

Felix barely remembered the autumn after Glenn died. The last month of summer was full of memorial vigils and the chaos of punishing Duscur. It was all miserable, but at least he had things to do, places to be. When the air started to chill and the days got shorter, his father gone to take his anger out on whoever he could blame, his mother going thin from grief, it all started to blur together. Cold, dark mornings with breakfast that tasted like nothing. Still, bright afternoons where someone placed a book in front of him that he didn’t read. Cold, dark evenings with dinner that tasted like nothing. He and his mother on opposite sides of a table, quiet, like they were the ghosts here. Maybe they were.

Felix hadn’t seen Sylvain, Ingrid or Dimitri since the summer, since the constant stream of memorials and funerals paraded across Faerghus, since three of them stood crying at the side of a grave next to a stony Dimitri, whose face never moved anymore. He was surprised, then, when he spotted the Gautier crest on an approaching carriage through the window on one of those dreary dark mornings filled with nothing. Felix, so shocked by any change in the world around him for the first time in months, rushed down to the front gates without even thinking about it. His feet went on impulse, his quiet nothing-brain fogged over.

At the distant sight of Sylvain’s red-orange shock of hair, Felix felt something frighteningly like relief without even knowing why. It was the first thing that hadn’t felt freezing cold in his chest in so long. Felix kept walking toward the carriage, the cold barely bothering him despite not taking the time to bring a coat.

When he reached him, Sylvain was looking at him with an expression Felix barely knew before all this happened. Sadness, covered by his attempt at a stony grin, a slump in his shoulders. On someone like Sylvain, tall and ever-smiling, it looked like a shroud.

“Hi,” Sylvain said. “You didn’t know I was coming?”

Felix shook his head, winded from his quick pace. Sylvain grimaced. “I…felt bad intruding. But my father…”

“Did something happen?” Felix asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

Sylvain shrugged, making a dismissive hand gesture, but his tone was heavy as he said, “Miklan…I don’t know. I think he’s about to snap these days.”

Snap, meaning who knew what for Sylvain. Another injury, or…worse. Sylvain’s father needed to send him away keep him out of arm’s reach. “I’m glad to see you,” Felix said quietly, his voice sounding hoarse from disuse to his own ears.

“I wasn’t sure if you would be,” Sylvain said with a muted version of his normal crooked smile.

“Well,” Felix said, crossing his arms against the cold, “I am.” And Sylvain’s smile bloomed a little more. He was cast in warm oranges and reds from his hair, his skin still a little golden from the summer sun that kept shining even after his brother died. Surrounded by Fraldarius grays for so long, to Felix he looked like a particularly stubborn tiger lily, unimpressed by the chill of winter approaching. He looked like something alive.

There were servants moving around them, past them, and then they were alone out there. Sylvain stepped toward Felix, an arm extended, and Felix felt his eyes sting with the threat of tears even before Sylvain’s touch landed.

“Hey,” Sylvain was saying, voice quiet and low-timbred, as he pulled Felix into him. “Come here.”

Felix went. He let Sylvain tug him in until his face was pressed against Sylvain’s chest. He’d gotten so much taller than him now. Felix was wiry and small and was starting to think he always would be; Sylvain had been growing since he hit age ten, and Dimitri was taller than them both now. He felt smaller than normal pressed against Sylvain and his never-ending growth spurt, the way adolescence was filling his muscles out. He had turned fifteen just before Glenn died. Glenn would never turn seventeen, his mind supplied, unprompted.

Something snapped in Felix’s cold chest then, at a thought unbidden, and he felt an unexpected sob heave out of him onto the fur of Sylvain’s coat. “Felix,” Sylvain said gently, more gentle than Felix had heard him be about much, and another horrible sob escaped his throat. Sylvain’s arms wrapped tighter around Felix, and he was reminded of being younger. Being seven, Sylvain nine, Sylvain carrying him on his back while he cried over a hurt wrist, a bad scrape earned by playing too hard with training swords. Being twelve, Sylvain fourteen, Sylvain with his arm around him while Felix held his face in his hands, frustrated tears spilling out of him over Glenn’s new knighthood, the way he’d been acting different ever since he put on that armor. Just a year ago.

He heard himself crying, voice wavering with tears, but barely registered it. Or anything. He felt outside himself, so caught up in memory and grief at full force, like three months of floating in a stupor of shock had all burst at once and it was all washing over him now.

One of Sylvain’s hands came up to rest in Felix’s hair, and the touch grounded him again. Close to his ear, Felix heard Sylvain murmur, “I’m so sorry.” Felix’s gripped the thick fur of Sylvain’s jacket, hands tightening to fists.

They stood there like that, Sylvain holding Felix in his arms while he let himself cry for the first time since Glenn was buried, until Felix was empty from it, taking heaving breaths with his eyes squeezed shut. Sylvain’s hand stroked in a steady rhythm through Felix’s hair, and as Felix came back to himself, he felt himself warm at the tenderness of it. He didn’t stop him, though. Just sighed heavily, face still pressed into Sylvain.

“Let’s go inside,” Sylvain said to him eventually, and Felix nodded, pulling himself away from Sylvain and wiping at his face with his cold shirtsleeve. Stepping out of Sylvain’s body heat reminded him how cold it was, and he held his arms close to himself as he walked quickly back up to the gray stone of Fraldarius Keep. Sylvain kept up.

When they walked through the entrance hall, the fire-warmed air hit them in a comforting wave. Felix let himself be steered to the closest fireplace, Sylvain’s hand on his shoulder encouraging him to sit on the velvet sofa while he took his coat off. Then Sylvain sat down beside him, and the warmth of another body beside his made him shiver in surprise.

“Thanks,” Felix muttered, voice hoarse.

“I was wondering if I helped or hurt, really,” Sylvain said with a weak laugh. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

Felix shook his head. “You didn’t. Stupid.”

“Well I’m glad about that,” Sylvain said. Felix turned to look at him and he was smiling, less boisterous than usual, just a small thing. A little like Dimitri’s smile, the way it looked kind.

They were sitting in a small nook-like chamber, a specialty of the Fraldarius’, warm and lit in orange flamelight. With Sylvain warm beside him, Felix felt something like comfort, safety, and he didn’t realize how badly he had been missing that until now. He felt himself relax slightly, and he leaned his head to rest on Sylvain’s shoulder, feeling unselfconscious.

“Have you heard from Ingrid or Dimitri?” Felix asked.

Sylvain shook his head. “Not much. I know they must be…busy.” Felix nodded against Sylvain’s shoulder. The Galateas were in a panic, Felix knew, because he knew enough to know. Ingrid would need to secure another marriage. Dimitri…Felix couldn’t even think about it too hard. He couldn’t imagine losing his parents too, losing everything, and watching it happen.

Felix swallowed; he wasn’t sure if the lump in his throat was new, or leftover from the crying earlier. “My father said he died like a knight should.” He wasn’t sure what made him say it, what brought it swimming up to the top of his mind right now, but it came out of his mouth anyway. It had a bitter taste.

“He was sixteen,” Sylvain said in response, voice matter-of-fact and displeased. “Nothing he could have died for would make it worth it.”

Sylvain was used to disagreeing with his father. A sense of rebellion came easy to him. Felix and Glenn never had much reason to, before this. It made the pulse of resentment in his chest feel disquietingly out of place and uncomfortable, at the worst possible time for more discomfort. Felix stared out at the thick patterned rug covering the cold stone floors, unmoving. “That will be us soon. On a battlefield in the name of a king.”

In Dimitri’s name, eventually. Felix in his father’s place, willing to die in place of a king, to protect the blood of someone who happened to wear a crown. He knew his father wished it was himself instead of Glenn. Felix wasn’t convinced of how much of that was grief and how much was his own pride. The thought of becoming that one day, an obedient guard dog at the side of someone he was bound to protect not as a friend, but as a birthright, made him nauseous. He knew Ingrid was eager for it. That made him feel even sicker.

The room was quiet, the way the whole castle was quiet. The fire popped and crackled. Sylvain’s voice disrupted the silence when he said, “It won’t be you.” Felix pulled back to look at him properly, and Sylvain glanced away, like he wasn’t ready to be seen while he said it.

“It could be any of us,” Felix countered.

“It won’t be you, and it won’t be me, because we’ll stick together.” Sylvain looked at him then, a pink flush to his cheeks, and Felix looked at him right back. “I don’t know what Dimitri and Ingrid want. But I know neither of us want to be a medal in a family mausoleum. So we won’t be.”

“We’ll stick together,” Felix repeated, not quite convinced. It seemed stupidly foolhardy, the idea that this was something under their control. On the other hand, though, Sylvain had stubbornness and an ever-present confidence he would win, through skill or luck or some combination of the two. It wasn’t so crazy, the idea that Sylvain could stop fate.

“You’re not dying in a blaze of glory,” Sylvain said, and Felix could hear the waver in his voice now, see the shine in his eyes. Felix’s heart sank. “I’m not letting anyone say it’s what you would have wanted. So we’ll stick together, and — and we’ll win. And we’ll die somewhere better. Okay?”

“You either, then,” Felix said. He pulled his legs up to his chest, hugging against them and resting his chin on his knees. He peered over at Sylvain, at the way he was gritting his teeth, maybe to keep himself from crying properly. He barely seemed to register Felix’s words. “Promise me. You won’t die either.”

After a moment, Sylvain nodded at him, jutting his chin out like he was trying to seem sure of himself. After months of being alone, the static emptiness of his mind and his chest and this castle, seeing someone fight for Felix to believe them, put on a brave face to convince him he was protected, felt like a shield and a blade in his hand. Tools he could use to fight back against the ugly, evil thing that took his brother and would try to take his father, might take Ingrid and Dimitri too if they decided it was worth it.

Not him. Not Sylvain. The two of them would make it out, if they tried hard enough.

“I promise,” Sylvain said. And Felix, choosing to let himself believe in something good for right now, trusted that it would be true.

It was hard to see the monastery in ruins without remembering the smell of it burning. As Felix walked the grounds, even quieter at night than they used to be, he wondered how he could get used to being here again.

It was better than anywhere he’d been for the last five years, an endless blur of mud and snow, trekking across Faerghus to quell this, show a united front here and a formidable line of defense there. But this place was a time capsule, cracked open at all its seams, and that was hard in a different way. He hated sleeping in their old dormitories, walking past the rooms of teenagers he’d celebrated victories with, knowing that sooner or later, either he or they would have to fall.

He’d taken to pacing the grounds at night, taking the long way around the sprawling, broken-stone paths he remembered, until he ended up at the training grounds. Sometimes he wondered where Dimitri slept; he never graced the halls of any dormitories with his presence. With the way he’d been acting since they all returned to the monastery, he probably slept curled up against a wall outside like a stray dog, letting the spring rain soak him, but Felix had yet to run into him on his nighttime outings.

Maybe it was because he was distracted by the image of Dimitri’s scarred scowl in his mind, the frustration and grief Felix could never shake every time he looked at him, that he didn’t notice Sylvain sitting in the center of the training grounds, looking up at the open sky above them. Sylvain didn’t notice him either. He had a bottle in his hand, sitting splayed on the stone floor, and looking at him made something pang in Felix’s chest.

“Hey,” Felix called out, and Sylvain didn’t flinch. Just raised the bottle in Felix’s direction without looking at him.

“Should have known you’d been training instead of sleeping.”

“And you’re drinking instead of sleeping?” Felix asked in return. He grabbed an unwieldy training lance from a stand near the entrance, testing the weight in his hand. Training with a sword was useless without a partner. Instead he liked to grab for the weapons he was less familiar with, see how they felt to move. He would emulate the way he had seen Dedue hold the handle of a short axe, tested how it felt to toss toward a target. He wasn’t built quite right to master a lance; they were made for people like Dimitri, Ingrid and Sylvain, tall, long-limbed and muscular. But they felt good to hold, sometimes.

“At the moment,” Sylvain said. He groaned as he pulled himself up off the ground. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“I never can,” Felix muttered.

“Oh, I’m finding it much easier, being back in a bed consistently,” Sylvain said with a tired, self-deprecating smile.

“Lucky you,” Felix replied dryly. Sylvain was walking over to him, pace slow but not clumsy, not drunken. Felix set the lance back down, looked Sylvain over as he approached. He couldn’t be, but Felix swore he seemed taller than ever. He was definitely broader than Felix remembered him being, even without his armor on, standing in the cold winter air in his furs. His hair was shorter than the last time he saw him two years ago, pushed back from his face in a way Felix had quietly taken a liking to.

“Do you think you’d allow me a brief moment to be sentimental?” Sylvain asked him, taking another swig from his bottle before setting it down on a shelf next to a row of bundled arrows.

Felix made a face. Sylvain laughed under his breath. “The briefest,” Felix said after failing to think of a way to deny him, crossing his arms in front of him.

“I appreciate that,” Sylvain said. And then he stepped forward and wrapped Felix in an embrace, so quick and so tight that Felix barely had the wherewithal to pull away from him.

Felix gave a disagreeable grunt, fighting against Sylvain’s grip for a second. “Shut up,” Sylvain said, arms holding strong. “I just asked, didn’t I?”

Felix let out an exasperated exhale, but didn’t fight him on it. “This isn’t being sentimental,” he complained, just to complain.

“To me it is,” Sylvain said. He had his arms wrapped around Felix with a gripping force; he could feel Sylvain’s fingers fisted in his coat. When Felix stopped fighting against it, he felt Sylvain let out a heavy breath. He smelled like brandy and cologne. Felix wondered if Sylvain was glad to have his fine things back, now that he had packed up his father’s traveling army and could settle somewhere a while. Now that they were still, for the first time in five years.

Felix had never cared much for finery, little luxuries, but they fit Sylvain well. He was the kind of man who should feel like soft fabrics and smell like jasmine and evergreen and polished leather, clean-skinned and soft-haired. Dimitri was too, once. The thought made him flinch. He tried not to wonder if he’d ever see Dimitri warm, clean and soft again.

Felix swallowed, and then relaxed into Sylvain, let himself be held for a moment. The last time they saw each other, Sylvain had a beard grown in from a winter on campaign, marching through their cold, lovelorn homelands, fighting former allies for choosing the wrong side. He had been rough-skinned and calloused, and he had smelled like sweat and dirt. Felix had to shut down the curious fear, in the years that passed since then, that made him wonder if Sylvain was still himself. War was a tightrope of survival, and you could not look down and think about what you were losing with every step. They had lost so much already over the last two years.

The fear was unfounded, though, it turned out. This was Sylvain. Dimitri was a bestial version of himself, feral and rabid, but Sylvain had it in him to stay Sylvain. Felix felt relief wash over himself for a moment — at least there was that.

One of Sylvain’s hands loosed from Felix’s coat, and then Felix felt it rest in his hair, scratching lightly against his skin. “I missed you,” Sylvain murmured into the crown of Felix’s hair, his voice low, vibrating through his skin against Felix.

Felix didn’t say anything back. He just leaned against Sylvain, face pressed to the crook of his neck, and breathed in the smell of winter air and liquor and sweet flowers and skin, the boyish musk of him. Even with both of them grown, Sylvain would always smell like a boy to him.

Pressed together so tightly, Felix had the unfortunate urge to bring one of his palms up to press against Sylvain’s chest. It would be easy enough. And then he’d be beneath Felix’s hands, warm and vital and himself, and that would feel so good. They had been so rare in the last five years, these moments where Felix wanted something for himself. He didn’t have time for them in between fighting to keep his forces alive, himself alive. And they’d be back to that soon enough, back to the churning rhythm of war, but here was this. Here was Sylvain Gautier, warm to the touch, smelling sweet.

They hadn’t been alone in the few weeks since they’d arrived back at Garreg Mach. It was busy, all moving parts and gathering supplies and sending forces out to secure the area. And it was complicated. Dimitri was complicating things, the aura around him so furious and wounded, like a wild animal with a bleeding paw, lashing out. The former Blue Lions hadn’t had time for doing much of anything besides patching a million holes in a half-formed plan with spare parts and elbow grease.

Felix never wanted anything. Couldn’t he want this, this one sweet thing? He had tasted so much bitter. So much rationed struggle. But they stayed alive, even apart. They found Dimitri, even broken. They had Byleth again, and that always seemed to make obstacles easier to overcome.

But saints, the last two years had been hard. It wore on you, when your hope for winning a war dwindled down along with your rations. Felix felt so truly worn, running out of ways to patch himself over, and he didn’t have the optimism to spare for anything these days. Not the war, not Dimitri, and certainly not this: Sylvain looking at him with a fervent affection that he knew would feel good, if he let it. How could he let it?

Sylvain’s grip loosened on him, and the hand in his hair came down to grip at Felix’s jaw instead, tipping it up toward Sylvain. It chafed against Felix, being handled like that; he wondered if the liquor had made Sylvain brave. Felix brought his own hand up to swat Sylvain’s away. Just as Sylvain’s expression dropped, Felix’s hand moved to Sylvain’s throat, his thin fingers tracing around his adam’s apple before wrapping around the back of his neck, gripping into the hair there.

Sylvain inhaled sharply, and there was a punch of arousal in Felix’s stomach. Sylvain was looking Felix over, like he was trying to find the line they were toeing. Felix could feel the muscles in his throat as he swallowed.

“Did you miss me?” Sylvain asked him in a low voice. It made Felix want to dig his claws in, grip him tight enough to bruise. To leave a trace of himself behind on Sylvain’s warm skin.

“Don’t get cute,” Felix said, working to keep his voice level. A smirk twitched on Sylvain’s expression as he said, voice lacquered with something sweet, “Can’t help it, darling.”

It stung like a slap, though Felix wasn’t entirely sure why. Maybe because he wished this was real. He wished they could fall into each other without being on the edge of destruction, scrambling for a way to stay grounded. They weren’t people who had time for pretty words and the pretty ache of want; their lives didn’t afford them that. Felix’s didn’t, anyway.

In another life, maybe Felix could be the kind of person who let himself be called little names, let them press against him like soft kisses to the cheek. Maybe he could let Sylvain take him and hold him in his broad hands, handle him like something fine and fragile, the way he seemed to want to. In another life, another world, he could have had this the way it was meant to be had.

The bitter taste was back in his mouth as he choked this reality down, letting it settle in his stomach, cold. He let his fingers relax, let go of Sylvain’s hair, and took a decisive step back from him. Sylvain let him. Felix didn’t look him in the eye. “Yes,” he said quietly, stepping back further, toward where he set down the lance. “I missed you.”

The wood was rough in his hands, biting against his palms as he stepped toward the center of the training grounds and readied a stance that he’d seen on Ingrid. The way Dimitri and Sylvain fought didn’t work on him, but Ingrid he could emulate with some success.

“Get some rest soon,” Sylvain called to him. Felix paused, glancing over at him. The softness in his expression was gone, and Felix was equal parts relieved and disappointed. “You too,” he said back, and tried, at least, to convey how much he meant it.

Chapter Text

Felix knew he would find Sylvain in the cathedral. He wasn’t a religious man, but that wasn’t why Felix was betting he’d find him here. There was just something about the cathedral, the surreal light cast by its massive stained glass windows and the singing of a solemn choir echoing around its bones, that begged for mourners. Felix should know well enough.

It was relatively empty in the afternoon. Choir practice must have just ended, though the choir instructor stood in his spot at the pews fussing with sheet music anyway. But he and the guidance counselor were the only other people in the large chamber when Felix stepped in, vision scanning around and sticking on Sylvain’s red hair quickly. He pressed his lips into a thin line, trying not to feel grim as he walked forward.

Distantly, Felix was surprised that Sylvain could manage to be alone; there was always someone at his arm wanting to talk to him, some girl or another, in various stages of liking or hating him. He supposed the tired slump to Sylvain’s shoulders was deterring them. “Sylvain,” he greeted once he got close, his quiet voice echoing slightly, despite his best efforts.

Sylvain turned slightly over his shoulder and gave a slight nod, in what Felix assumed was the full extent of his greeting. He turned back around after a moment, facing ahead. Felix furrowed his brow and kept walking, stepping into the row of pews Sylvain was occupying and sitting down next to him.

It would be an insult to ask how are you? Sylvain put his brother in the ground two days ago. Even if Miklan was Miklan, Felix knew better than to opt for niceties. Instead, he said, “You should eat something.”

That made Sylvain turn to him, eyebrows raising slightly, but the rest of his face still had that blank sort of look that he’d worn since they came back from the tower ruins. “I’m sorry?”

“You haven’t been in the dining hall for meals,” Felix said quietly.

“You’re keeping track of my eating habits?” Sylvain asked dryly as his eyebrows raised higher. Felix scowled, feeling his face warm, and crossed his arms in front of him. Sylvain gave a soft, breathy chuckle. “Take me to dinner then, Felix Fraldarius.”

Felix huffed a scoff, narrowing his eyes at Sylvain before turning away. “Shut up,” he muttered, no bite to his words.

They sat there without speaking for a few minutes. There was the sound of distant floating voices somewhere in the cathedral, a small group of students heading out one of the balconies down the stone steps below, and then it was quiet again.

Sylvain gave a short sigh. “It’s so strange. It’s all been so strange.”

Felix kept quiet, giving Sylvain a sidelong glance. There was something so tired in his expression.

“I don’t know how to mourn someone I don’t love.”

“No,” Felix replied, voice low. “I wouldn’t either.”

“He was the worst person I’ve ever known. And you know, he’s been in with a dangerous crowd for a while now. I always figured he’d turn up dead one day.” Sylvain shook his head minutely, then brought a hand to rub across his face with fatigue. “I never thought I would care this much, when it happened.”

“You lost the potential of him changing,” Felix said quietly, turning to Sylvain properly. “However unlikely that may have been.”

Sylvain blinked at Felix, like that surprised him. He nodded, motion slight.

Felix looked down at the hilt of his brother’s dagger on his belt, as he often found himself doing when he thought of Glenn. “You never realize how many things you regret.”

Sylvain hummed. They sat in the quiet again. “When did it start to feel real? Being…the only one left?”

It was a mark of time passing that the question didn’t cut Felix like a blade. It would have, once. “Not for years,” Felix replied simply. In truth, he thought he’d gotten used to it after a couple years passed. Coming to Garreg Mach made him realize he hadn’t. But after four months at the monastery, missions busying him from thinking too hard about how he shouldn’t have had to come here alone, it was getting easier.

In his worst moments, Dimitri in battle ahead of him, dredging up a sick, bitter feeling in his gut, he was still furious. But in his best — sparring against Ingrid in the training grounds, enjoying something with her instead of arguing with each other, or working on cooking duty with Annette — he was starting to feel like a person. Someone who existed outside of their loss. It had been a long time since that was true.

“I never asked to be the one who survived,” Sylvain said, voice barely audible.

Felix felt himself tense. Sylvain finally managed to hit too close to his own veins of hurt. “No,” he agreed softly. “Me either.”

“Can I tell you something?” Sylvain asked. Felix looked at him, curious at the tone in his voice. The soft, vulnerable tilt to him had been righted momentarily, and he sounded almost normal. “It was always hard for me to grasp, you and Glenn. Miklan was older, so it was different, but it was…to watch what an older brother was supposed to be, and go home to that…I don’t know.” Sylvain shook his head, looking down. “When I learned Glenn didn’t even have a crest, it shook me up so bad. To learn that my family wasn’t even remotely normal, that he could have still loved me, if it was different. If everything was different.”

Felix looked at him while he spoke, surprised. Sylvain had never mentioned anything like this to him before, but privately Felix had always been afraid to ask about Miklan, because he had Glenn. He couldn’t ignore the similarities either, growing up. Or the glaring differences.

“I loved Glenn, but part of me was always…I don’t know, waiting for him to turn on me. Isn’t that sad?” Sylvain asked, letting out a self-deprecating huff of laughter. “I guess you can only kick a kid down so many times before he starts to expect it from all sides.”

Felix swallowed, feeling a rush of anger toward Miklan that was maybe inappropriate, but not for the first time. And then guilt, sitting cold in his stomach. There was nothing noble children could have done to make Sylvain’s father act faster in removing Miklan from their family. For that matter, there was nothing they could have done to make Sylvain’s father see he was at the center of it in so many ways. But still. As children, they had avoided the topic so often. It was why Sylvain spent so much time residing at someone else’s home, to get him out of Miklan’s immediate vicinity, but it went mostly unspoken.

He turned to Sylvain, jaw set. “I’m glad you’re the one who survived.”

At that, Sylvain gave another breath of a laugh, no humor to it. “And would you like it if I said the same?”

It stung a little, which Felix imagined was Sylvain’s point. It was a stupid thing for Felix to say, he supposed, but it was true. Miklan was a brute, selfish and cruel. Maybe if their family was different, if their parents had allowed him any love, he would have been different. But then, maybe not. All Felix knew was that Sylvain had been doled out his fair share of cruelty in that home, and he was still something good. Kind-hearted, even if he wouldn’t believe it if you told him.

“You’re a cynic,” Felix muttered. And then Sylvain gave a real laugh, a little too loud for the hushed calm of the cathedral. “You never know how funny you are, do you?” Sylvain asked in return.

Felix didn’t know what to say to that, feeling left out of the joke. He decided to just stay quiet, ignoring the warmth in his cheeks.

“I’m glad you came,” Sylvain said after a moment. “It helped.”

Felix just nodded. Everything he could say in response sounded too pitying or too personal. You deserve someone to see you as you are, he thought. And he didn’t know that he was particularly well-suited for it, but he was good at it. Dimitri and Ingrid would let Sylvain nod and wave them off with an obnoxious joke or a smirk, and they would believe him. Or let him be, at least. Felix wasn’t afraid to get in Sylvain’s face and push his mask aside every once in a while.

He was torn away from his thoughts when Sylvain’s hand landed on his leg, just above his knee. “You’re a good friend, you know,” Sylvain said, voice quiet but matter-of-fact. Felix blinked in surprise at the compliment, eyes catching on the sight of Sylvain’s hand spanning his narrow leg, unsure how to process it. Felix had never been a physically affectionate person, but Sylvain always was. They had grown out of the easy affection of boyhood, though, and now Sylvain’s occasional touch still caught him off-guard.

You deserve someone who can comfort you too, he thought, a little desperately. He remembered Sylvain’s hand stroking his hair in the cold, the day his brother’s death had finally come crashing down on him. He reached out hesitantly before lightly resting his hand on top of Sylvain’s. “You are too.”

It was Sylvain’s turn to glance down at their hands. His expression was hard to read, beyond the exhaustion. He nodded, the motion small. They sat there for a few more minutes, hands touching, and it felt too intimate for the public space but Felix let it happen, hoping it was comforting Sylvain, at least.

Eventually, Felix pulled his hand back gently, starting to feel embarrassed. “Dedue’s on kitchen duty today,” he said. “He’ll get you something to eat. Come on.”

“You should have started this whole conversation with ‘Dedue’s on kitchen duty today’.” His hand was still resting on Felix’s leg, and he pressed his fingers in slightly, giving Felix a small squeeze. It seemed casual to Sylvain; Felix wondered why it made him go flushed again. When he pulled his hand back finally, Felix could feel where it had been, skin still warm. “Let’s go, then. Eat with me, would you? You’re getting thin.”

“You sound like my mother,” Felix commented mildly. Sylvain offered him a grin. There he was, then. Back to himself enough. With the warmth of his touch still lingering on Felix’s skin and the reassuring tilt of his smile, Felix felt…lighter. He only hoped Sylvain felt the same.

Tomorrow, the Empire would make it to Garreg Mach. Felix should have predicted that would mean he wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight.

After an hour of shifting restlessly in his bed, he finally decided to leave his dormitory in favor of a walk. Maybe he could trick himself into thinking he was tired, if he moved himself around. He pulled a jacket and a pair of boots on, shuffling down the stone corridor as quietly as possible, but he wondered how many other students were awake in their rooms right now, unable to fall asleep in the wake of a war turning up at their doorstep.

He walked down the staircase, out onto the spring-chilled grounds, and tried not to wonder if any of this would be left standing after tomorrow. If not, he figured he should take a last look around. He didn’t expect to have fond memories of this place when he was shipped off almost a year ago, and it certainly hadn’t been a rosy experience. But in some small part, he felt like the last year had polished some of the grit off of him, and he would begrudgingly admit that he was grateful for that. Grateful to feel more in control of himself, less driven by the bitter pit in his stomach that sunk there four years ago.

Felix wandered aimlessly, looking around at the ground for any sign of the monastery cats, not that he had anything to offer them at the moment. He let himself be drawn to the green algae smell of the pond; maybe there were forgotten fish there. As he approached, he looked up, and was surprised by the silhouette of Sylvain’s back against the moonlight, facing the water.

“Gautier,” Felix called as a greeting, and he saw Sylvain jump. When he turned to Felix, he had a hand on his chest in alarm.

“How do you walk so quietly?” Sylvain asked in frustration. Despite the circumstances, Felix found his lips twitching up in amusement. He shrugged, walking up and leaning against the collection of barrels and crates sitting near the greenhouse, waiting to be unloaded on an unlucky chore duty that may never come.

“Couldn’t sleep either?” Felix asked. Sylvain was still in his academy uniform, like he’d been pacing around all night. Maybe he had.

“No,” Sylvain answered simply.

Felix pulled himself up to sit on top of a crate, putting him above Sylvain’s eye level. “This is it, isn’t it. The start of something...” He trailed off, not sure which of his fears to voice. “Big,” he finally finished.

“No, I think the emperor is planning a small affair, I’m sure she’ll come to her senses any day now. She told me she plans to be done with all this by next weekend, so I should take her out then,” Sylvain said, turning to him with a sardonic expression.

“Shut up, Sylvain,” Felix muttered, rolling his eyes. “I hope you said goodbye to your girls and started packing. This monastery isn’t going to survive what’s coming.”

“Optimistic!” Sylvain countered in a cheerful tone. “Just the way I like you.”

Felix snorted. “You’re not either.”

At that, Sylvain gave a short laugh. “Of course I’m not. Optimism is for people with far more agency than either of us.”

Felix eyed him over, the looseness of his posture juxtaposed with the bitterness in his expression. It was all an act, like so many things were with Sylvain. “But you’re still fighting,” Felix pointed out.

Sylvain raised his eyebrows. “And so are you.”

“Well, it’s fight or die,” Felix said, brow furrowed.

“Or run. We could run,” Sylvain offered, smiling like he made a joke. Felix scoffed at him, and then they were quiet.

The sky was clear and the moon was nearly full, reflected into the surface of the pond. It was a cool, still night, bracing in that almost-spring way. Greenery was threatening to bloom all around them. They were supposed to graduate next month.

“Do you ever wish we could?” Sylvain asked, breaking their silence.

“Who’s we?” Felix asked in return.

“I don’t know. I think you and I are the only ones who would want to.” Sylvain stepped forward to lean his elbows up on the crate Felix was sitting on. “We could give up our titles and make a break for it. Catch a ship to a far-off land.”

Felix considered that — considered never having to face his father and the disappointed lines in his face again, or the angry mask Dimitri put on the moment the Flame Emperor took hers off, the violence in his expression. “It sounds easy, when you say it like that.”

“It might be,” Sylvain said, looking up at him with mischief in his smile, a thousand boyhood memories called to mind at the sight of it. “I’ve never tried. Catherine did it, I heard.”

“She chose a stupid place to run to, then, if she wanted a fresh start,” Felix said with another scoff.

“Knights aren’t known for their intelligence.”

Felix raised an eyebrow at Sylvain. “And you are?” Sylvain just shrugged, a smirk on his face. Felix rolled his eyes.

“What would you do, in your new runaway life?” Sylvain asked. He leaned on one elbow, resting his chin in his hand as he looked up at Felix.

Felix considered it. He’d never had to think about his marketable skills before, what he would possibly do to make a living, if one hadn’t been handed to him. “All I’m good at is wielding a sword. I could get by on that, if I picked the right career.”

That made Sylvain roll his eyes. “Oh, come on. You’d leave one life of fighting for another? I thought maybe we could be merchants or something.”

“You’d like that, selling things to people. You’d be a good swindler.” The thought made Felix grin, shaking his head slightly.

“I am a good swindler, Felix,” Sylvain said seriously.

“That’s true. You must be, to get so many people to give you the time of day.”

Sylvain put on a wounded expression. “I have some charms, you know.”

Felix gave him an unimpressed once-over. “If you say so.”

Sylvain yawned, bringing a hand up to run through his messy hair. There was something in the gesture that was so familiar; it reminded Felix of being young and looking up at Sylvain, always taller, and wondering how he always looked so effortless. A juvenile awe at realizing that people could be beautiful. The tenderness of the thought surprised him. He felt rattled when Sylvain broke their silence, said, “I think we’d make a comfortable living in the merchant business, but if you insisted on being some lone wolf mercenary, I guess I’d come with you.”

Felix narrowed his eyes at him. “That would defeat the purpose of being a lone wolf.”

“I wouldn’t let you die alone out there, you know. What good would I be then?” Sylvain was frowning slightly, a serious tilt to his expression that Felix wasn’t sure he was even aware of.

He didn’t know what to say to that. It was sort of a big thing for Sylvain to say in the middle of the night while Felix was in his sleep clothes, loitering next to the pond. Instead of responding to that, he swallowed, said, “We should get some rest. War won’t wait for us.”

“No,” Sylvain agreed quietly. “It won’t.”

Still, neither of them moved. The sooner they did, the sooner tomorrow came.

“Spar with me,” Felix said, letting himself lean into the impulse. Sylvain smirked up at him. They both knew he would agree, that he was the sort of person who always welcomed an impulse, but Felix still waited for him to speak.

“Oh, would that cheer you up, to beat me?” Sylvain asked, but there was a smile spreading on his face, and that was nice.

“It would, actually,” Felix responded. He bit down on a smile in return, wanting to keep it for himself. It was strange, to feel so light in the shadow of all the heavy weight of history looming ahead of them, but here in the darkness all alone, he wanted to keep it.

Sylvain stepped back, pushing himself back from the crate. “In that case, then, I live to serve.”

“Yeah, right,” Felix said with a chuckle. He pulled himself up and jumped down onto the ground.

They walked the grounds in silence, soft footsteps against cobblestone, and it felt a little solemn, but it felt better than doing it alone. When they opened the doors to the training ground, there was relief in the fact that it still smelled like polishing oil and the sharp tang of iron.

“Swords?” Felix asked, hoping as he said it that Sylvain would indulge him. He glanced back at him, over his shoulder, and Sylvain looked amused. “Sure,” he said. “Really make a fool of me.”

“I wouldn’t, if you would train harder,” Felix replied easily, grabbing a wooden training sword from a rack of similar ones.

“Please,” Sylvain responded, doing the same. “I could train on nothing but the sword for a year and you’d still beat me.”

Felix shot him a look. “Is this the time for flattery?”

“Look who you’re asking.” Sylvain was testing the weight of the wooden blade in his hands, only looking slightly clumsy. He was always better with spears and axes, Felix knew, but he was good enough at everything that he could be skilled, if he tried. He was skilled enough even without trying very much, no matter what Sylvain said to the contrary.

Felix tightened his grip on the sword, squared himself up across from Sylvain, and waited. It wasn’t as much fun if he made the first move. Sylvain looked him over, assessing, and seemed to realize what he was doing. “You brag too much, you know that?” Sylvain complained half-heartedly. “This is why me, Ingrid, and — why me and Ingrid never want to spar with you.”

Felix noticed him catch himself before he said Dimitri’s name, but let it lie. “Ingrid spars with me plenty.”

“Ugh. She’s enabling you,” Sylvain said.

“Maybe you just don’t see the value in losing,” Felix commented mildly. He was still hyper-aware of his stance, his grip on his sword, waiting for Sylvain to push forward like he knew he would.

Sylvain made a face. “Goddess, you sound like a teacher.”

“When you fight, you’re either dying or learning,” Felix said in response. He remembered Glenn saying it to him once, both of them gripping their swords with an old familiar feeling of excitement, circling around each other and trying to get a hit in.

Sylvain took that moment to press forward, sword arcing in a diagonal toward Felix, and Felix quickly dodged under it and around him. Sylvain turned in response, thrusting his sword forward, but Felix parried it. Their blades stayed crossed together, both of them hesitating to find the right moment to act again.

Felix watched Sylvain, watched his quick eyes and the movement of his shoulders as he exhaled. Waited, and then — there. He found the right timing and turned their blades, pushing Sylvain’s to the side and lunging forward to strike. Sylvain reacted quick enough to avoid it, jumped back in a way Felix wasn’t expecting, and he felt a familiar kind of delight at the surprise. It felt good to fight a good fighter, the same way that stretching a muscle felt good

Felix wished, errantly, that he had let Sylvain use whatever weapon he wanted to. He always appreciated the way Sylvain moved with a lance, the arc of his movement as he forced his way forward toward an opponent, the quick way he could manipulate both ends of the spear to best someone.

They kept their distance for a moment, swords held at a downward angle as they took measure of the situation. Sylvain took the next move, stepping forward and turning cleverly, feinting to the side, but Felix caught it before it happened and managed to get his blade between them, swords pushing against each other. It pushed them tighter together than they should be for Felix to keep his advantage.

If this was about brute strength, maybe Sylvain would win, but it rarely was in sword fighting. Felix twisted their swords, threw Sylvain off his balance with all his weight pressed into the push of his sword, and then Felix got a hand between them and shoved Sylvain back, trying to get his fighting distance back. Except, through either clumsiness or deftness, Sylvain managed to get a foot between Felix’s at the last moment. With very little notice, Felix was suddenly aware that he was going to fall, and that they were going to fall together.

Instincts well-trained, Felix managed to toss his sword aside before they fell; he really didn’t need to accidentally stab Sylvain the night before…whatever was happening tomorrow. As a result, he found himself uniquely defenseless as he toppled over, catching himself on his forearms, over top of Sylvain.

Underneath him, Sylvain was catching his breath, looking up at Felix through messy hair. And Felix felt something vibrate through him, resonant, a bell being rung from somewhere deep in his chest.

“So who won?” Sylvain asked, still sounding a little breathless. Felix, petrified of the feeling he had just stumbled into, stayed quiet, looking him over. He saw Sylvain’s expression shift after a moment, into something a little more serious. “Felix?” He asked softly, voice gentle, like he was testing the waters.

Sometimes in a fight, when Felix was flitting around thinking of a million little things — his footing and his distance and the movement of his blade against ten others, acting on so much honed instinct — he moved without thinking. He would find himself dodging something he wasn’t even aware of with his full brain yet, at the end of a movement he didn’t remember starting. That was how he felt when he realized he had leaned down and kissed Sylvain.

The panic flooded him almost instantly.

Before he could scramble away, though, he realized Sylvain was kissing him back. He hadn’t frozen in surprise, he had just…reciprocated. And goddess above, Felix had no idea what that meant. Head reeling, he went along, letting Sylvain lead him; Felix didn’t have anything to compare it to, but he knew there was no world where Sylvain wasn’t good at this. It felt good, certainly. The soft press of Sylvain’s mouth felt like pure adrenaline and want, laid more bare in his chest than it had ever been in his life.

Eventually Sylvain brought a hand to rest on Felix’s waist, and the touch shattered him like glass, broke him out of his reverie. He pulled back, gasping like a man drowned, and looked down at Sylvain. There was something soft but ember-hot in his eyes, and Felix realized with a shock that he was being wanted as much as he was wanting back.

“What — what are we —” Felix stuttered, looking down at Sylvain’s dark eyes and the pink of his mouth, the pretty curve of his jaw, all with a panicked rapid flick of his eyes.

“You started it,” Sylvain said back simply. Right. He had. That did nothing to calm him down. Sylvain must have been able to tell, because after looking him over again, he pulled himself up on his elbows, bringing them closer together again.

“Felix,” Sylvain said in that same gentle voice, and the sound of it made Felix’s head stop spinning for a moment. “There’s a war on. Aren’t there more important things to be afraid of?”

No, said something stubborn in his mind. This, Sylvain beneath him and murmuring his name like a lover, was more pressing than Edelgard and her army, or the hastily fortified monastery walls. He understood battle, after all.

But beneath the frightened animal thing in his heart, he knew Sylvain was right. They didn’t have time for this.

“I’m getting off the ground,” Felix muttered, instead of saying anything meaningful.

He picked himself up, brushing his clothes clean, and resolutely avoided Sylvain’s eye as he went over and picked up his forgotten training sword. Behind him, he heard Sylvain putting his own back on the rack. Sylvain stayed there even after he was finished, waited for Felix to walk back over with his own sword.

“You have to tell me,” Sylvain said quietly, and Felix glanced up at him, at the guarded expression on his face. He wasn’t looking at Felix, either. “If…you never want that to happen again. You have to just tell me.”

Felix went still, caught off-guard. It was so upfront, so unlike Sylvain, who was good at twisting around people with a smirk and never letting them know what he really wanted. “I…” he started, and there was the nervous thrum of his heart again, so noisy.

Sylvain’s jaw was set; he was preparing for disappointment, Felix realized. And it was strange, again, to realize he was desired. Sylvain desired a lot of people, Felix knew, but…was this how he looked at all of them? He could still feel the shadow of Sylvain’s lips on his, his hand on Felix’s waist — did Sylvain feel that for him too? Did Sylvain look at him, sidelong and lingering, because he liked the shape of his profile in the afternoon sun when he smiled? The way Felix did? Sylvain was a pretty thing, hard not to adore; did he really see Felix, all his broken glass edges, and think the same?

“I didn’t say that,” Felix said finally, looking up at Sylvain with something like defiance.

The second time they kissed, Sylvain stepped forward first. Leaned down, handsome face pausing so close to Felix’s, and looked him in the eye again before closing his own and pressing their lips together. It was gentle. That was maybe the worst part. He never imagined himself weak under the light touch of Sylvain’s fingers on the side of his jaw, cheeks flushed and heart pounding, like one of the girls who fell for him so easy.

Felix felt Sylvain’s thumb rest on his cheekbone, so softly, and it was enough to make him pull away again. He watched Sylvain’s eyes open again, slow and dopey, and it did something stupid to him — made him want to surge forward and run his hands through Sylvain’s hair, graze a finger over the freckles that ran across his nose, grip his arms and dig his nails into the warmth of Sylvain’s skin. He did none of those things, though. Instead he just leaned forward, resting his forehead on Sylvain’s chest, and brought his arms to hug around his his sides.

Felix didn’t know how to do any of this, or what they were even doing. But this was the most intimate thing he knew how to do. To let himself sag, lean against someone, in the shadow of a looming war, the act of mourning what his life could have been if this wasn’t happening, mourning for the person he would have to become when a war of this scale started taking people from him, as it was bound to do. Dimitri would fight until he died, all in the name of revenge. His father was still paying penance for letting Lambert die in his stead. Would that be him? Would he live out his life filled with regret over not using himself as a shield?

“You can’t die out there,” Felix said, voice soft, eyes closed as his face rested against the fabric of Sylvain’s shirt. “You promised me.”

Sylvain wrapped his arms around Felix’s shoulders, one of his hands carding lightly through his ponytail. He pressed a kiss to the top of Felix’s head, so light that Felix almost believed he was imagining it. “You promised me too.”

Felix nodded against Sylvain’s chest. He couldn’t stop himself from worrying about Dimitri, or about Ingrid trying to die protecting him, but at least he could still make himself believe that he and Sylvain could avoid the end they seemed destined for. That the force of their stubbornness, twisted together into an oath, could keep death at bay, keep each other safe.

“Do you remember when our fathers would go on their hunting trips, and they’d drag us along?” Sylvain asked. The question would surprise Felix if he had any capacity left to be surprised tonight.

Yes, he remembered. They would camp out in the woods in tents, learn how to make campfires, how to fish, how to wait for deer and call for ducks. Ingrid was never allowed to come and it made her furious, as it always did when their parents insisted on propriety just because she was a girl. Felix always wished he could skip them in her stead; he liked hunting fine, but Dimitri would follow Glenn around like a puppy, always eager to try to impress him, and Felix would end up feeling left out, overlooked.

“I always hated it, you know, being out in the woods,” Sylvain said, breaking Felix out of his memories. “I was afraid of being in the dark.”

That Felix didn’t quite know. He lifted his head, sufficiently curious over where this was going. “You were?” He asked.

“Your brother throws you in one well, and the damage is done,” Sylvain said with a shrug. Felix grimaced, both at the reminder of the incident and Sylvain’s nonchalance. “So I would make you share a bedroll with me.”

Make him. Was that how Sylvain remembered it? Felix remembered pouting, ending every day upset, and Sylvain being there to clap him on the shoulder and say, “Come on, it’s too cold out here. It’s warmer when we share.”

“I thought you did it for my sake,” Felix said now, embarrassed at the memory. “I was such a brat on those trips.”

Sylvain furrowed his eyebrows. “I don’t remember thinking you were a brat.” And wasn’t it strange, how their lives colored their memories, colored what they saw in each other as children.

Felix paused, then, realizing how far they’d strayed. “Why are we talking about the hunting trips?”

“I won’t fall asleep tonight, by myself,” Sylvain said, all at once. He looked slightly embarrassed to say it.

He remembered climbing into the sewn-up bedrolls, fabric thick, their knees knocking together, waking up pressed together and warm. The smell of pine needles and campfire and boy, his breath visible in puffs in the cold dawn air.

He could lean back on sarcastic disbelief, or even tease Sylvain for this. He could say no, state the obvious and say we’re not kids anymore. But Felix was tired, and he was afraid, and maybe at least he could wake up warm. Maybe he could hold something close one more time, before all the unknowns tomorrow would bring. He nodded up at Sylvain, hands still resting at his sides, and watched relief fill Sylvain’s expression.

They didn’t say much as they left, trekking their way back down the stone paths toward the stairs of the dormitory. Sylvain went off to his own room, and then slipped back through the door of Felix’s wearing sleep clothes, his boots replaced with soft socks. He rarely saw Sylvain like this, unless they managed to run into each other early in the morning, roused out into the hallway at the sound of Claude and Lorenz arguing down the hall. He looked softer, younger, and that was too much to think about after the events of the evening.

Felix wondered, as they tried to make their bodies fit together in a bed too small for the two of them, if anyone would notice tomorrow morning. If Sylvain would slip back into his own room early, or be unabashed — Felix wasn’t sure which he wanted, or if he cared. He had more pressing concerns than Claude von Riegan’s knowing glance aimed at him.

“Felix,” Sylvain muttered as they finally settled in, Sylvain’s back against the wall and Felix’s back against Sylvain’s chest. Felix turned back slightly, gave a questioning hum. “We’ll stay safe.”

“We’ll stick together,” Felix responded quietly. Sylvain didn’t say anything back, but he did tip his head forward, forehead resting on the back of Felix’s neck. It was so surreal, the easy intimacy of it, that Felix could barely process it. “Get some sleep.”

Sylvain nodded, then pulled back. But he was there, a warm anchor at Felix’s back, and it was more of a comfort than he’d imagined. Despite everything, Felix found himself drifting to sleep quicker than usual, deep and dreamless.

Felix woke up first. He was facing Sylvain, the two of them drifted apart some time in the night, and he was sleeping hard and ugly, mouth open, drool on the pillow underneath him. Felix’s mouth twitched up into something like a smile at the sight. His eyes traced over every freckle on his face, a faded scar cutting through one of his eyebrows, the mess of his hair. We’ll stay safe. He repeated it to himself, over and over, as he memorized the way it looked for Sylvain to be safe.

Felix knew that he’d be seeing Sylvain today. They had been exchanging correspondence for a week — wartime correspondence, letters sent between generals, as they both found themselves. Location of troops, a plan for convergence as they headed to the west to meet the latest faction of Cornelia’s belly-up nobles who saw the tides changing and jumped for the opportunity. Felix felt, the entire time they wrote these letters, that the two of them were playacting. Doing tactician homework. After three years of war, it still didn’t feel real, and it felt especially false between him and Sylvain.

They hadn’t seen each other much since the war started, since Garreg Mach fell; they both had places to be, forces to lead, regions to keep secure. To keep his own head screwed on, Felix tried not to think of him too much. But then, he tried not to think much about any of them. If he let himself fixate on Dimitri, the recent competing announcement of his death and rumors of his escape, he felt his chest go tight. If he thought too hard about Ingrid, he found himself focused on the very real risk that she had finally managed to shirk her father and gone to Rodrigue, to beg for a place to die. It was all too much, when he had to spend every day trudging through snow and blood and ice turned to mud, leading troops from unlikely victory to close call. It was all too much.

But they would see each other today. Camp together. If Felix was being honest, the thought was nerve-wracking. Felix put these things in compartments in his mind, the fighting, the person he was here; in front of Sylvain, he didn’t think it would be easy to keep things in neat boxes. He didn’t think it would be easy to keep himself from wondering if Sylvain could see the ways he had changed, hardened, scarred over in the last few years. It felt messy, things bleeding together in his mind.

It was unbelievably stupid, really. They had bigger things to be concerned with than that. Still, he found himself on edge all day, even as his troops crested the hill where Sylvain’s forces had already set up camp, their tents and newly-built fires coming into view.

Even with spring approaching, Faerghus was cold, snow still on the ground. Sylvain’s troops were decked out in more fur than his own, a mark of how cold it was where they had come from. Felix saw the heaviest furs hanging out to dry; he was sure the Gautier troops felt it was springtime warm down this far southwest.

And then, passing through his line of sight, Felix saw Sylvain. They were still far enough from the camp that he couldn’t see him well, but he could see the moment that Sylvain saw him. His grip went slack on the saddle he was holding, and Felix caught him staring in his direction until one of his soldiers came up to him and took his attention back.

Felix led his troops closer, until they could all finally get off horseback and start carrying tents and bedrolls and supplies, the clatter of an army, toward the camp. It was strange to be around so many strangers; he’d gotten used to the chaos of his own forces. Most of all, though, it was strange to be in Sylvain’s atmosphere at all.

“General Fraldarius.” It was Sylvain’s voice, or…a version of it. Harder than Felix was used to hearing him sound. Felix turned from the horse in front of him, bracing himself, and found himself face to face with Sylvain. It had been nearly three years since they saw each other in person, and Felix could tell; this was a version of Sylvain he didn’t quite know.

“General Gautier,” he replied, voice schooled into neutrality. “Are you well?”

Sylvain’s hair was longer than Felix had ever seen it, hanging down nearly to his shoulders. His skin was freckled from sunshine reflected against snow, and he had a short beard growing in. Felix cataloged the newness, trying to figure out what seemed so different in particular. “As well as I can be,” Sylvain offered in response. “I hope you are too. How was the journey?”

“Mostly unremarkable. We ran into a fight in Enid’s territory, but,” Felix gestured around to his troops, who were in relatively good spirits, “We did just fine.”

Sylvain nodded, a serious expression on his face. And maybe that’s what was bothering Felix — he had never seen Sylvain so tense. Not even after Miklan. A seed of worry threatened to sprout, and Felix tried very hard to stop it. “Come to my tent later, we have a battle to plan. Or try to, at least.” Sylvain gave a half-hearted twitch of his lips as he said it, a shadow of any smile Felix was used to seeing on him.

“I’ll come as soon as we finish here,” Felix said. It was late afternoon, the sun already starting to hang low in the sky, and they had supplies to unload and exchange before it got dark. Sylvain nodded again, looked like he was considering saying more, but left it at that. He gave a small wave as he walked back off, to responsibilities waiting for him somewhere else. As soon as he was out of sight, Felix let out a heavy exhale. He ignored one of his commanders shooting him a confused look.

Felix worked alongside his troops until the sun fell. When he left them, they were settling into the Gautier camp well. It was so often a lonely road for all of them to trek, campaigning back and forth against a never ending wave of dissenters. He was glad that they could have some new companions for a short time, if nothing else.

He tried not to think about loneliness as he pulled back the flap of Sylvain’s tent, the orange flame of lamp light spilling out onto the ground as he did. The interior was large enough to fit a padded bedroll on a cot and a small, low table on which a map was spread, and the floor was covered in layers of furs, making it seem more homey than it should.

Sylvain was sitting on a small cushion in front of the table, a few of his commanders gathered with him. When Felix walked in, Sylvain glanced up at him, and he could swear something softened on his face. “Fraldarius,” Sylvain greeted, voice still as impersonal as it was earlier. “You’re just in time to field questions.”

The commanders, a brown-skinned woman with her hair twisted up into braids, a stocky man with a large beard, and a blonde muscular woman, looked up at him too. Felix nodded in greeting to them all, taking a seat around the low round table, and let things be all business for as long as they could. They ran their hands across the map as they spoke of timing and intel and tactics. More playacting, pretending like he deserved some sort of authority here, a twenty year old noble leading his father’s army. He was decent at it, at least. Hadn’t lost too many people, managed to keep his cool and act well under pressure. He tried to remember that when he felt entirely out of his league, like a child at a war council.

Eventually, Sylvain’s commanders were satisfied with the plan in front of them. Felix’s forces would leave tomorrow morning, and they would split around the base of a nearby mountain to approach their enemy from both sides. They should win, unless all of their scouts had vastly miscounted the troops waiting for them. “Alright, go let your units know,” Sylvain said, waving at the soldiers around him. “Mine as well,” Felix added. “Make sure everyone’s on the same page.”

They flurried out, the flap of Sylvain’s tent opening and closing, and then it was the two of them. Sylvain leaned forward over the table, rolling the map back up, and Felix couldn’t think of anything to do besides watch him do it.

“So,” Sylvain started, because of course he did. “General Fraldarius, how —”

“Stop calling me that,” Felix said with a huffy exhale. Sylvain looked up from the map at him, something like a smirk on his expression, and Felix never thought he’d be so relieved to see Sylvain smirk.

“I knew it was bothering you,” Sylvain said quietly, sounding amused with himself. “Felix, then. How has the war been treating you?”

“It’s exhausting,” he said, the easiest answer by far. There were other words he could use, but they didn’t need to sit here and talk about the inhumanity they’d witnessed in the last three years. It was every day, every moment. And maybe if they didn’t talk about it, Felix wouldn’t have to think about all the parts of himself that had to harden around it, or the parts of Sylvain that must have done the same.

Across from him, Sylvain nodded. “Yes. It is certainly that.” He tucked the rolled map back into its leather case, and then he was looking at Felix again. His gaze traveled up and down, the same assessment Felix did of Sylvain earlier, but he didn’t like being on the receiving end as much. He wondered when the last time he saw himself in a mirror was.

“I happened to run across Ingrid when we passed through Galatea territory,” Sylvain said, still looking at him a little too closely for comfort.

“Oh?” Felix asked, raising his eyebrows. More likely, Ingrid knew his troops were passing through and fought tooth and nail to make sure she saw him. The thought alone almost brought a smile to his face.

“She sends her love.” Sylvain leaned back, resting on his palms behind him. Even in war, Sylvain struck a nice image. He was wearing a simple tunic, once the base layer of his warmer garb, and the collar hung open, unbuttoned. Felix could see a light dusting of freckles on his chest; he wished the thought didn’t put a flush in his cheeks.

“Oh, I’m sure,” Felix said.

Sylvain gave him a small smile in return. “She did, really. In between lecturing me and lecturing you through me, she said to tell you that if you don’t come home in one piece she’ll kill you. And that she misses you.”

Felix felt a familiar tight squeeze in his chest. “I miss her too,” he said quietly. He rarely allowed himself to think about it much, but he realized he was jealous, at the thought of Sylvain getting to hear Ingrid lecture him. He imagined himself in Sylvain’s place, Ingrid fighting through a crowd to run up and clutch him into a hug that somehow also managed to put him in his place, like a cat grabbing a kitten by the scruff of its neck with her teeth. It sounded nice.

“It felt good to see her,” Sylvain agreed with a nod. “I could have kissed her when she came storming up to me, so full of energy.”

“I’d like to see that. You think she can still pull off that move where she just flips you onto the ground in one swoop?” Felix commented mildly.

“Oh, you know she has to be training twelve hours a day right now, so pent up. She could destroy me.” Sylvain sounded wistful as he said it, and he finally managed to make Felix laugh. It was an unpracticed thing, these days, and it came out a little hoarse.

“Felix,” Sylvain said, sitting himself back up. “Do you want a drink?”

Outside of Sylvain’s tent, the noise of soldiers was starting to fade. The night was growing later, and the Fraldarius forces were due to leave at dawn. Felix knew the smart decision would be to retire to his own tent, set up with less comfort than this one, and try to get some rest before a morning spent marching. He couldn’t make himself, though. It had been so long since he had felt himself thaw out, felt safe enough to let his posture relax even slightly.

“What sort of drink?” He asked.

“I have a bottle of wine that a pretty servant in Ifan territory packed in with our food supplies when we passed through.” There was a self-deprecating tone in his voice. “So I guess I don’t look too bad, overgrown as I am.” He ran a hand over his bearded jaw as he said it, and the gesture was handsome. No wonder he was getting free wine.

“No, you don’t,” Felix said quietly. He watched Sylvain’s expression go a little dumb with surprise at it, and was intrigued to find that he liked the feeling. “I’d like a drink, yes,” he followed up with, distracting Sylvain enough to seemingly recover.

“Good man,” Sylvain said. He stood up from his seat on the cushion, went off in search of the wine, and Felix wondered if his legs had always looked so muscular under the fabric of his trousers. When Sylvain came back with a bottle of wine and two metal camping cups, rummaged out of a packed bag, Felix wondered if he did this often.

They gave each other a silent cheers when their cups were full, and then they sipped on the luxury of cheap cooking wine. They could pretend, though, that it was sweet and earthy, that it tasted like normalcy.

It was quiet between them, which Felix thought made sense. There was so much to avoid discussing; each other’s fathers, Dimitri, the nature of the beast they stared down as their allied territory shrank and shrank. The last night they were alone together, three years ago. Dimitri.

“It’s been a long time.” Sylvain’s voice broke their silence, quiet and reserved as he said it.

“Yes,” Felix agreed, trying not to let his weariness show in his voice. They drank their wine. In the dim light of the tent, the stain of red wine made Sylvain’s mouth look impossibly dark. There were so many things he was trying not to think about — he would have to settle for thinking about this instead.

“Would you take your coat off? You look ready for battle,” Sylvain complained mildly.

Felix snorted derisively. “You’ll know when I’m ready for battle.”

Sylvain rolled his eyes at him. “Come on. It’s warm in here.”

Admittedly, he was right. The tent was set up during the day, letting the sun warm it from the inside, and the heat was trapped by the furs lining the floor and the walls. The dancing flame of the lantern on the table put out more heat. Leave it to the Gautiers to know how to make winter military camps liveable. Felix sighed, popping up onto his knees to unbutton his long coat effectively.

He felt Sylvain’s eyes on him as he did it, but he tried to seem like he didn’t. Let Sylvain look. He pulled his coat off, left only in a fur-trimmed tunic that was a little more substantial than Sylvain’s. He was always more susceptible to the cold.

When he looked over, Sylvain was staring at him so openly, not an ounce of concealment to it. It made something in Felix’s stomach warm, an internal furnace he had forgotten he even had. “You’re looking at me like you haven’t seen a person in three years,” Felix said, trying hard to sound aloof, detached.

“No,” Sylvain said quietly. “I’m looking at you like I haven’t seen you in three years.”

Felix blinked at him, shocked by the sentiment. He was expecting them to dance around this; he was hoping for a little delicacy. “And what am I supposed to do with that?” he asked. There was a tremble in his voice despite himself. He felt exposed and unprotected, like he was waiting to be run through with a sword, but it was worse because it wasn’t a sword. This wasn’t a fight. It was just a pretty man with familiar brown eyes, who knew him. Whom he knew.

Sylvain shrugged, the gesture minute. “You’re not supposed to do anything with it. If you wanted to, though, you could look at me back.” He was sitting with his legs fallen apart, one leg bent up with his elbow resting on his knee. Posture easy and open, even now. Felix knew they both put up a front, but his own was something locked up, folded over itself tight. He knew he came off cold and unapproachable — he was fine with that. He wondered what it was like to be all honey, all golden, to anyone who cared to look.

Felix wanted, above all else, to survive. For both of them to survive. It had been years since he had an urge to do much else. Every day could be his last if he wasn’t as diligent as he could be, as careful, as skilled, as smart. On some level, he believed that if he wasted his time doing much else, it would undermine everything he was trying so goddamn hard to maintain. It was on that level that he could never understand Sylvain.

“Is distraction a good idea?” Felix asked, instead of answering directly. He didn’t need to, did he? Sylvain must have known that yes, of course Felix wanted to look at him, wanted whatever else he was offering underneath that question.

Across from him, Sylvain had the nerve to laugh. Good to know he still had a knack for irritating Felix. “I know it’s hard for you to accept, but sometimes you have to let go of every choice you make being perfect without compromise, if you don’t want to run yourself into the ground.” He looked Felix over again, something unsettlingly honest behind his easygoing tone. “Other people do, anyway. Maybe you’re the only person built to never allow yourself a single mistake, or moment’s rest.”

“Is that what you’re looking for, then? Rest?” Felix asked. Arguing with Sylvain came to him easy, even when it was half-hearted, the two of them tired.

Sylvain didn’t answer. Instead, he poured them both another cup of wine. “Your hair’s gotten long,” he said softly as he corked the bottle again.

Felix reached back and touched his ponytail, suddenly aware of it for the first time in months. It hung down past his collarbones now, when he finally gave in and ran a comb through it before forcing it up into another bun or ponytail. He was worried the next time he saw his reflection properly he’d frighten himself by looking too much like his father.

Sylvain’s current appearance had the opposite effect — he looked the furthest he ever had from Miklan and Matthias Gautier. They were both always clean-shaven and his father cropped-haired. Sylvain, freckled and unkempt and handsome, was entirely himself. Felix could almost be jealous of that; instead, he was attracted to it.

“Not much time to change that,” Felix said finally after a long drink of wine. He couldn’t have too much more if he wanted to stay alert, but it was nice to pretend at creature comforts.

“It looks nice,” Sylvain commented, looking down at his cup, like he had been trying not to say it.

Felix had never been good at receiving compliments. They made him itch, never sure how to react. Sylvain was more comfortable with giving or receiving them than Felix would ever be, and knew how to deliver them with a winning grin, how to make his eyes look earnest even when they weren’t (Felix could tell the difference.) He wasn’t now, though. Instead, he almost looked sad. Goddamn it.

“Sylvain,” Felix said, not sure what he was planning to say next. He was only sure that he hated the sad, stony tilt to Sylvain’s mouth, and that his body had been aching for something human ever since he saw him again. He wished it wouldn’t. He wished he could ignore the rough handsomeness of Sylvain, the broadness in his shoulders and muscle in his thighs. He wished he didn’t keep wondering about the smell of his skin.

Sylvain looked up at him, his expression one of those curious mixes of weariness and self-deprecation that he was good at conjuring. As if he was saying I know, I know, a tired apology for…Felix wasn’t sure. Wanting him?

“I…” Felix trailed off. “I missed you.” Sylvain looked him over, gaze searching, and Felix let him instead of curling himself away from so much scrutiny like he wanted to.

Maybe it was the wine that was responsible for the heat low in his stomach, in his blood, at the sight of Sylvain’s eyes dragging up and down over him. Or maybe it wasn’t. After a long pause, Sylvain said slowly, “Come here, then, Felix.”

And Felix, warm in his body like a living thing, weak from the familiarity of Sylvain’s eyes and the threat of Sylvain’s hands on his skin for a moment, went like a called dog.

They crashed together without any elegance, Felix slotting himself into a straddle over Sylvain’s lap on the ground. Sylvain’s hands were braced on Felix’s waist, Felix’s on the sides of Sylvain’s neck, and then they were kissing. It was rough and desperate, their teeth clicking together, and Felix knew his nails must be biting against Sylvain’s skin. There was an animal in his chest, howling and snapping its teeth, and he hadn’t realized he had so much wildness sitting under his skin. He hadn’t realized how good this would feel.

They kissed until they could calm down, until their breathing slowed to something normal and the blood stopped rushing in Felix’s ears. For a moment, Felix pulled back slightly, not missing the way Sylvain tried to follow his path and keep their lips touching. When he realized Felix was pulling away, he blinked his eyes open and looked up at him, and Felix took him in.

Felix brought a hand up to the side of Sylvain’s jaw, thumb brushing against his short beard. It was novel. A masculinity that Felix had never thought much of before, never considered his attraction to, but it was attractive on Sylvain. He looked across Sylvain’s freckled face, the scar running through his eyebrow, the bump in the bridge of his nose from breaking it years ago. The golden brown of his eyes, his long, pretty eyelashes. Underneath their armor and their titles and three years of adulthood tossed heavily onto their shoulders, their knees threatening to buckle at the weight, this man was still the boy he knew. The boy he had been trying not to want for as long as he knew about wanting people.

“What are you looking for?” Sylvain asked him in a hushed voice. Felix thought it was a stupid question. You, I’m looking for you.

“You told me to look at you back, didn’t you?” He said, voice coming out more huffy than he meant it to.

Sylvain nodded with a hum. “You like what you see?” He almost smirked as he said it, his tone cloying, and it made Felix narrow his eyes, the memory of Sylvain using the same voice to elicit flushes and giggles out of every woman in his path, and anyone else who wandered through for good measure.

“Don’t talk to me like one of your conquests,” he said, voice level. The threat of a smirk dropped from Sylvain’s expression.

“I didn’t — you’re not,” Sylvain said, eyes looking up at him with something so earnest, it made Felix ache in a way he really didn’t want to.

Felix nodded back down at him, a hand still held against his jaw. “You can be whoever you want to be when you fuck them,” he said, voice quiet and calm. “But if you want me, you have to be you.”

“I do want you,” Sylvain replied easily. His hand on Felix’s waist ran down to his hip, pulling him in tighter, and Felix felt himself go hot in the face, embarrassed at his own embarrassment. There was satisfaction on Sylvain’s face in response.

“Then save your bullshit,” Felix said, fighting for his voice to stay level. He pressed back in, leaning down to kiss Sylvain again. He brought a hand up into his hair, tugging just slightly, and Sylvain gasped against his mouth.

Sylvain’s hand trailed down a little further, until it could hook under the hem of Felix’s tunic, slide up until it was brushing against the bare skin of his torso. It was Felix’s turn to gasp then, the pad of Sylvain’s thumb stroking gently at the skin near his navel. Then Sylvain dragged his hand up further, slowly, pulling at Felix’s tunic, his blunt nails ghosting up his ribcage. Felix let out a stuttering breath, the touch overwhelming, sparks of unfamiliar sensation arcing across his skin.

Sylvain took advantage of Felix being too distracted to kiss him quiet and decided to speak. “Have you been touched like this before?”

Felix shot him a look, eyes half-lidded as he looked down at him. “What does it matter?”

“I was just curious,” Sylvain said. His fingertips kept pushing up, slow and deliberate, until they brushed against one of his nipples. Felix gasped, tipping forward involuntarily, pressing his forehead against Sylvain’s.

Felix had never been particularly interested in seeking out company. When he was young, he assumed it was something he wouldn’t have to worry much about, as he never could quite grasp the appeal of girls. He got older and realized there were other options, and those did hold his interest, but the idea of sex, the way people seemed to lose their heads over it, still seemed like a lot of fuss. Besides, there were very few people in the world who he could stand to bare all of himself to. Sylvain happened to be one of them, and happened to be very beautiful.

“Who would have touched me?” Felix asked with a huff of laughter.

“Plenty of people would be happy to, Felix,” Sylvain answered. His fingertips trailed back down, the edge of his fingernails just barely pressing into his skin, all the way down to the sensitive skin below his navel. Felix trembled, body betraying him.

“No,” Felix said, voice gone shaky. “I haven’t.” He didn’t acknowledge Sylvain’s comment.

Sylvain nodded, moved his head to kiss Felix again, purposeful and firm. Then his hand was pushing up at the hem of his tunic again, pushing it up until Felix could tell he was trying to get it off of him entirely.

Distantly, Felix knew they shouldn’t waste enough time to take their clothes off. They should do this, whatever it was, quickly. Felix should slip out through the flap in Sylvain’s tent and back into his own, should chase off the image of Sylvain’s wet mouth and mussed hair and fall asleep alone in the cold of his own bedroll, let himself freeze back over. Could he afford to let the ice in his veins thaw so much, next to the flame of Sylvain? The handprints Sylvain would leave on his skin would burn indelibly, he feared.

But the warmth felt so good. And he was finding it so hard to turn away from a good feeling, after so long without one.

He untangled himself from Sylvain, let his shirt be pulled over his head, and watched Sylvain look him over. Felix didn’t waste much time thinking of his own appearance — he simply looked the way he looked. Anymore, he wasn’t even sure what that looked like. He wasn’t certain if Sylvain was looking at him with lust or if he was simply looking for new scars.

Then Sylvain looked up, met his gaze, and ah. There was the lust. It put something hot in his belly, in his blood, more of his frost melting away. When they pressed back together in another kiss, Sylvain’s hands moved across his skin with an excited quickness that Felix didn’t have the wherewithal to find as endearing as he should. It was so odd to be so desired.

Their kissing turned frenzied again, messier. Sylvain’s hands stroking his skin, the electric sensation and heat pooled in his stomach making him grip into the hair at the nape of Sylvain’s neck. At some point Sylvain’s mouth left his, trailed roughly down the side of his jaw and then his neck, leaving lingering bite marks in its wake. Felix gasped at each new press of his teeth and his tongue, feeling uniquely out of control of himself. It was a new feeling, but not a bad one, at least not with Sylvain at the reins.

Sylvain’s mouth trailed down further, down to the hollow of his throat and then across his collarbone, down his chest until his tongue ran across Felix’s nipple. Felix almost let out a yelp, the sensation ringing through him and making him shake. He was achingly hard, and so was Sylvain below him. The feeling of him, full and hot against Felix, wasn’t helping.

“Get —” Felix said, voice faltering, “Get your clothes off.”

Sylvain pulled back from Felix’s skin, lips swollen and shining with spit, eyes dark and dazed. “Yeah,” he agreed easily with a nod. “You too.”

Felix nodded back, the two of them looking at each other dumbly with racing pulses for a moment, before they remembered to do as they said. They stood and undressed with quiet focus and very little ceremony; when Felix looked up, there was Sylvain and all his freckled skin, muscled, tall and broad. All the things he ever was, amplified by the desperate, keening desire Felix had coursing through his system. Sylvain was looking at him too, and Felix wondered what he saw. They both took a pause, a moment of shared flushing attraction, before they crashed back together.

Standing together, bare as they were, made Felix feel smaller than usual when Sylvain wrapped him in his arms. And saints, he didn’t expect it to feel so good just to touch someone else’s skin again. Like this, maybe could stop being a soldier for a moment. Maybe he could be human.

They kissed and clutched at each other with urgency, their hands roaming each others’ skin, warm against each other in the cool night air seeping in from outside. Felix’s hands spread across the muscles in Sylvain’s back, down to the meat of his hips and back up to his shoulders, his chest. Warm and solid under Felix’s hands, a ruddy flush visible across his skin. It was so much just to touch him, he could barely imagine putting his mouth against Sylvain’s skin; he would taste like winter and sweat and campfire and maybe like the way his skin always smelled. That smell lived long-remembered in the animal part of Felix’s brain, and he would recognize it anywhere. He wondered what it would be like on his tongue.

In the blood-rushing haze of mouths and hands, Felix wasn’t sure how exactly they ended up on the cot in Sylvain’s tent. It wasn’t terribly large, but it was wide enough for the two of them to lie on their sides facing each other. With a blanket covering them, it felt like they were tucked away somewhere, more private than Felix had the luxury of feeling in years. Sylvain brought a hand to brush a strand of hair behind Felix’s ear, and Felix felt himself burn.

Felix pressed forward, tucked himself just beneath Sylvain’s jaw to press kisses along it, lips brushing against the scratch of hair there. He let himself mimic Sylvain’s path along his own skin earlier, let himself taste the hollow of Sylvain’s throat, suck a kiss around his adam’s apple, kiss across his collarbones and back up to a spot just behind his earlobe that made Sylvain gasp, breathy and wounded.

At that, Sylvain brought a hand up to the center of Felix’s chest, letting his palm trail down his sternum and past his navel until his fingertips reached the patch of hair low on his stomach. Felix shuddered at the touch, sensitive, and let out a shivering breath against Sylvain’s neck. When Sylvain’s fingers finally pushed lower, his calloused hand fitting gently around Felix’s hard dick, a soft noise escaped Felix’s throat. Embarrassed, he tucked his face against Sylvain’s skin, the warm hollow between his neck and his shoulder.

Sylvain didn’t say anything, but he did let his other hand wrap back behind Felix’s head, stroking the hair at the nape of his neck that had come untied from his ponytail. The gentleness of it made him feel like shattered crystal, like the crack of a candy coating, like something in him was smashed to pieces in a moment. Sylvain’s thumb pressed against his tip, spread the beading wetness there around the head of his dick, the slide of skin easier. When Sylvain’s hand pulled away, Felix gave a disappointed sound at the loss, but then he brought it up past Felix’s head to his own mouth, spitting into it roughly before bringing it back down to wrap around Felix again.

“Fuck,” Felix breathed, feeling frantic, pulled off of his hinges. His hands grabbed at Sylvain’s arms, nails digging into his skin. Sylvain seemed to take it as encouragement, which Felix was happy to give, because it meant that Sylvain gripped him properly, hand moving to slowly twist around Felix’s length with steady pressure. “Fuck,” Felix repeated through a hiss of breath.

Sylvain kept it up, pace slow but grip tight enough that Felix had to keep himself from bucking up into his hand. It was so full-body overwhelming, the feeling of being touched by someone besides himself, by Sylvain. He felt molten, like the churn of magma in Ailell, like steel in a forge. Sylvain kept going, his hand working Felix faster, and Felix heard himself whimper in time with his rhythm, voice wavering softly.

When he came, the force of it punched a soft cry from his throat, face bowed into Sylvain’s chest as he shook. He was only vaguely aware of Sylvain pulling him back slightly, enough to lean down and press a kiss to Felix’s forehead, and then his cheekbone. They were so gentle that for a moment Felix wasn’t sure it even happened. He felt heavy, his bones weighed down with sudden fatigue as all his muscles relaxed at once, and he blinked up at Sylvain feeling more sated than he remembered feeling in a long time.

“So goddamned pretty,” Sylvain muttered, looking right back at him. Felix didn’t have the energy to react to that. Sylvain moved, maybe an innocent shuffling of limbs, but Felix felt his stiff cock rub against his hip, and then he felt Sylvain freeze, breath hitching. On pure punch-drunk impulse, Felix reached down to Sylvain’s hip, fingers gripped into the flesh above his ass, and urged him to repeat the motion. After a moment of hesitation, Sylvain caught on, and moved to rub himself against Felix again, letting out a muffled sound as he did.

Felix brought his other hand up to tangle in Sylvain’s hair again, both hands holding onto him with a desperate sort of grip. Sylvain, breathing heavy against Felix’s jaw, picked up a slow rhythm to the thrust of his hips. He was hard and leaking against Felix’s stomach, and the feeling of him falling apart was so satisfying. The soft, wavering moan mixed into his breathing, the tightness of his muscles as he chased friction. At some point, though, he wanted to get him there faster; he took his hand from Sylvain’s hip, brought it between them. He was trying to reach his own mouth, but when Sylvain realized what he was doing, he pulled back and caught Felix’s wrist with his hand. Felix wasn’t sure to what end, but then Sylvain leaned forward, lips parting around two of Felix’s fingers until he was pushing them gently into his mouth.

The look of him, pink lips parted, Felix’s pale, thin fingers pressed against the wet of his tongue, was enough to send a new jolt through Felix’s spent body. Syvain sucked at him, making a wet sound as he let his spit pool down Felix’s fingers, and Felix watched him with something like awe. When Felix pulled his fingers back gently, Sylvain tried to follow them for a moment. He deliriously imagined that mouth on him, those dark eyes between his legs, and he felt his blood trying to rush to his groin again. Sylvain must have realized what he was doing because he pulled back then, a sheepish twitch of a grin on his face, like he was embarrassed at the urge. A line of spit connected Felix’s fingers and Sylvain’s lips. Felix felt like a teapot about to erupt into steam.

Before he could scream or boil over, he brought his wet hand down between them to wrap around Sylvain’s cock. Sylvain let out a stuttering noise, hips thrusting upward into his hand. He was heavy in Felix’s palm, all velvet-soft skin pulsing with want, and Felix stroked him, aroused and curious. Sylvain tried to tip his face forward into him again, but Felix pulled back lightly at his hair, just enough to keep them far enough apart where Felix could see his face.

There was a crease between his furrowed eyebrows, teeth pressing into his bottom lip to bite down on a moan as Felix’s hand moved. He was beautiful, even contorted with desire; maybe especially contorted with desire. And this, watching someone fall to pieces, watching the way his face went tight as his muscles tensed, fell slack when Felix paused, felt more intimate than anything else. There was no hope for artifice here, only the tension in Sylvain’s body winding up tighter and tighter before — there. Sylvain went still under Felix’s touch, and then the coiled spring of him released, a low shuddering moan escaping him, mouth falling open as he spilled into Felix’s hand. Felix let go of his grip on Sylvain’s hair, and Sylvain fell forward against Felix’s chest and pushed Felix onto his back with the motion.

“Goddess above,” Sylvain muttered feverishly into Felix’s skin.

“Keep her out of this,” Felix mumbled in return. Sylvain pressed another kiss to his collarbone.

Slowly, the pulled-tight knot of tension in the air unraveled, and it was still and quiet between them in the mess of stained blankets and sweat that they made. Sylvain made no move to extricate himself from Felix, cheek resting against his chest, and Felix let him stay, even when he started remembering all the reasons this was foolish. This whole thing, surely, had been stupid. But he clamped down on the thoughts threatening to spiral outward from that one, all the different ways this could be the mistake that toppled everything over, and let himself run a gentle hand through Sylvain’s hair. He already made the mistake, anyway.

“How many hours til dawn, d’you think?” Sylvain asked lazily.

Felix thought about where the moon hung when he had entered Sylvain’s tent, estimated how long their little war meeting took, how long they spent circling each other afterward. “Maybe five.”

Sylvain hummed, letting out an exhale against Felix’s skin that almost sounded content. He wondered, errantly, if this is what Sylvain was like with everyone he went to bed with. If he always stuck to them like honey, making sweet sounds, pressing into them and demanding to be held. He thought of the dozens of times he’d watched Sylvain put on a show for a girl with a scowl on her face, the way he’d charm her into a smile, the way the act would drop as they walked further away. Was it the same in bed? In his gut, Felix thought it must be. Sylvain, he knew, liked the attention, liked the chase, but he couldn’t picture him like this against the breast of a pretty girl whose heart he was bound to break. He couldn’t make it feel this real. Could he?

Am I just one of your girls? was a question too stupid, too vulnerable, too unbelievably unimportant to even think of asking right now. With the promise of a battle in the morning and no end to this war in sight, he should be glad for the moment’s peace and keep himself moving forward. He should remember himself tomorrow, try to push Sylvain out of his mind again lest he spend every day wondering where he was, if he was alive, if he could possibly make it out of this unscathed. He should try to forget —

“Felix,” Sylvain said, interrupting his racing thoughts. “Do you think he made it?”

Felix’s mind screeched to a halt at that. It was just like Sylvain to pinpoint exactly what Felix was trying not to think about at any cost.

“I have no idea,” Felix said, voice trained into something level. Sylvain must have heard it, the barely concealed emotion, because he pressed another whisper of a kiss to Felix’s chest, just where his heart was.

“I look for him, while we move,” Sylvain said. His voice was soft. “In abandoned forts, in friendly inns. It’s stupid, but I do.”

“I do too,” Felix admitted quietly. “Part of me thinks…I’d know, if he was gone.”

Sylvain let out a soft huff of breath as he gave a small laugh. “How unpragmatic of you, Felya.”

Felix felt himself flush, both at the jab and the nickname. It had been a long time since anyone called him that, since it fell from Dimitri’s lips without thought. Since before the academy, since childhood days where he called Dimitri Mitya back, nicknames picked up from Dimitri’s father in the old tongue that their names both came from. Names that their fathers picked out for them together, for two children meant to grow up together. Sylvain, Ingrid and Glenn picked the nicknames up too, with time, though they used them less frequently; Sylvain always used to say Felya in a way that felt like teasing, though Felix never knew quite what he was being teased for. He said it more gently, now. He must have been nostalgic.

“He has to be alive,” Felix said, quiet but firm, trying to keep the edge of anger out of his voice. Anger at Dimitri, anger at the idea that someone could kill him at all. “He’s too stubborn to let himself die before he gets what he wants.”

“Too stubborn,” Sylvain repeated with another soft laugh. “Yeah. You always had that in common, didn’t you.”

“Right, we’re the only stubborn ones, of the four of us,” Felix said back with a quiet scoff, rolling his eyes.

“You’re right, Ingrid’s hard-headed too,” Sylvain said, and Felix could feel the smile spreading on his face as he said it, laughing at his own joke. Felix tugged at a tress of his hair, making Sylvain let out a little ow. “You better stop, or I’ll like it,” Sylvain said, pressing his teeth to Felix’s chest like he was threatening to bite.

Felix let out a weary sigh, finally pushing Sylvain off of him. “Shut up,” he said simply, turning around on the cot so his back was facing Sylvain.

Sylvain took it like an invitation, sidling up to press his chest against Felix’s back and let an arm wrap around to rest on his stomach. Felix let him. It was warmer that way.

“Will you stay here til morning?” Sylvain asked, breath on the nape of Felix’s neck.

“I shouldn’t,” Felix answered. Surely they could both tell he didn’t want to mean it.

Sylvain’s hand stroked softly against his side, running across a healed-over scar. “I didn’t ask if you should.”

“And I didn’t say no,” Felix replied softly.

Behind him, Sylvain pressed a kiss lightly to his shoulderblade. He had to stop doing that. The more places he pressed his lips, the more burning marks he left on Felix’s skin, the harder it would be to stop thinking about this.

Felix slipped out of Sylvain’s tent just before dawn threatened to break. Sylvain blinked awake at the motion of his leaving, looked at him with sleep still clinging stubbornly to his features, sweet like a boy. Before Felix could get up properly, put his clothes back on and pretend to be the same person he was yesterday, pretend not to be mourning the happiness he had momentarily afforded himself, Sylvain reached a hand out to cup his cheek, touch soft. Felix looked down at him, the breath startled from his lungs at being touched so tenderly.

He couldn’t think of the right thing to say, not a new feeling but a frustrating one. Instead of the right thing, instead of thinking about what he should or shouldn’t or did or didn’t want to tell Sylvain, he said, “Stay safe.”

And all the other things he meant were underneath those words — stay like this, stay sane, stay yourself, stay alive, please, I cannot watch another person I love be made into a monster for the glory of the fight, please, I can’t lose you too, not after this — and maybe Sylvain heard them or maybe he didn’t. But he did offer Felix a sleepy little smile, and he took that as reassurance. In a moment of impulse, prone to them as he was in Sylvain’s company, Felix turned his head to the side to press a feather-light kiss to the inside of Sylvain’s wrist.

“Go,” Sylvain told him, voice quiet in the dark. “Be well.”

What a thing Sylvain to ask of him. He was always impossible. But Felix nodded anyway.

It was days after the battle, their forces separated by hundreds of miles already, when Felix realized the severity of the mistake he had made. A night with Sylvain didn’t take away his focus, didn’t cost him a win — it was worse than that. It meant that for the next two years, every night he slept alone, he knew what he was missing. He saw the edges of the thing he was really at risk of losing. Sylvain, smiling and laid bare and looking at him with warmth in his eyes, with gentleness in his hands, with all of himself.

For two years, every night they camped, Felix laid in his bedroll and brought his hand up to the skin wrapped over his heart, where he remembered Sylvain kissing him. And like a child, like the tired soldier he was, so much fight knocked out of him as time wore on, he did something he hadn’t done since the memorial services for his brother, and he prayed.

Chapter Text

On their march back from Gronder Field to Garreg Mach, they were followed by the rain. By the time they trekked back up the familiar winding paths up the steady incline of the mountains that led to the monastery, they were soaked with rain and mud, weighed down with water. Felix didn’t mind. The cold numb of his hands and his skin, the grit of dirt in his mouth, offered the smallest of distractions away from the other extra weight they were carrying. His father, dead, paraded back up the mountain in the back of a carriage, a pale imitation of the way his brother’s body was toured through Fraldarius territory once.

Except his brother’s destination, at the end of the performance of mourning, was the family tomb. His father’s…

Felix didn’t think about it. Felix didn’t think about anything at all, besides the ache of his muscles and the cold of the rain. Spring rain always reminded him of Glenn. Now it had to remind him of this too.

He could feel everyone around him keeping distance. After his father fell, Ingrid ran to Sylvain to cry, hiding her face in the fur around his armor. He knew she didn’t want to overstep, that they all were trying to toe some line with him that Felix couldn’t see. He could feel her eyes on him, though, like she was waiting for him to erupt in grief or anger, and that was irritating, because he was trying very hard not to do either of those things. Not here, surrounded by infantry and in the shadow of Dimitri’s back ahead of them. Not with everyone waiting for him to break.

He kept himself contained while they handed off the horses to the stable keepers. He nodded his head minutely at Sylvain, Ingrid standing behind him, when he told Felix they should wait til the rain stopped to dig a grave. The carriage with his father’s body had been taken off, maybe to someone with enough physician’s magic to clean him up, keep him from rotting. A sudden wave of nausea washed over Felix, and without much more thought, he walked off decisively.

“Felix!” Sylvain called behind him, voice echoing against the stone of the monastery, but Felix ignored him. He had to get out of here. If he stopped moving now, it would hit him hard, and he couldn’t do that yet.

Undeterred from hours of marching, Felix moved quickly and purposefully around the edge of the monastery grounds, in the direction of the woods. Somewhere empty, without the pitying looks of his classmates, without Dimitri. He could feel himself losing his grip as he moved, and at some point he became aware he was crying. He moved faster, breaking into a run, the ache in his sore legs giving him something to focus on. When he couldn’t breathe fast enough to keep going, he let himself stop, bent over to heave air in and out of himself, and watched the drops of water falling from his hair, felt the tears falling off the bridge of his nose. It was still raining, still fucking raining.

My father is dead. My father died for Dimitri. I am the only one left. My father is dead. The thoughts repeated in a loop, spun around and around in his mind, and eventually, a vicious sob ripped out of him, and then a wounded animal yell, a growl pulling from his gut. He wanted to scream until he lost his voice out here, howling alone in the trees like a monster. He wanted to stomp his feet and swing his sword, slash away at something. Like he could save either of them, if he got angry enough.

Instead, he just stood there, sobbing hard enough that his breathing was ragged. He stood there and let a lifetime of grief pour out of him, the way it sometimes threatened to even before this. Grief for his father, yes, but also grief for his brother and his own life, marred by a lifetime of being forced to fight; grief for every soldier he had buried in the last five years, grief he usually kept frozen in a dark corner of him, preserved on ice. Here it was, melted down and overflowing. Maybe he would drown in it.

Distantly, through the sound of the rain on the trees and his own crying, he was aware of the sound of a horse. The noise slid over him, no room for it to matter, but he was aware of it. Then there was a voice saying his name, louder and louder, until it was just in front of him. He didn’t manage to look up until there was a hand on his arm.

Sylvain stood in front of him, soaked with rain and breathing hard. Felix observed this with a distance that he didn’t choose, a numbness he wasn’t in control over. It was hard to even see him clearly, through the blur of the rain and his own personal downpour.

“Come here,” Sylvain was saying, words barely audible. “Come here.” And then he was pulling Felix in, his body loose like a ragdoll, until he was pressed against Sylvain’s chest. Until Sylvain’s arms were wrapped tight around his back, pulling him close. Felix felt only distantly aware of this, too wound up in his own body to notice what was happening outside of it, but it did feel better to lean against something.

Felix cried until there was nothing left in him. Until he felt dried out, even as soaking wet as he was. Until the only thing he had left to pour into Sylvain’s chest was his ragged breath, weak with exhaustion. Through it all, Sylvain kept him close, his grip tight on Felix’s back, an anchor point. When he felt Felix still, a hand came up to rest on the back of his head, more points of warmth.

“Felix,” he said, voice close to Felix’s ear. “Will you come back with me? You need to get inside and warm up.”

Felix pulled back to look up at Sylvain against the dark sky. He didn’t care about warming up. He didn’t care about the numbness of him, the heavy weight of his cloak.”I have to tell my mother, Sylvain,” he said, voice weak and hoarse to his own ears. “I can’t even go home. A letter?” His voice broke then, and more tears threatened him with a sting in his eyes.

Sylvain’s thumb brushed back a wet piece of hair from his face. “First you need to come back, take a bath and get into some dry clothes.”

“We have to bury him,” Felix said. “At the monastery. And my mother —”

“Felix.” Sylvain’s voice was firmer now. “Felix, please. Please just take care of yourself for the night. For me, please.”

For him. Please. Felix swallowed roughly, throat strained. When he didn’t say anything, Sylvain spoke again. “We’ll do whatever we can for you. Tomorrow morning we’ll write to her. I’ll write the letter if you want me to. I’ll dig the grave. I’ll do whatever you need done, whenever you need it. But please, let’s get out of the rain.” Sylvain’s own voice broke, then, and it was so startling to realize he was crying too.

Felix looked at him, at the hard set to his jaw, like he was trying to keep himself from showing the tremble in his lips, and felt a different kind of sadness. It was the first time he’d seen Sylvain cry since Glenn’s death.

He nodded, the motion slow and hesitant, and he saw Sylvain’s shoulders drop slightly with relief. He didn’t say anything else, just gently let Felix go, and he had forgotten how cold he was without Sylvain around him. Sylvain put his hand in Felix’s, then, and led him toward his horse, wet and agitated. Felix followed the mechanical steps, rote in his mind, to getting onto its back after Sylvain. The only thing Felix remembered from the ride back was the feeling of his hands wrapped around Sylvain’s middle, something solid and warm in front of him.

Felix let Sylvain tell him where to go, what to do. He felt too empty to direct himself, and it was a relief to give up control for a little while. He ate a warm bowl of soup pressed into his hands, and then he had a bath, water near-scalding hot. And despite the quiet static feeling of his mind, the hollowness of his chest, he felt more human afterward. Less like a monster in the woods.

“Don’t be alone tonight,” Sylvain had told him. And Felix had nodded, because he didn’t have the energy to argue. To pretend like he wanted to lie in his room alone, under the weight of this, when Sylvain was offering him a quiet place at his side.

He was walking the short distance of hallway from his room to Sylvain’s, hair still damp but wearing dry, warm clothes, when Dimitri stepped into the hall in front of him. Under normal circumstances, his first reaction to being suddenly face to face with Dimitri would be a hot wave of anger. But tonight, every emotion he had already forced out of him, he barely felt anything at all.

“Felix,” Dimitri said, voice quiet, strained in a way Felix didn’t recognize. The hard, cold tilt to his words that Felix had heard since this war started was gone. If he closed his eyes and tried very hard to forget, maybe he would sound like he used to. “I…I’m so sorry, Felix.”

Felix looked at him, his unkempt hair, the dark of his eye patch, the way he looked so unusual in plain clothes. Come to think of it, he looked unusual being here at all; in the months they had spent in the monastery together again, Felix had never once seen Dimitri use his old room. There was something different in his expression too, something…present. Dimitri was looking at him, he realized, really looking at him. Not just looking through him, past him, like he was another one of Dimitri’s ghosts.

“It should have been me,” Dimitri was saying. “He never should have — I shouldn’t have let him. I’m so sorry.” His words were running together clumsily, like he was just as startled to see Felix and have to do this as Felix was in return. Which wasn’t fair — Felix lived here. He let a pause hang in the air, trying to process this.

“It wasn’t you, though,” Felix said after Dimitri looked like he was starting to squirm from the quiet. His voice came out sounding more tired than it did cold, the way he was used to sounding when he spoke to Dimitri. “It was him. And goddess knows it was willing. So don’t apologize to me.”

“But if I —”

“Shut up,” Felix interrupted him. There, there was the coldness back to his voice. He felt a familiar flicker of anger in his chest at Dimitri, but it was a sad, withered thing compared to the usual flame that burned. He was worn, entirely worn through, and this was all he had left in him. “If you’re so sorry, then shut up, and leave me alone.”

In front of him, Dimitri floundered, mouth opening and closing a few times. Felix moved to walk forward past him, toward Sylvain’s room.

“I want to do what’s right,” Dimitri said, and that stilled Felix, made him turn back around. It was less selfish than anything he’d heard Dimitri say in years. “I want to win this war. For him, and for everyone. I — I’m sorry, Felix. For so much.”

If they had this conversation a day previously, Felix would have throttled him. Would have screamed, would have started a fight so loud the entire monastery would hear him. But then, would they ever have had this conversation, if Rodrigue hadn’t done what he did? That stupid old bastard — he managed to set Dimitri right after all, and that was just like him. Felix hated when his father was right.

He let out a sigh, turning back to Dimitri. Behind him, he heard Sylvain’s door open, but he didn’t pay attention to that. “If this is what it took,” Felix started, voice low, “For you to come back to yourself, to realize that the world is more than just a list of your…vendettas, and that the rest of us are fighting for something bigger than you. If this is what it took to make you fight with us instead of for yourself, or for some ghosts, then…you better fucking do it.” He let out a shaky exhale, a tremble in his hands as he spoke, something fresh rising to the surface, against all odds. “You better make his death mean something after all this, Dimitri.”

Felix couldn’t remember the last time he called Dimitri by his name, at least to his face. He saw a wave of surprise hit him, and Felix turned, no desire to watch him react further. On the other side of the hallway, he saw Sylvain, surprise on his face too, and Felix walked past him into his room. He wanted out of this interaction.

Felix walked purposefully toward Sylvain’s bed, tossing himself underneath the covers without a further thought. Behind him, he heard Sylvain say, “We’ll talk in the morning,” his tone not unkind, but matter-of-fact. His sheets smelled like him. For some reason, this was the thing Felix was choosing to focus on.

After the door to his bedroom shut, Sylvain didn’t say anything else. Just followed Felix into bed, wrapped an arm around him and pushed in closer until Felix’s forehead was resting on Sylvain’s chest, a hand running down his spine soothingly.

It had been four months since they returned to the monastery, and in that time, they had never touched like this. The closest they came was that night in the training grounds, but after that, they had stayed a respectable distance apart, neither of them treading toward the wavering line that lay somewhere between them. They were friends, coconspirators in war meetings, a united wary front against Dimitri’s impulses, but only that. They sparred and they ate meals together, took shifts hauling broken building materials in their free time, argued in the hallways. But they didn’t touch like this anymore. And with so much else to fret about, a war they were still losing stretched out in front of them and so much work to do to bolster a makeshift royal army, Felix found it easy to put out of his mind. Easy enough, anyway; he only thought of Sylvain, the warmth of his skin and his dark eyelashes, on particularly long nights before falling asleep.

Maybe under different circumstances, Felix would be wondering what this meant, where exactly they stood. Maybe he would have recoiled at being cared for like this. As it was, he could hardly wrap his mind around it, stuck as it was on the image of his father falling. As it was, he only appreciated the warmth.

“The worst part,” Felix said, maybe to himself, maybe to Sylvain, he wasn’t certain. “The worst part is that he’d be happy he did it.”

Sylvain sighed. His fingers drifted along their path up and down the knobs of his spine. “I know,” he agreed.

“I can’t write that letter, Sylvain,” Felix muttered, voice almost a whisper. He had a pit in his stomach every time he thought about it, every time he thought about his mother, home and alone, unfolding a missive to learn that her husband had finally gone ahead and skewered himself on someone else’s sword in the name of a just cause.

“Then I’ll write it. First thing tomorrow I’ll write to her. Alright?” Sylvain asked. His voice was calm, comforting, and then Felix felt almost like a child, hearing him. He felt like the child he was after Glenn died, crying into Sylvain’s coat in the cold. Even then he had so many memories just like it, of letting himself curl up here while Sylvain stroked his hair and let him cry. Sylvain had been doing this for so long. The weight of that could have knocked him over, maybe, if he wasn’t lying prone.

Felix only nodded. “Thank you,” he said, and he meant for the letter, and he meant for dragging him back from the woods, and he meant for everything, but that was too much to say. He hoped Sylvain heard it.

“Anything,” Sylvain said. And that was so much. Too much. Felix couldn’t think about what it meant, or the fact that he knew it was true. Or worse, that he knew he’d say the same in return, even if he couldn’t say it so directly. Instead he focused on the rhythm of their breath, the warm points of contact between them, and willed himself to rest.

In the morning, Felix woke up to a bed warmed by sunshine, but empty. The sun was lower in the sky than it should be, he thought blearily as he sat up, before he realized he must have slept in, and slept hard. The day before caught up with him, then. No wonder Sylvain was already up.

He had the urge to lie back down, settle back into Sylvain’s sheets and pull them over his head. Go back to sleep, hope Sylvain would wake him up in the afternoon, stay hidden away until then. But people would surely need things from him soon.

When he pried himself from the bed, muscles aching, he saw the paper and quill on Sylvain’s desk. He swallowed, walking just close enough that he could make it out.

Lady Fraldarius,
I hope you are well. I am sorry for reaching out with unfortunate news.

Felix skimmed further, past the news itself, feeling no need to read any description of the event.

Felix apologizes for not writing himself — his concern for you was too great to know where to begin, and his role here demands much of him.

A pretty way to spin it, Felix supposed. His eyes tracked down further.

I know promises are difficult to make in times like these, but I do promise to do everything I can to ensure his safety.

A very big promise, for someone with such lazy training. Felix gave a small scoff.

I hold Felix very dear, and your family very close to my heart. Please know you have my deepest condolences.

With love and care,
Sylvain Gautier

It was a more articulate letter than Felix could have ever dreamed of penning. Any misgiving his mother could have about Felix not writing it himself would vanish when she considered what his would sound like, he was sure of it. He swallowed, not letting himself think too hard about his mother receiving this letter. He couldn’t go there, not yet. To distract himself, he let his eyes scan over the words I hold Felix very dear a few times, written out in Sylvain’s neat penmanship, ornate letters. Handwriting crafted and practiced to write love letters, Felix was sure, to impress. The peacock.

When Sylvain returned to his bedroom, he found Felix sitting on the edge of the bed, combing loosely through his tangled hair. It was getting too long; he would need to ask Mercedes to cut it again soon.

“Morning,” Sylvain greeted. He was in one of his lighter shirts, no bulky fur trim, and it made him look smaller than usual. Felix nodded, hummed in acknowledgement, eyes following him as he came to sit down next to Felix. “Are you ready to discuss the details, or would you like to eat something first?”

“No,” Felix said, shaking his head, his fingers pulling knots from his hair. “Let’s just do it now.”

“The church was going to dig the grave for us, but I wanted to wait until you woke up, because we all thought —”

Felix nodded, interrupting, “We should do it ourselves.”

Sylvain nodded back. “Well, whenever you’re ready, I’ll let Ingrid and Dimitri know.”

Felix took a deep breath, pulling his hands free from his hair to sit in his lap. He gave a nod. “I’ll be ready soon.”

Sylvain brought a hand to rest on top of one of Felix’s, squeezing it in his own. “We’ll meet you there, then.”

When the four of them finished digging the plot in the graveyard, sweat on their brow from the fickle springtime sun overhead, they let the monks lower the humble wooden casket into the ground. They stood in front of the gravesite, huddled together almost unconsciously. Beside him, Ingrid leaned on his shoulder, and Felix let her.

“Goddess guide his spirit,” Dimitri said. Felix could hear the furrow in his brow without looking at him. None of them were particularly devout, nor was Rodrigue, but it was a nice enough thing to wish for someone. Felix could feel however he felt about Dimitri, but goddess knew his father considered him a son. There was nothing he could say to object to his presence, his words.

Felix wondered what his mother would say, tried to conjure something of hers to send his father off with, but he could only think of the way she wept at Glenn’s funeral. So instead, he only said, “Goodbye, father.” Sylvain’s hand came to lay on his back, Ingrid’s head still on his shoulder. Their parents were the ones who bound the four of them together, and here they were gathered, to bury another of them. As stifling as the inescapable bond the four of them shared could feel over the years, there was some comfort in having people at his side who understood this.

When they walked away, Sylvain kept his hand on Felix’s back, broad and steady. And Felix let himself lean into the touch, for once.

Felix always appreciated when he and Ingrid shared the same chore duties. They both worked efficiently and diligently, and Felix respected anyone with reliable skill, even if it was just at polishing weapons. They sat on the ground as they did it, passing pieces of armor, swords, bracers, and gauntlets back and forth, sorted into piles to put back on shelves neatly in the training grounds. It had a satisfying rhythm to it.

Spirits had been higher since they took back Fhirdiad, since the night of the feast. Maybe that’s why the air between them was so comfortable, like they were still at school, just stuck doing chores on a sunny weekend instead of getting free time. They chatted off and on while they worked, conversation ebbing and flowing.

“My father wrote,” Ingrid said, and Felix looked up at her with a raise of his eyebrows. “It seems like everything is still going well in the Kingdom. He saw Margrave Gautier, said he and your uncle are working to reorganize troops.”

Felix scoffed under his breath. “Faerghus’ finest.” Ingrid hummed at him noncommittally.

“He sent more marriage offers, too,” Ingrid added with a sigh. Felix glanced up at her, the furrow of her brow.

There was a time when Felix wished Ingrid would just accept one of them. That she would confine herself to being a lady with a title, holed up somewhere. He thought maybe that would keep her reined in safely, far away from the promise of jumping in front of an enemy’s sword in the name of protection, of duty. She didn’t deserve that, of course; it was a cruel thing to ever think, or want. He knew it was her greatest fear, to become nothing more than an ornament in a house. If she had been allowed a future with Glenn…maybe she would have gotten what she wanted, the title and connection for her father and the freedom for herself. But she hadn’t. And he knew as well as she did that if she was married off now, to someone of status and money, the kind of person her family needed, there would be no choice, and there would be no freedom.

A familiar current of guilt wound through him as he thought about it, about how he used to look at Ingrid and see a girl so ready to die for her ideals that he wished someone would tie her up to stop her from doing it. They’d both grown up since then. The Ingrid in front of him now was smarter than he had ever given her credit for, and he gave her quite a lot of credit for a lot of things.

“What do you think you’ll do?” Felix asked. He had never asked before, he realized. Between old arguments about Glenn, about her knighthood, and his own resentments…they avoided the subject, usually. Her mentioning it at all seemed like an olive branch on her end. Seteth could say all he wanted about Felix pushing people away, but he knew how to read them at least a little, he thought.

Ingrid looked over at him, like she realized this was new territory too. “I…don’t know,” she answered finally. “I don’t know. I don’t like thinking about improving my family’s life or making my own what I want it to be. It’s not an easy choice to make.”

“No, and it’s a stupid choice to have to make,” Felix said with a frown. “I’m so tired of watching nobility auction their children off like cattle.”

Ingrid hummed again. “Like Sylvain, you mean.”

Felix blinked at her. He wasn’t thinking about him specifically, but it did apply. “I guess.”

“I’m actually surprised my father never tried to court the Gautiers,” Ingrid said off-handedly.

At that, Felix raised his eyebrows. “Would you have accepted that one?” He asked, voice light with a small laugh.

Ingrid returned it. “No, I don’t think so. I think I’ve known Sylvain too long to want to get tangled up in…” she trailed off, waving her hand like she was referring to a large mess. “All that.” She went back to polishing momentarily, then looked back up at him, an embarrassed expression on her face. “Not that there’s anything wrong with him!”

Felix tilted his head, face furrowing in confusion. “I mean, there are plenty of things wrong with him.”

Ingrid looked back at him, her cheeks pink. “But you know, he’s very…handsome.”

“Okay,” Felix said blankly.

“I just mean, I can see why…someone. Would be interested,” she said awkwardly. There was force behind her smile, like she was trying to make up for some faux pas that Felix could not even begin to recognize.

“Plenty of people are interested in him, constantly,” Felix said, still feeling confused on where this was going.

“Oh, are they?” Ingrid asked, in a voice that sounded forced into normalcy. “I…hadn’t noticed him returning much affection. Since we’ve all been back at Garreg Mach.”

Felix just looked at her, narrowing his eyes, finally starting to catch on. “What is this.”

“Nothing!” Ingrid said. “I just wasn’t trying to insult him, that’s all!”

“And why not?” Felix asked suspiciously. It was unlike her, after all.

“Because!” Ingrid said with a huff. “Because you’re — you and him are —” Ingrid waved her hand again.

Felix’s eyes widened and he felt his own face flush. “We’re what, exactly?”

Ingrid threw her hands up at him. “Well I don’t know, you’re something!”

“We’re…friends!” Felix said defensively. His face was hot, and he could feel it spreading down his neck now.

Ingrid looked at him, her own eyes narrowing. “You’re…friends?”

“Yes,” Felix insisted.

“Oh,” Ingrid said, sounding slightly disbelieving. “Well. Okay.” She picked the polishing cloth back up off the ground, and moved it toward the bracer in her hand. Felix watched her, feeling irritated even though he wasn’t sure why.

“What else would we be?” Felix asked, voice huffy as he did the same. Ingrid looked up at him, he could see it from his periphery. “Don’t answer that,” he added.

“You’re good for each other, I think,” Ingrid said quietly. Felix whipped his head up to look at her, but she was still looking down at her polishing. “As friends, I mean.”

Felix didn’t say anything. He still felt flushed, embarrassed at the idea that anything about him and Sylvain was observable. That Ingrid could see — what, exactly? The way Sylvain’s hand would linger on Felix’s shoulder sometimes? The way Felix never brushed him off? Maybe she saw them walking together at night when Felix couldn’t sleep, a ritual they’d developed during the long nights soon after Rodrigue fell. Did she see him coming out of Sylvain’s bedroom in the mornings, that first week after his father’s makeshift funeral, when he couldn’t stand to sleep alone? Or the night of the feast in Fhirdiad, amongst everyone’s distracted happiness, maybe she saw them wander off together.

Surely no one saw them, tipsy and surprised at having something to celebrate, when Sylvain pulled him by the hand outside. The way Felix crowded into Sylvain’s space, pushed him against the stone wall of the inn in an alley without looking too hard around them, a little careless from the drinking. The way Sylvain kissed him so easily, a smile still on the edges of his lips. It only lasted for a moment, but anyone could have seen — had they?

Ingrid kept looking over at him with a persistence she probably didn’t even mean to have, but it worked anyway. “I don’t know what we’re doing,” Felix said finally, voice low.

Ingrid’s hands slowed to a halt. “Well,” she started, sounding unsure herself. “You’re surviving a war.”

“Hopefully,” Felix muttered.

“I think that’s enough,” Ingrid said with a shrug, looking down as she moved the bracer out of her lap.

“And if we survive,” Felix said, avoiding her eye, “What happens then?”

“I don’t know,” Ingrid said simply. “I have no idea. But shouldn’t you take the good where you can get it?”

Felix didn’t say anything, looking down at his lap.

There were a few moments of quiet before Ingrid spoke again, like she couldn’t help herself. “We’re all like this, you know. The four of us. We’ve all spent so long focusing on the bad that we can’t see the good. We just think about the next bad thing.” Felix looked up at Ingrid, the way her hands were gripping her cleaning cloth, the tight expression in her face. “And there’s been a lot of bad for us. But let yourself have the good right now, Felix. You and Sylvain could have something good.”

There was something so strange about sharing a lifetime of loss with three other people. To be bound together through some childhood curse, tied to the same briar patch and unable to find their way free. No matter how much distance Felix ever wanted or tried to put between himself and Dimitri or Ingrid or even Sylvain, they all knew each other to the bone. And it hurt so much sometimes.

“But that’s all I have to say about it,” Ingrid said, taking a breath before sitting up. “It’s none of my business,” she said matter-of-factly. And then she grabbed a nearby shortsword, loosening her grip on the cloth and folding it purposefully.

A smile twitched on Felix’s lips, at the Ingrid of it all. Her gentle bossiness. “I suppose not,” he said, picking his own polishing cloth back up as well. He looked up and gave her a small smile, a smile that knew her, and she offered him one back. Maybe this was something he could let Ingrid be right about, without arguing like he did on so much else. Maybe, despite his nature, it was possible to have something without worrying about when it would leave.

In the five years Felix spent camped out on campaign in the Kingdom, clawing for every inch of victory he could possibly claim, he never imagined the momentum of a war could change so dramatically. The journey back to Garreg Mach had been something approaching cheerful, or as cheerful as an active army could be.

The night after they won the battle, Felix sat in Derdriu at a tavern, soldiers pouring ale for themselves with the civilians evacuated, Claude von Riegan sitting on top of a table in his golden finery, boisterously laughing over his drink only hours after telling Dimitri he was leaving the Alliance territory to him. Felix wasn’t fazed by much these days, but this particular course of events had him considering whether or not he sustained a head wound in the battle earlier that day.

Around him, the combined soldiers of the Alliance and Kingdom were celebrating. The feast at Fhirdiad last month was teary-eyed with relief, all of them happily shellshocked, but the atmosphere around them now was pure revelry. He supposed everyone needed it every once in a while. Alois and Shamir were going drink for drink at a nearby table, Catherine laughing loudly next to Alois, who already looked a little regretful; Manuela and Dorothea were sitting on top of the bar, laughing through a song they couldn’t remember the words to; Annette, Mercedes and Ashe were playing a game of cards that it looked like only Mercedes was winning. Felix stood leaned against a wall, looking them all over, tired but with the familiar easing tension of making it through another fight alive.

He looked through the room to get an eye on his friends. There was Dimitri, sitting at a table with Dedue near Claude, whose posture was loose from his seat on top of a table, rakish and smirking as he said something that ended with a simpering, mocking, “Your royal highness.” Dimitri looked stiff, cheeks pink; Felix gave his own small smirk, happy to see Dimitri squirm a little. Ingrid looked like she’d been cornered at the bar, Hilda Goneril crowded into her space and reaching over to stroke at her hair, a finger trailing down the side of Ingrid’s face to rest under her chin momentarily. Hilda had the same look Felix remembered seeing her aim at unsuspecting students who she wanted to do her bidding, replacing her on chore duty whenever she asked; he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Ingrid look so flustered before, cheeks red and smile nervous. Interesting.

With a glance around the room, he didn’t see Sylvain, who had been weaving in and out of different circles since they all started drinking, but then Claude’s voice rang out helpfully with a yell of “Sylvain Gautier!” Felix followed his line of sight and found Sylvain stepping out from behind a taller soldier in front of him. At Claude’s call, Sylvain lifted his arm in greeting with a smile, giving a quiet goodbye to the soldier he was talking with before walking in Claude’s direction. Claude leaned forward, sitting up and making room between his legs, an invitation for Sylvain to stand there, and Sylvain did. He put his hands down on either side of Claude’s thighs, leaning against the table and looking up at him, the posture of someone about to be kissed. Felix rolled his eyes to himself heavily. Saints, they were annoying together.

“Handsome as ever, Gautier,” Claude said. His voice was always unreadable, flirtation layered over a joke layered over opaque intentions. Talking to him always used to make Felix feel like he was the butt of a joke he didn’t understand. It made sense that Sylvain was fast friends with him, since he was good at that sort of social fluency.

“You’re a charmer,” Sylvain said, his voice just loud enough to carry over to Felix as he talked over the din of the crowd. He reached up and tugged lightly at the braid hanging on the side of Claude’s hair, then looked his face over. “I like the beard.” Sylvain was in his element like this, charm dialed up and a tankard of ale in his hand.

It lit an unexpected spark of envy in him, watching them together. Not for Sylvain’s attention on Claude, but for the unflappable ease with which he could handle people. But then Claude brought a hand to tip under Sylvain’s chin, and…maybe Felix was jealous.

Sylvain just laughed lightly, and Claude pinched at his chin for a moment before pulling back. “I don’t expect our paths to cross again any time soon,” Claude said to him with a winning smile. “But it’s good seeing you again.”

Felix watched Sylvain give him an easygoing goodbye, pulling himself away from Claude as they each aimed a final smirk at each other, and then he watched Sylvain turn to look right at him. Felix blinked in surprise, feeling only mildly embarrassed to be caught watching, and Sylvain made his way in his direction.

Sylvain didn’t comment on it, though. Only said, “Where’s your drink?” A comfortable grin was on his face, and he was more relaxed than Felix was used to seeing him these days. It was nice.

Felix shrugged. “I’m just people watching.” In truth, Felix didn’t care much for being inebriated in big groups of people. It made him nervous in a way he couldn’t stand, with too much going on and not enough control over himself. He was happier to watch the chaos unimpeded.

Sylvain hummed. “Would you like company?”

“Are you in a position to offer me company?” Felix asked, looking Sylvain over. “You’re a busy man.”

“I’ve had enough business for a while,” Sylvain argued. He leaned against the wall next to Felix.

“Duke von Riegan wear you out?” Felix asked wryly. Sylvain chuckled.

“Not a Duke anymore. Just a loose cannon.” He took a pull of ale from his tankard. “He did that to fuck with Dimitri, you know. It wasn’t about me.”

Felix blinked. Sylvain said that like it was obvious, but Felix didn’t see why that would be true. “What?”

“Look at him,” Sylvain said, gesturing back over toward Claude, where Dimitri was sitting nearby. Felix wasn’t sure which of them he was supposed to be looking at — Claude was still perched on the table, posture dripping with confidence, offering someone a wink, and Dimitri was sitting stiffly in his seat, looking more and more caught off-guard by Claude in front of him. Felix was reminded, then, of Ingrid and Hilda, and when he glanced momentarily toward the bar, they were gone. Hm. Sylvain continued “He doesn’t know Dimitri well enough to know that he’d sooner drop dead than pick up on this kind of thing.”

“What is he picking up on?” Felix asked. He had an idea, but there was so much Sylvain was leaving unsaid.

“Saints, you’re both hopeless,” Sylvain said, but there was no annoyance in his voice, just an amused smile. “He’s flirting. Sort of, in a roundabout way. I mean, he’s right in that I think it would work better than a direct approach with Dimitri, but…I think he’s giving a lot of credit to the man’s abilities of perception. Maybe if Claude had a month, Dimitri might notice this was about him at some point.”

“Claude is interested in Dimitri?” Felix asked. Sylvain would know better than he would.

Sylvain shrugged. “Interested in fucking him, I think.” His sudden bluntness brought a blush to Felix’s cheeks, which was maybe embarrassing. If Sylvain noticed, through the low light and the ale, he didn’t comment on it.

“Well,” Felix said, not sure how to process the idea of anyone fucking Dimitri. He didn’t know what to follow that up with, so instead he changed the topic. “Did you see Hilda and Ingrid?”

“Speaking of interested in fucking,” Sylvain said emphatically. “Good for Ingrid. Goddess knows she needs to unwind.”

Felix turned to him, feeling curious. “Did you and Hilda ever…?” Sylvain raised his eyebrows, then, like Felix surprised him. It was a funny feeling when that happened. “No, no,” Sylvain said with a shake of his head. “She thought I was scum. Fair enough, I suppose. Gorgeous girl, too smart for me.” Felix snorted.

Next to him, Sylvain lifted the tankard to his mouth. “I have kissed Claude von Riegan, though.” Felix’s head snapped toward him in surprise. “When?” Sylvain smiled, amused with himself. “The night of the ball.”

The ball. Felix mostly remembered sitting at a large table with Bernadetta von Varley in silence, not acknowledging each other, watching the other students dance. He didn’t let his mind linger on the image of an older, less meek Bernadetta retreating from Gronder Field a few months ago, the way he had tried so hard to aim for everyone else around her, so at least he could say he didn’t cut her down, if it had to happen. It didn’t, though. She was still out there, on the wrong side of a war. Maybe they’d both live long enough to stop having to try to kill each other. He shook his head — the ball. He watched Sylvain accept a dozen dances from people that night, but didn’t remember Claude.

Sylvain shook his head at the memory, a smile still on his face. “He was brazen about it, really. Asked me to go on a walk with him and just kissed me as soon as we got alone outside. He’s always been as full of shit as I have, but he’s fun. I don’t know what he’s thinking, though, with this disappearing act. Wonder where he’ll end up.”

“No clue,” Felix said honestly. The man was an enigma to him. “His forces are appreciated, though.”

Sylvain hummed, leaning over so that his cheek rested against the top of Felix’s head. Felix could have shaken him off, but he let him rest there for a moment, tucked away as they were. “We’ll be back to Garreg Mach in a few days. When we get back…” He trailed off.

Felix let him pause for a moment. When he didn’t elaborate further, Felix asked, “What?”

“Nothing really, just…I think you should let yourself celebrate. Relax a little, just for one day. I know this isn’t your strength,” Sylvain said, gesturing around at the raucous crowd. “But you deserve a little revelry as much as everyone else.”

“When have you ever known me to relax?” Felix asked sardonically.

Sylvain chuckled to himself, close enough to Felix that he could feel it. “That’s my point.”

“I’m no good at it,” Felix said, arms crossed and his eyes scanning across the room, not looking at Sylvain.

“I’ll help, then. Give me one night, the first night we get back.” Felix turned his head, making Sylvain get off of him. He looked a little sleepy-eyed from ale, but otherwise sincere. “I think you deserve to stop thinking about battle strategies for one night.”

In the last eight months, there had been plenty of nights Felix wanted to give to Sylvain. Nights when their fingers barely brushing for hours had driven Felix crazy, thinking of how good it would feel to touch him properly, to be touched. Thinking, too often, of that night on campaign.

When they walked together around the grounds at night, there were so many goodbyes in front of Felix’s bedroom door where he wanted to ask Sylvain to stay. Just to sleep next to him. In Fhirdiad, Sreng wine making him bold, Felix let himself reach out and grab Sylvain, hold him in his hand for a moment, kiss him hard and reckless, and it felt so goddamn good.

“I’ll have plenty of time to stop thinking about battle strategies when the war is over,” Felix pointed out, eyes moving away from Sylvain again, and Sylvain didn’t argue.

Sylvain had let it drop, and in the hustle of marching back across the Alliance that was no longer an Alliance, Felix had forgotten Sylvain’s offer. But the night they arrived back, when Felix retreated back to his bedroom to pore over a stack of letters that Dimitri had drafted to various generals to keep himself appraised before they were sent off, he found himself interrupted.

There was a soft knock at his door, followed by Sylvain’s voice. “Felix,” he said.

“What?” Felix called toward the door.

“Can I come in?”

Felix sighed, looking down at his stack of paper; he was on letter three of ten. “I’m busy,” Felix said, but he knew it was weak.

Sure enough, he heard Sylvain scoff on the other side of the door. “With what?”

“Oh, just come in,” Felix sniped. He’d rather argue with Sylvain with more privacy than yelling through a door would allow him; Dimitri wasn’t in his room, and the only other person who could hope to overhear was Ingrid down at the other end of the long hall, but knowing her, she would manage to hear them.

When Sylvain opened the door, he had a wide smile on his face and a bag at his side. Felix eyed him over suspiciously. “What,” he said flatly.

“I knew you were working,” Sylvain said. “See, that’s why I’m here. I told you, you need to take a night off.”

“Oh,” Felix said. “That.”

Sylvain rolled his eyes, leaned against Felix’s closed door. “Yeah, that. Come on, I’m stealing you.”

“Stealing me where?” Felix asked, furrowing his brow in disapproval.

“Sauna,” Sylvain answered easily. “I snuck in and got it heated. The baths, too.”

Felix’s eyebrows raised. “You’re taking me to have a bath?”

“And I have wine!” Sylvain added, reaching into his bag and brandishing a bottle. Felix leaned forward to inspect it and saw that it actually had a label, the glass etched. “Where did you get that?”

“You think I don’t know where they keep the nice stuff here?” Sylvain asked with a charming grin, the kind of thing that made Felix annoyed, surely on purpose.

“So this is what it takes too woo them, hm?” Felix asked, giving Sylvain an unimpressed look.

Sylvain paused, eyebrows quirked. “Two questions. One, do you really think I spend my time sneaking around in the sauna as a habit? I had to pull some favors for that. Two, do you think I’m trying to woo you?”

Felix spluttered for a moment, feeling his cheeks flush, before he composed himself enough to respond. “Well, how am I supposed to interpret it?” He asked, crossing his arms.

“As an invitation to a little comfort,” Sylvain said simply, something in his voice a little too honest. It always caught him off-guard when Sylvain did that, swinging out of glossy practiced charm and into his more genuine rough edges, the ones Felix tended to like.

Felix wasn’t stupid, even as clueless as Sylvain liked to think him. He was being asked to a night of casual nudity, wine and privacy — there were implications there, even if Sylvain didn’t see it as wooing. He thought of the stack of letters on his desk that would be sent off tomorrow, but also of Sylvain’s skin under his hands, his mouth in the dark. He thought of the Empire looming ahead of them, the promise of storming an unconquerable fortress in only a few weeks. He thought of Ingrid, pleading with him to take the good when it was given.

“Fine,” he said quietly. “I’ll go.”

The smile that spread on Sylvain’s face then was nothing like the smarmy mask he liked to put on; it was all him.

The large stone baths connected to the sauna were rarely filled and heated, and Felix thought maybe that was why he forgot how nice they were. There was steam in the room already, the smell of herbs and lavender (surely left by the professor, the sauna’s primary enthusiast and benefactor) strong and heady, and just walking in made Felix’s shoulders loosen slightly. Saints, maybe he did need to relax.

While Sylvain set out his bottle of wine and two pilfered goblets from the dining hall, arranged towels next to the bath, Felix undressed efficiently and stepped down into the water. It was hot, and he winced as he lowered himself to a sit, but he felt his stiff muscles loosen slightly and gave a small sigh of contentment, eyes closing for a moment. When he opened them, he saw Sylvain looking at him openly. “The water’s nice,” Felix said, sounding defensive to his own ears.

Sylvain gave him a once-over, eyes lingering on Felix’s bare chest, which Felix found silly. What was there to look at? After a moment, Sylvain seemed to come back to himself, offering Felix a nod. “I’ll join you, then.”

Sylvain stood and stripped unselfconsciously, and Felix didn’t look away. There were still bruises fading on his ribs from their last fight, a shallow still-healing injury on his thigh that Felix hadn’t seen before. He was a battle-sewn patchwork, his skin stitched with reminders of how long they had been fighting, but it didn’t take away from the simple fact that he was beautiful. Even bloodied, Felix always thought Sylvain was beautiful. It was something he learned to accept as an unfortunate truth over a decade prior; he knew it the way he knew their family names and the route to the best gardens at Castle Blaiddyd. He knew it even when he hated it.

He didn’t hate it now, though, whether for better or worse. He let his eyes scan over Sylvain, the dark auburn of his body hair and the edge of muscle showing when he moved, the warm tone of his skin in the lamplight. Felix was, of course, hungry for him. It was the kind of thing that sat dormant under his skin, an ever-present threat of desire that he tried very hard to forget about. There was too much to think about every day — how could he possibly fit this in? But sometimes it took him over. It could have, that night in Fhirdiad, but he pulled himself back. He was usually very good at pulling himself back.

As Sylvain stepped into the water, joining Felix to sit on the ledge at the edge of the bath, Felix realized that there was no holding himself back tonight. He had already plunged into the deep end when he first agreed to this outing, he wouldn’t step back from the edge now. He grabbed one of the goblets of wine sitting on the stone near them; if he was doing this, then he would do it well. With a smile, Sylvain did the same and reached his cup toward Felix’s, gently clinking the edges of them together.

It felt strange to celebrate, in a way it hadn’t in Fhirdiad or Derdriu. Holed away again in Garreg Mach, they were far away from the recent air of victory that their army spun around themselves for morale as they trekked across Fódlan. It was odd to relax, when everything here was about preparation for the next fight. But Sylvain had said just one night. He would make himself excuse one night.

Felix didn’t have much of a taste for alcohol, but even he knew the wine was good. And strong, if the warmth in his throat was anything to go by. He could appreciate the woody burn, the sharp red bite of it. And like this, comfortable in warm, perfumed water with the taste of fine wine in his mouth, he could almost pretend he wasn’t in the midst of a war.

With a sigh, eyes closing as he leaned back against the stone wall of the bath, he said in a begrudging tone, “You were right.”

Next to him, Sylvain gave a satisfied little ha! Felix didn’t open his eyes; he was trying not to be amused. “I was right?” Sylvain asked, fishing.

“I should let you know when it happens, given the rarity,” Felix offered. He moved slightly as he spoke, pulling his shoulders back to stretch the muscles in his upper back, tilting his neck from side to side gently.

“Mm,” Sylvain said in dry acknowledgement. “Tell me what I was right about.”

“This,” Felix said simply.

“Goddess help us, he’s given in to the threat of rest,” Sylvain said, voice sarcastic but pleasant, a specialty of his. “And saints above, perhaps even relaxation.”

“Shut up,” he offered in response, and Sylvain’s small quiet laugh made Felix finally crack, a small smile breaking on his face.

There was a pause, just the gentle sound of water, and then Sylvain said, “It’s nice to see you smile.”

The sincerity of it, raw and genuine, made Felix blink his eyes open in surprise. How was Sylvain so good at that, at surprising him? Across from him, Sylvain was studying him, eyes widening just slightly at being caught looking with an expression so gentle. Was that how Sylvain always looked at him when Felix couldn’t see? Surely not — Sylvain had never been accused of wearing his emotions on his sleeve. But then, Felix had always been good at reading him, the twitches in his expression that other people didn’t catch. Maybe it was something only Felix could see on him.

That realization made him thankful that the water had already flushed his skin, so his blush couldn’t stand out too much. He finished his glass of wine in a moment of shyness, to do something with his hands.

When it was empty, Felix turned his body to the stone edge of the bath, leaning over to grab the bottle of wine and pour himself another glass. The warm dark taste of it made it easier, just slightly, to forget about the world outside of this room. And it made it easier to be so close to Sylvain, the flame of him burning bright orange while he wasn’t dampening his light through his finely crafted veil of detachment and sarcasm. The wine made Felix want to hold the flicker of him in his cupped palms.

Behind him, Felix felt Sylvain move closer. “Me too,” he said, gesturing his own empty goblet toward Felix. Felix nodded, humming in acknowledgement. They were close enough that their feet almost touched in the water.

Felix poured, grip careful on the bottle. Without looking at Sylvain, he said, “Do you ever wish we ran away?”

Even from his periphery, he could tell that he had surprised Sylvain this time. Felix saw his expression change, but couldn’t really tell how. “It’s hard to imagine now,” Sylvain said after a pause. “Before a few months ago? Sometimes I did, yeah.”

Felix handed Sylvain his filled gobet, grabbed his own as he sat back down. They were sat close together on the ledge now, legs almost touching. “I used to imagine it sometimes,” Felix admitted, voice quiet.

Sylvain offered a low chuckle. “Me too. It was easy to think of nicer places to be, camping in the snow.”

“What was it like in your version?” Felix asked. The strength of the wine must have been catching up with him, because he felt slightly fuzzy around the edges, just loose enough to let himself bring his fingers to Sylvain’s fire and believe it wouldn’t burn. It wasn’t unpleasant.

“We were merchants. I would be the salesman, you would be good at keeping the books. I always imagined living in a sleepy seaside town, always sunny. You would complain about the weather.” He paused, laughing quietly again. “We would have time to worry about the weather.”

The image was warm in Felix’s mind as Sylvain spoke. It was strange to think of himself as someone bathed in sunlight. A smile twitched at his lips; he would complain about the weather. “Where did we stay, then, a cottage by the sea?”

“Sure,” Sylvain answered easily. “We rent the attic from a grandmother who likes my smile.”

“All grandmothers like your smile,” Felix said. He sipped his wine and shut his mind up enough that Sylvain’s little story could take root, sprout just a little. Just for one night. He would give Sylvain one night, to forget who they were, where they were, what lay ahead.

“I’m great with grandmothers,” Sylvain agreed. “We’d get a good price on the room and she’d never stop trying to put some meat on your bones. Especially once she realized neither of us were any good at cooking.”

Felix imagined it, the fantasy of a little warm cottage with someone to take care of them, even tangentially. Someone who didn’t know their real names, only knew them as young men with a business venture. A town of people who knew them only for who they were, not for the history they carried on their shoulders. Sylvain would make a good salesman, always good with people, and Felix would keep their debts paid. And they would sleep in a homey attic with a view of the sea. It was easy to picture, in this fantasy world, both of them piling into one large bed at night. An easy press of skin, casual, unremarkable in a life where they had shed all the reasons it was so complicated. Where they had rewritten their future so completely.

Of course, in a world where they abandoned their titles and their responsibilities, this war would have been very different. But this wasn’t about the realities of what they would have left behind, this was an exercise in escapism, wasn’t it? (One night, he repeated to himself, to soothe the panic that crept up every time he closed his eyes to reality, the need to keep alert and stay prepared for anything. One night of escapism.)

“You really think we wouldn’t drive each other insane?” Felix asked, mind wandering back to the cottage he built in his imagination.

“We would,” Sylvain agreed, a smile on his face. “I think we could cope, though.” Felix hummed, no urge to argue with that. They sat in the water and drank their wine, both slow-moving, like the steam and the smell of herbs and the drink had pressed them into calmness.

“It’s a nice thought,” Felix said quietly, letting his eyes slip closed again.

“What was your version?” Sylvain asked.

Felix tilted his head back, resting on the stone behind him.“Oh, less imaginative. I never even got so far as to give us a destination. I just always imagined us running, ducking into inns far away from big cities.”

Sylvain offered him a quiet laugh. “How romantic.”

If Felix’s muscles weren’t relaxed from the warmth and the wine, maybe he would tense at that, at acknowledging the implication laying under this whole conversation. That saying I dreamed of a world where we ran away together was more than lust, more than familiarity or friendship, more than anything they were on paper.

They never went anywhere near this truth; it lay wrapped up in thorny vines at the center of it all, of the brush of their hands and their lingering eyes on each other. But in this moment he felt warm inside and out, and maybe for once he could let himself pretend that they were people who said things they meant, who said things out loud at all.

Felix didn’t say anything in response. What he did was simply open his eyes, pick himself up off of the stone and shift until he was facing Sylvain, moving closer to him until their thighs pressed together.

Sylvain’s face was close to his then, and he looked up and down Felix’s face, from his eyes down to his lips and back. Something about his half-lidded gaze made Felix go hot.

“For the record,” Sylvain said, voice quiet between them. “You did all the wooing.”

“I would never woo you,” Felix muttered in response. Even the alcohol wouldn’t make him back down from Sylvain trying to get a rise from him.

“You already did. I’m wooed,” Sylvain said, not able to stop his mouth from moving up in half a smile.

Felix rolled his eyes. “Shut up,” he said again, voice entirely too soft to convey any actual annoyance. And then he leaned forward, let himself take what was offered, and kissed Sylvain.

Once their lips met, pressing into a kiss that only felt a little desperate, Sylvain’s hand came out to rest on Felix’s hip, fingers splayed across his skin. Felix didn’t need any other encouragement to pull himself into Sylvain’s lap, and the press of their skin together under the water was warm and perfect in a way he forgot things could feel. Felix felt the moment that both of them lost control over themselves, their hands gripping hard at each others’ bare skin, their kissing picking up pace. There was the desperation that Felix was sure lingered in both of them, the anxious rush to be back in each others’ hands. It had been years.

They kissed clumsily, then with intensity, then against each other’s smiles, and all of it felt right. This whole night felt like a joke, or maybe a secret, or a wish. They pressed together, Sylvain going hard against Felix’s stomach, and saints, there was nothing in him anymore besides want. The hungry pulse of desire drummed in his veins as he moved his hands up and down Sylvain’s sides, gripping into the flesh of his hip, his thigh, back up to his chest. It was all a blur of hands and mouths by the time Sylvain’s hand wrapped gently around Felix’s length, but it made Felix gasp slightly all the same. Sylvain paused like he was waiting for Felix’s approval before doing more, but Felix’s legs were already spreading further, hips pushed forward into Sylvain’s grip before he even realized.

Being under the water meant there was both too much and not enough friction, but even the steady grip of Sylvain’s barely moving hand was enough to make his breath shaky. His thumb pressed just under the head of Felix’s dick and a breathy noise fell out of Felix’s mouth. He was flustered at how good Sylvain was at this, at knowing where to touch him, how to make him gasp. It was a delirious part of his brain that realized this was what Sylvain had to show for any lack of effort in his fighting. And how annoying, because normally Felix would have called this useless, but here and now — Felix leaned forward, ducking into Sylvain’s neck at the feeling of his hand. Felix’s fingertips gripped against Sylvain’s back and when his mouth fell open with a silent cry, his teeth pressed into his shoulder.

“Feel good?” Sylvain asked, sounding more genuine than teasing. Felix nodded, breath coming back to him as Sylvain’s hand stilled. “Can I put my mouth on you?”

That sent a jolt through him. Felix pulled back, looking at Sylvain and feeling overwhelmed already. “Are you that eager to please?” He asked weakly.

“You assume it’s all about you?” Sylvain asked, looking a little flushed at his own words. And that, the idea that Sylvain wanted to give him head for his own enjoyment, was too much to even wrap his mind around.

Felix didn’t acknowledge that. He just said, “How…where should we…” and trailed off, looking around.

“Here,” Sylvain replied. He put his hands under Felix’s thighs on either side of him, then lifted him up, turning them until he could place Felix up on the stone edge of the bath.

Felix blinked down at Sylvain — something about his arms around him, the strength it took to lift him, had made something in him sputter and spark like a broken mechanical part. Below him, Sylvain was knelt on the ledge between Felix’s knees, looking up at him with desire. His hands moved to the tops of Felix’s thighs, and something about the touch was grounding, despite everything.

“You good?” Sylvain asked him, voice gentle. And yes, certainly, of all the things Felix was right now, he was sure good was one of them. He nodded, feeling a little dazed. Sylvain paused. “We don’t have to do this, you know.” And that made Felix pause. Sylvain had misread his tone, mistaken his stupor of attraction for uncertainty

“Do you really think you can strong-arm me into anything?” Felix asked, glad his smart mouth was still able to put together a sentence in the wake of his pounding heartbeat, the rush of blood loud in his ears, the way he wanted Sylvain to lean forward and touch him again.

Sylvain’s lips twitched upward, replacing his gentle concern, and Felix was glad he got the message. Sylvain couldn’t push him into this, and he would rather stay in the realm of teasing. “If anyone could, wouldn’t it be me?”

Felix could feel himself blush. “Don’t push your luck.”

Sylvain raised his eyebrows. “Oh, my luck. Should I beg, then, for the privilege of sucking your cock?” This was Sylvain in his element, Felix could tell, and it was equal parts annoying and attractive.

Felix leaned forward and reached a hand down to Sylvain’s hair, letting a wild impulse take over as he tugged Sylvain’s head gently back, so his face was angled up at Felix at a sharper angle. “Would you like to?”

He could tell from the way Sylvain’s mouth went a little slack, his eyes dark, that maybe he’d hit on something real there. “Maybe,” Sylvain offered. Felix wanted to sink his teeth into him.

He swallowed, words coming without thinking, “You want to suck me off, you want to beg. You really are a rake, aren’t you.” It was a familiar rhythm that he was leaning into; Felix jabbed at Sylvain, Sylvain offered him a teasing smile in return. There was a glimpse of a smirk on Sylvain’s lips now as he licked them.

“Sure I am,” he said, voice low. He sat there, pliant under Felix’s hand in his hair, and the weight of that hit Felix hard. There was something so vulnerable about all of this, so exposed, and it amplified every word.

Felix let go of him abruptly, ignoring the tremble in his grip, and Sylvain almost fell forward, but he re-balanced himself. “Go on, then,” he said, “You look desperate.” It could have come off harsh, but it didn’t, blunted around the edges by simple honesty. Sylvain did look desperate, and Felix was sure he did too, because he was.

Sylvain didn’t waste time on a reply. He moved forward like he’d finally been let off a leash, hands sliding up the tops of Felix’s thighs and thumbs resting on the divots of his hips, until his mouth was hovering above Felix’s dick.

Felix couldn’t lie and say that he’d never imagined this before, but his most indulgent fantasies paled in comparison to the picture in front of him. Sylvain was looking up at him with intensity, his grip tight on Felix’s hips. When he sunk down, mouth opening around Felix hot and wet, Felix could barely remember a single thought he’d ever had. He let out a shaky exhale as Sylvain licked around the head of his dick, slow and steady.

Every nerve in Felix’s body felt hot, lit up, when Sylvain pressed himself down further and took him deeper. He looked good like this — of course he did. He couldn’t help the curiosity in the back of his mind that wondered how often Sylvain had done this; Sylvain started tarnishing his reputation in earnest when Felix was barely thirteen, and he never cared to think about the particulars of that much, for a multitude of reasons. There was even more reason to ignore them once he learned about Sylvain’s dalliances with boys, even more things to avoid thinking about.

He learned about sex the same way all young nobles with tutors from the Church of Seiros did, from adolescent whispers and pilfered books passed between hiding places, from jokes in poor taste. Sylvain had the benefit of all that childhood curiosity paired with experience — he learned about sex from people with less reason to hush their voices, less reputation at stake, from shopkeepers’ daughters and farmers’ sons. Who taught him this? Who taught him he liked it? Felix could tell he liked it. Surely it was someone who didn’t deserve this, the view of Sylvain on his knees almost like someone in prayer, eyes betraying his intensity, mouth wet and dark, hungry. Surely none of them had deserved him. A thought flashed in his mind — Do I?

His introspection was cut short when Sylvain started moving quicker, less exploratory and more purposeful. The heat of his mouth was tight, the wet slide easy, and Felix let out a shuddering gasp at the feeling. Sylvain sank down until he’d taken Felix almost to the hilt, and when he looked up through his eyelashes, Felix could feel his gaze punch right through him. He wished he had something to say, something quick-witted or even alluring, but he had nothing, just the shake of his breath and his hands and his legs, just the whole-body feeling of wanting him.

Sylvain swallowed around him, and Felix felt his muscles seize all at once, a stuttering groan slipping out of his mouth. One of Sylvain’s hands squeezed his hip again, but his other hand moved down, touch light at the inside of his thigh, then wrapped gently around his sac. A new wave of sensation, overwhelming even before it was coupled with the feeling and the sight of Sylvain coming back up to lap around the head of Felix’s dick, finding his most sensitive places and pleased with himself for it, Felix could tell.

He gasped at another move of Sylvain’s tongue, hands trying to grip against the stone underneath him. He let out another broken sound, and as he did, Sylvain pulled off of him, the sensation stopping abruptly. Felix blinked his eyes blearily, breath heavy as he looked down at Sylvain’s swollen lips, the spit on his chin.

On impulse, Felix reached out to touch Sylvain’s face, cradle his jaw. His thumb stroked across Sylvain’s cheek, skin soft, and the intimacy of it made Felix go hot, embarrassed at himself. Sylvain just leaned into his touch, though, eyes closing for a moment.

“Felix,” Sylvain said, eyes still closed. Felix’s thumb passed over Sylvain’s cheekbone, and he murmured, “Hm?”

Sylvain opened his eyes, looked up at Felix and looked so himself, no sign of any of his frequently-worn masks. “Would you fuck me?” He asked, his voice rough and low.

Felix blinked rapidly, feeling vaguely like his brain was about to tip out of his skull. He wasn’t expecting that. Once again he felt like he lacked Sylvain’s imagination, because the thought simply never would have occurred to him. “I — haven’t,” Felix managed, feeling slightly like he was taking an exam he wasn’t prepared for. “Before,” he finished weakly.

“I have,” Sylvain said, stating the truly obvious. He let his head fall to rest on Felix’s thigh, turning and pressing a light kiss to his skin. “And you’re a good learner,” he said, a smile pulling at his lips.

Felix nodded, hand pushing back through Sylvain’s hair. He didn’t need any convincing; he imagined Sylvain on his back, legs spread, the faded memory of the way his face looked when he came. His dick throbbed, and Sylvain noticed, his smile tilting into a smirk.

“Do me a favor, then,” Sylvain said, picking his head back up and pulling himself upright. “Get a couple towels.” His skin dripped with water as he picked himself up out of the bath, and Felix couldn’t help himself from scanning his gaze across Sylvain’s skin, eyes sticking for a moment on his dick, flushed and hard.

Then Sylvain was leaning into his space, reaching down to put a hand under Felix’s chin and tip his head up. “Stop staring, darling,” Sylvain said, voice softer than it needed to be.

“Towels,” Felix said finally in acknowledgement, looking up at Sylvain and shaking the urge to touch him, to lean forward and take Sylvain into his mouth in return. He pulled himself back from the ledge of the bath, moving to stand.

They shuffled through the task of gathering items, Felix spreading a towel on the stone floor, Sylvain rustling through a basket of soaps until he found a bottle of oil. But only a few moments passed before they were sitting on the floor, Sylvain straddled over Felix’s lap, hands coming up to tangle in his hair. When they kissed, Felix was reminded that it had been far too long since they had. Sylvain tasted like salt and skin, like him, and his hips were moving slightly, rubbing his hard cock against Felix’s stomach just barely, like maybe he wasn’t even aware he was doing it.

Sylvain moved to kiss across Felix’s jaw, to the lobe of his ear, breath loud as he pressed kisses to the thin skin there. “Did you imagine this?” Sylvain asked, the gasp in his breathing so loud in Felix’s ear. “When you thought about us running away together? In all those inns every night?”

“Yes,” Felix answered easily, reaching a hand out to rest on the small of Sylvain’s back. Yes, he imagined them falling into bed together, every time. Not always for sex, but always with hands on each other, mouths falling together messily.

“Good,” Sylvain said, pulling his face back to look at Felix, looking up and down his face. “I’m glad it wasn’t just me.”

Felix briefly imagined Sylvain’s version — the two of them lying in the dark, skin pressed together in a bed that belonged to them both, voices hushed in the quiet of a peaceful life. It seemed like a nice thing to dream about.

“Do you want to get me ready?” Sylvain asked him then, voice shaking Felix out of his thoughts. “Or do you want to watch me do it?”

“Watch you,” Felix replied, giving no pretense of thinking it over. His own confidence in the situation aside (he had only a vague idea of what getting Sylvain ready involved), the idea of watching Sylvain touch himself made him go hot.

Sylvain nodded, leaning forward to press a few more kisses against Felix’s lips before he pulled himself backward out of Felix’s lap. He laid on his back without much more fanfare, grabbing an extra towel and wedging it under his hips like a pillow. And then there he was, laid out, all warm damp muscle and soft skin. He poured oil from the small glass vial onto his hand, and when he wrapped it around his own dick, he looked up at Felix, lips parting slightly.

This was nothing like that night at camp, the two of them pressed together in Sylvain’s cot. That night, they touched each other with the urgency of two men convinced they were running out of time. But here they were, lifelines inexplicably extended through twists of fate that Felix couldn’t keep up with. There was still the threat of losing this war looming overhead — or, even more frightening, dying in the name of winning it. But they had a plan, an army, a leader seemingly hand-picked by the cosmos. They had a promised king again, for whatever that was worth to the nation Felix and Sylvain had been dashed against for five years. They had warm beds, hot baths, and the barest amount of hope.

Three years ago, they fell together like hungry dogs left out in the cold. Tonight there was a comfort between them that had nothing to do with the warm steam in the air or the wine in their cups. There was something else there, an intimacy he couldn’t place, an ease. Sylvain laid in front of him, bare-skinned and heavy-eyed, and Felix could almost see a view of the seaside.

So Felix moved forward, until he could rest a hand on Sylvain’s calf, and for the first time let himself say, “You’re beautiful.” It felt terribly honest, but wasn’t he pretending he was good at that? In front of him, Sylvain stroked himself slowly, eyes locked on his as he widened his legs, made room for Felix between them. And then his hand trailed down, lower between his legs, until he could slip two oiled fingers into himself with a practiced ease. Fuck, Felix thought deliriously.

“How often do you do this?” Felix asked, unable to stop himself. HIs hand slid up Sylvain’s calf, up across his leg until he found himself gripping lightly into the meat of his inner thigh.

“By myself?” Sylvain managed, voice light. “Just whenever I get desperate. And these are —” his voice cracked slightly on the words, his hips pushing down onto his fingers. “Desperate times, I’m told.”

“With someone else?” Felix asked, unsure of the answer he’d get or how he’d feel about it. He didn’t keep up with Sylvain’s activities, and they were discussed much less widely now that they had bigger things to worry about around Garreg Mach. Felix had no claim on him, and Sylvain, famously, was good at doing whatever he pleased.

But Sylvain just looked up at him, eyebrows furrowing for a moment. “Felya,” he said, and the effect that had was immediate, Felix going hot all over in an instant, body on fire with it. “The last person who touched me was you.”

Felix stared down at him, trying to process that, trying to process the way he breathed Felya, trying to process the way Felix could feel Sylvain’s thighs shake slightly as he kept pressing into himself through all of this.

“You’re so —” Felix started, feeling hot in the face, not even sure how he wanted to finish the sentence. Much.

“Beautiful, you said that,” Sylvain finished for him, letting out a breathy little laugh like he was so amused with himself.

Felix reached over him, grabbed the bottle of oil and turned it over, pouring it onto his fingers. When he reached down to wrap his hand loosely around Sylvain’s cock, a stilted noise fell from his lips, like he was surprised. Felix kept his touch light, just barely wrapped around him, the tip of his thumb running lightly against the vein on the underside of his dick, but Sylvain reacted like he had done more, hips bucking upward into his touch.

Felix felt transfixed, watching Sylvain gasp and shiver at his touch, at his own touch. His hair had fallen around his face, flushed and sweaty, in a dark orange halo. His eyebrows kept furrowing, his mouth open wordlessly, the muscles in his arm tensed as he moved his fingers. But his silent observation, his fixed gaze, was broken when Sylvain looked up at him with half-lidded eyes and said, voice gravelly, “I — want you.” He licked his lips, looked up and down Felix’s frame. “So badly. You know that, right?”

“You keep saying things,” Felix said back, feeling dazed. In response, Sylvain let out a hysterical little breathy laugh.

“If you want me to shut up, then fuck me,” Sylvain replied. He pulled his fingers out of himself slowly, shuddering at the feeling, and then he was just lying there, legs spread open in front of Felix. “Or should I beg after all?”

He would, Felix knew. It wasn’t an empty threat. Felix could guess how it would play out — Sylvain’s voice would go simpering, mocking, wanton; he would try to make Felix blush, get an embarrassed rise out of him. Felix didn’t have Sylvain’s experience with these kind of things, but he knew how to be exacting, and what Sylvain looked like when he wanted mercy. He could get him there if he wanted, if he tried hard enough. “Stop offering. You would know if I wanted you to beg,” Felix muttered.

Some of the cocksure teasing edge dropped from Sylvain’s expression then. Good. Felix reached for the bottle of oil again, tipping it onto his fingers so he could bring his hand to his dick. Sylvain had oiled his fingers, so he should do this, right? He glanced up at Sylvain for a moment, looking for confirmation, and Sylvain nodded at him, propped up on his elbows.

Felix stroked himself briefly, until he was hard again and slick, and then he moved closer to Sylvain, to where he needed to be. Sylvain’s legs fell further apart, tucked against Felix’s sides, and it felt so surreal, to slot together like that. Before he did anything else, Felix lowered himself down to put his weight on his forearms, bracketed on either side of Sylvain’s face, so they were close together again. Sylvain leaned up and kissed him, like it was an instinct. Felix could hear his pulse loud in his ears. “Will it hurt?” He asked, curiosity winning out in his mind.

Sylvain shook his head. “It shouldn’t, ever, but. Depends how well prepared you are. This won’t, for me.”

Felix nodded minutely. That was good to know. “Why,” Sylvain asked, a hushed little breath of a laugh falling from his lips, “You don’t want to hurt me?”

Felix paused, rolling his eyes. “I just wanted to know if I was going to hurt you. You’re obviously fine with it.”

“So you don’t mind hurting me, then,” Sylvain said, voice lilting with the cadence of a joke again.

“Sometimes I want very badly to hurt you,” Felix groused, but he pressed himself forward, closer to Sylvain. One of Sylvain’s hands came down, wrapped lightly around him to line them up better, and then he could feel himself at Sylvain’s entrance, could hear the hitch in Sylvain’s breath below him. And it was just like them, wasn’t it, to bicker at a time like this.

Felix pressed into Sylvain, slow, because the feeling was overwhelming immediately. He couldn’t stop himself from gasping, bowing his head toward Sylvain’s shoulder as he pushed forward, Sylvain making a small keening sound when he bottomed out. Felix stayed there, exhaling shakily, breath hot on Sylvain’s skin. “How does it feel?” He asked quietly.

“Full,” Sylvain said, voice soft. One of his hands slid down Felix’s side, grabbing at his hip. “Good.”

Felix pulled his hips back slowly, then pushed in again, a little quicker, experimental. Sylvain let out another little noise when he pushed back in, high-pitched and cut-off, like it was unconscious. Felix, for his part, was still panting against Sylvain’s skin. He was burning from it, the tight, hot feeling of him; if he ever felt immolated with desire before this, he was wrong. This was the white-hot spark at the center of a fire, pulsing through him.

Slowly, gently, Felix began to understand how to move. He had to go slow or he would lose control over himself, he was sure of it, but Sylvain didn’t complain. There were the soft sounds of breathing between them, the smell of lavender and sex, and Felix could feel sweat gather on his brow in the steam of the room, but he could barely perceive any of it. His senses were focused on Sylvain, the way his eyes were pressed closed, mouth hung slightly open. Every few slow pulses of Felix’s hips, he let out a small satisfied groan, and Felix couldn’t stop listening to it, what made it get louder or quicker.

Like this, with Sylvain half-unstitched in his hands, he saw him at his most vulnerable. He was something pried open, the thread of him unraveling, and he was trusting Felix to hold the mess of him until he came back together. And Felix was doing the same in return. He felt the weight of that in the tensed muscles of his arms, on his heavy breaths as he bit a kiss into Sylvain’s jaw, listening for the sound he made.

Sylvain’s hands moved on him as Felix rocked his hips, down his sides, across his chest. One hand came up to run sweetly up the side of his throat, trace a finger up the shell of his ear. When his other traced down Felix’s side until it palmed down Felix’s ass, gripping his flesh like he was trying to pull him in closer, Felix followed the direction, thrusting sharply. Sylvain let a louder noise slip, a low moan, and it rang through Felix like a church bell.

Something in him shifted, ears still ringing, and he had that familiar urge to grip Sylvain tight enough to bruise, to bite a perfect ring of teeth marks into his skin, to leave proof of how unhinged it felt to want him this much. He thrust the same way again, and Sylvain gave a shuddering sound, his legs tightening on Felix’s sides.

“Is that good?” Felix asked in a low voice, teeth bared against Sylvain’s skin as he spoke.

Sylvain nodded, the action slight, letting out another shaky sound close to Felix’s ear. He still had a hand gripped on Felix’s ass, the other wrapped around his back to clutch at his shoulder, knotting them up tight together.

“See,” Felix muttered, pressing a messy kiss to the side of Sylvain’s throat, “Now is when you beg.”

Sylvain gave a breathy huff of something like a laugh. “You’re right,” he managed. “Please, saints, keep — ” his voice cut out around a surprised moan, Felix pushing into him again sharply.

“Please,” Sylvain whispered again, and Felix pressed his teeth against his earlobe, thrusting into him again. “Please.” Sylvain’s voice was straining, Felix could hear it; he moved his hips steadily, falling into a hard rhythm, and felt his stomach tense with his own pleasure. It was getting harder to have the coordination to kiss Sylvain, so Felix just let himself breathe against his skin. “Please,” Sylvain said in a shaking voice, falling apart so prettily, and Felix shifted his weight until he could bring a hand between their bodies, reaching for Sylvain’s cock.

When his touch connected, Sylvain let out a new shudder, muscles tensed against Felix, hands gripped into him tight. “Felix,” Sylvain muttered shakily, stuttering through it, “Please, Fe —” Felix wrapped his hand tighter around Sylvain, twisting his grip as he stroked him hard and fast, and Sylvain let out a low, resonant groan. “Please,” he whimpered.

And Felix burned, heat pulsing in his stomach and his muscles, all coiled up tight, until he couldn’t stop himself from letting go, his orgasm hitting him the way a magical flame did, burning him at the edges and knocking the wind out of his chest. He heard himself let out a cry, barely aware of it as he focused on the roaring of a fire in his mind. He managed to keep the motion of his hand up, only stuttering a bit, and Sylvain pulled him in harder with the hand on his ass, touch saying don’t leave.

Felix pulsed through his orgasm, feeling himself shudder as he spilled into Sylvain, and then his hips slowed, too sensitive to thrust forward. He was too sensitive to stay inside Sylvain at all, really — he twitched as Sylvain tightened around him, sensation almost painful, but Sylvain’s hand kept him rooted in place, and he let it. Underneath the blunt threat of pain was something good, like pressing on a bruise, and he let himself shake and gasp, eyes watering at the feeling, as Sylvain tipped over the edge hot and tight around him.

In return, Felix kept his hand moving on Sylvain as his hips kicked, a shaky soft moan floating out of him as he came. He pressed his thumb roughly on the underside of the head of his cock, abusing the sensitivity of the spot, and Sylvain let out another stuttering noise, voice louder. “Oh, oh — stop,” Sylvain breathed weakly, voice shaking. Felix, still panting, let his touch go still. Sylvain’s grip went loose on him, and Felix pulled out, whimpering softly as an overstimulated ache pulsed through him.

He fell on his side, rolling onto his back next to Sylvain, both of them breathing hard. After a moment, he felt Sylvain move beside him, and then he was rolling onto his side to wrap an arm around Felix’s middle, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. Felix let out a long exhale, feeling wrung out. “Look at you,” Sylvain commented, sounding sleepy. “All red.” He let his hand trail up and down Felix’s chest, lingering close to one of his nipples, but Felix came up and grabbed his wrist, a gentle hold that stopped him.

“Too sensitive,” Felix muttered. Sylvain patted his chest gently, moved his hand to rest at Felix’s side again.

“Was it too much?” Sylvain asked, his tone dropping into something gentle.

“No,” Felix said, shaking his head. “No, it was good.” That was an understatement. Felix felt like lightning had gone through him, was still coursing around in his veins. His eyes were wet, his face sweaty, and he was sure Sylvain was right and that his chest was splotchy with color.

Sylvain kissed his shoulder again, squeezing his hip gently with his other hand. “I told you, you’re a fast learner.”

They laid on the stone until they both got their breath back, quiet and spent. “Come on,” Sylvain said eventually. “Let’s clean up.” And if the thought of warm water cleaning the sweat and sex off of his skin hadn’t been so appealing, he wasn’t sure he’d have the strength to pull himself up.

The bath was still just as hot, magic keeping it that way, and it felt good now that Felix’s skin had gone a little clammy. Felix moved out into the center of the bath, pulling his hair out of the disheveled bun it was still tied up in, before he dipped himself back and submerged himself under the hot water. It was bracing, made him feel cleaner already when he pulled himself back up and rubbed the water from his eyes. Sylvain was near the edge, lathering a small round of soap in his hands and spreading it across his chest. Sylvain looked over, caught his gaze, and gestured him over. “C’mere,” he said.

Felix waded over, and when he was within reach, Sylvain lathered his hands back up and rubbed the soap across Felix’s torso, grabbed each of his arms and spread it there too. There was a focused calm on his face, no ulterior motive, just a gentle hand cleaning him off.

He lathered his hands up again then reached up to run them across Felix’s hair, fingertips scratching softly at his scalp. “It’s gotten long again,” Sylvain said softly. Felix hummed in reply, eyes slipping closed at the soothing touch. Sylvain ran his fingers through his hair, his touch so gentle, and Felix felt briefly surrounded by warmth, by a sort of softness he wasn’t accustomed to. They stayed like that for longer than they needed to, Felix knew, but it felt so nice, the rhythm of Sylvain stroking through his hair, lathering soap into it. He had never felt so acutely cared for, and there was a warmth to it that he couldn’t think about too hard.

Eventually Sylvain let him go, but as he pulled his hands from Felix’s hair, he leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to his forehead. Felix blinked his eyes open, thankful that the hot water would mask the blush already warming his cheeks, and found Sylvain looking back at him unflinchingly. Felix looked away first, pulling himself back slightly to lean back and rinse his hair again. He could feel the hot flush on his skin, his heart too tender over the look in Sylvain’s eyes, and he didn’t have a solution for that.

They finished washing up, and when their skin began to wrinkle from the water, they climbed out and padded over to the sauna, toweling off as they walked. It wasn’t heated enough to be considered a sauna at the moment, but the air was warm, comforting, like sitting in front of a fire. Without speaking much, they settled on the wooden benches, Sylvain reclining with his arms spread on the top of the bench behind him, Felix lying with his head resting on Sylvain’s thigh. It was an intimacy he wanted, and there was something about the air between them that let him take it with an ease he wasn’t used to. Sylvain didn’t react much, just brought a hand to run lightly through Felix’s damp hair as they sat in quiet.

They dried in the warm air, warm bodies pressed together still, and Felix felt himself breathing calm and deep, hit by a wave of fatigue. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, if he had been dozing or awake, when Sylvain moved above him. “It’s getting late,” Sylvain was saying in a soft voice, hand carding through Felix’s hair again, dryer now. “We should go.” Felix hummed, not feeling motivated to move, and Sylvain’s hand moved down to his face, stroking his cheek lightly. “Come on, Felya.”

“You keep calling me that,” Felix muttered, eyes still closed.

“I always liked it,” Sylvain said. “I think it suits you.”

Felix pried his eyes open, looking up at Sylvain blearily. “It sounds nice when you say it,” he admitted quietly.

Sylvain’s fingers scratched at his scalp again, just above his ear. “You must be tired, to pay me such a compliment.” There was a teasing grin on his face, and Felix gave a soft laugh in return. “I am,” he agreed before pulling himself up with a small groan. “Let’s get dressed, then, I suppose.”

They moved with a sort of hushed comfort, quietly putting their clothes back on, tidying the mess they left next to the bath, Sylvain packing his bag back up. When they stepped out of the warm air of the sauna into the cooler night, their fingers brushed between them as they walked down the stone steps. They trailed past the first-floor dormitories of Dedue and Ashe, then Dorothea and Annette, then Mercedes, all dark and quiet, and Felix and Sylvain stayed that way too.

Felix felt light on his feet and tired the way he got after practicing with a sword, an accomplished muscle ache as they climbed the stairs and walked down the long hallway leading to their rooms. They reached his door first, and they paused, looking at each other for a moment. “Thank you,” Felix muttered after a moment.

Sylvain gave him a wistful sort of smile, small like maybe he wasn’t aware he was doing it. “Thank you,” he said in return.

There was another moment of quiet, then, before Felix followed his instincts and asked in a hushed voice, “Would you stay?”

He saw Sylvain’s eyebrows raise minutely in surprise, and felt himself blush. “Yeah,” Sylvain answered before Felix could regret saying it. “Of course.” He looked at Felix with something soft in his eyes, and Felix wanted very badly to kiss him again. This time, though, he remembered himself, and all he did was turn and open his door for the both of them, breaking away from the kindness in Sylvain’s expression.

Felix sat on the edge of his bed, fingers combing through the ends of his hair as Sylvain changed into a set of Felix’s sleep clothes that fit him well enough. “It looks nice when you let it dry without putting it back up,” Sylvain commented.

Felix let out a short sigh, no deep feeling behind it. “I look too much like my father and my brother with my hair down.” The ends of his hair curled into small waves, and it always felt more like looking at a family portrait than looking at himself in the mirror.

Sylvain hummed. He finished folding the pants he had been wearing, setting them into the chair in the corner of Felix’s room that he had tossed his own clothes into, strewn there less neatly than Sylvain’s were. He came and sat down next to Felix, reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear. “Can I braid it?”

Felix turned to him, narrowing his eyes slightly. “You know how to braid hair?”

Sylvain blinked blankly, like he wasn’t expecting to be asked. “Ingrid taught me. I…well, I only have practice on horses,” he admitted, and after a pause, Felix laughed at him. The sheepish smile on Sylvain’s face made him look younger, and there was an aching fondness for him warm in Felix’s chest.

“Fine,” he said through his laugh. “Make me look better than your horse, though, at least.”

“I have a lovely horse, thank you very much,” Sylvain defended himself, but he was still smiling.

Felix sat in front of him while Sylvain plaited his hair, hands moving slowly and gently. It was the first time anyone styled his hair for him since he was a child, when Glenn or his mother would brush it back from his face, pull the front pieces back with a simple tie to get it out of his way. Homesickness didn’t come to him often, especially now that when his thoughts drifted home he thought of his mother, alone, but it hit him in this moment. Or maybe it wasn’t homesickness, maybe it was grief; the two were hard for him to tell apart. When Sylvain extended his hand out in front of Felix, Felix handed him a hair tie, and Sylvain made a satisfied noise as he tied it. “There,” he said, tugging the end of the braid lightly.

“If you’re satisfied, can we go to sleep?” Felix asked, complaining to distract himself from the strange ache he felt at being taken care of. “I’m exhausted.”

“Did I wear you out?” Sylvain asked lasciviously. Felix turned to glare at him, expression blank. Sylvain held his hands up in immediate surrender.

Felix rolled his eyes, stood to put out the oil lamp on the desk. “You did, actually,” he said quietly, his back turned to Sylvain. “You were right. I needed that.”

The room went dark, and Felix stepped carefully back to his bed. Sylvain was moving under the covers, holding them open for him. “I think I did too,” Sylvain said in response, voice low.

With the lights out, he let himself push past any embarrassment he felt at the action, and moved to lie his head on Sylvain’s chest. Sylvain went still for a moment, then relaxed, bringing a hand up to rest on Felix’s shoulderblade. Felix let out a small sigh, listening to Sylvain’s heartbeat. They hadn’t shared a bed in months, since the week after his father’s funeral, and there was no guise of grief here to cover up the fact that he simply wanted someone to hold. But Sylvain had stayed anyway.

He wondered, lying there as his fatigue caught up to him and made his eyes heavy with sleep, if the both of them would be able to pretend that tonight didn’t mean as much as it did. That they hadn’t shared something too intimate, too trusting, to move past. But saints, what else could they do? In three weeks they’d be invading Fort Merceus, and if it went like any of their other ambitious battle plans, they’d be lucky to all survive. What was Felix supposed to do, believe that he and Sylvain could have anything more complex than companionship? He was doing well enough to have the companionship at all. It didn’t matter that he loved Sylvain — of course he loved Sylvain. Hadn’t he always? What was he supposed to do about that, besides keep him close and pray they survived?

It was a maudlin thought, of course. The night’s events had made him sensitive. He let out another breath against Sylvain’s chest, gripped a hand tight in the fabric of his sleep shirt just to ground himself back to the here and now, his bed with Sylvain in it, his clothes with Sylvain in them, the ever-familiar smell of his skin. He thought, unwillingly, about Ingrid’s voice saying We’re all like this, you know. The four of them were so willing to deny themselves gaining a new thing to lose, weren’t they. He fell asleep to the rhythm of Sylvain’s pulse beneath him, setting the tempo for all the same familiar regrets to spin around his head.

“Felix.” Knock, knock. “Felix, are you still sleeping?” Knock, knock, knock.

There was something heavy pinning him down, Felix realized as he began to enter consciousness. Something warm and heavy, and — “Please wake up so I don’t have to walk in on you half-dressed.” A knock at his door. Ingrid’s voice. What?

Felix blinked his eyes open, craning his neck to the side, and realized that it was Sylvain pinning him down, an arm and leg sprawled over him in the small bed. And Ingrid was at the door.

“What?” Felix managed, hoping his scratchy morning voice carried to the door. Beside him, Sylvain was stirring.

“The professor needs those letters you took from Dimitri. You have them, right?” Saints. Of course this would be the day mail was accounted for bright and early.

“Yeah. One second,” he said. Sylvain pulled his arm and leg back, blinking an eye open to look at Felix questioningly. His hair was mussed from sleep, face soft.

“Just…stay here for a minute, would you?” Felix said to him under his breath, shifting to get out of bed. He shuffled over to his desk, grabbing the stack of parchment, belatedly annoyed at the fact that he’d need to rely on Dimitri’s account of them later instead of reading them himself.

Felix cracked the door open, just enough to see Ingrid and reach his arm out. “Here,” he said, handing her the papers.

She looked him over, eyebrows furrowing. “You missed breakfast, you know. I was going to —” she stopped suddenly, looking above his eyes. “Your hair’s different.”

“I…yes,” Felix landed on.

“Okay,” Ingrid replied slowly. “Well, don’t stay holed up all afternoon. You want to spar later?”

Despite every challenge in their relationship in the last ten years, Felix was glad that they still spoke each other’s language. “Maybe,” he said, and Ingrid’s head tilted, eyes narrowing slightly. “You’re being weird, you know,” she told him. “Are you okay?”

“He’s just a bad liar,” Sylvain’s voice said from behind him, and Felix froze. “Even by omission.”

In front of him, Ingrid’s eyes were going wide, her cheeks pink. “Oh,” she said.

“I —” Felix started, shaking his head. “It’s not —” but he couldn’t finish the sentence, too embarrassed.

“No, no, don’t worry about it,” Ingrid said. She took a step backward, avoiding his eye.

“Ingrid,” Felix started, but she shook her head at him. “It’s fine! See you later.”

Behind him, Sylvain was laughing. He was so goddamn annoying. Ingrid was turning to walk away, but she stopped for a moment, looking like she was fighting a smile for a moment. “Your hair looks nice,” she said, before she hurried off down the hallway.

“Thank you!” Sylvain called out from behind Felix, and Felix let out a low little growl of frustration as he closed the door.

As they staggered out of Enbarr, the panic of recovering the wounded and accounting for the dead still coursing through every one of them, Felix realized that the war was over.

With a ringing in his ears, the burnt smell of sulfur still hanging from the magic in the air and blood on his armor, it hit him all at once. Dimitri had done it, what Felix was white-knuckle hoping he could do — he won.

There would surely be an air of celebration soon, and maybe then he would feel the relief of the victory. Maybe after they buried the dead (were these the last dead soldiers he would bury?), or made a camp (and could they be certain there wouldn’t be an ambush when night fell?), or when the perennially positive of the group could manage a smile again (where was Annette?). For now they just moved, slow like an army always moves. There was the familiar feeling of a thousand people moving as one, hands on each other’s backs to push each other forward even with shaking legs and broken ribs, lungs taking gasping breaths.

He didn’t know how long they moved and he didn’t know where they were going. He was only aware of the stopping, because it left him feeling dizzy with vertigo. There was a hand on his shoulder and he flinched away, turning around brusquely to see whose it was, but it was only Sylvain. He felt his shoulders pull down slightly from their tensed position, even at the sight of Sylvain with blood still in his hair, half his armor discarded, the evidence of a slash wound clear in the rip across the side of his doublet.

“Hey,” he heard Sylvain say, but it sounded far away. “You okay?”

Felix nodded, unfocused. He remembered Mercedes’ hand on his arm earlier, the warm surreal feeling of a wound on the side of his face healing itself up, but maybe it hadn’t done all the work. Maybe the slam of a shield against him, the cut of a spearpoint, were the reasons he felt so rattled. But his nod was enough to make Sylvain nod back in response even if he looked dubious about it, giving him a serious once-over as he pulled his hand back. Around them, everyone was pressing toward and around Dimitri, who had managed to get in front of them all suddenly. Sylvain followed suit, gesturing at him to do the same.

Felix caught only half of Dimitri’s words. He stood in the center of all of them next to Byleth, who was looking on at him with a faint expression of pride as he delivered another stern-but-hopeful address, the kind he had gotten good at in the last four months. Justice. Rebuild. Unified. He got the gist of it.

“Those of noble birth, I beg of you to work alongside me, so we can continue to work together to ensure —” Felix heard from his spot in the middle of the crowd, staring at the dried blood on a knight’s greaves in front of him. Noble birth. Work together. That was him. That would be him, in this grand new world Dimitri envisioned. There was a sick feeling in his stomach, like the floor had just dropped out from under him. He stayed still until Dimitri was done speaking, the crowd around him cheering loudly, and then he couldn’t stop himself from darting out of the crush of people cheering for victory and for hope of the future.

The future. Fucking hell, was he actually going to live to see it happen?

For five and a half years of war, Felix relied on keeping his sights focused on the next step ahead of him. The next skirmish. The next supply run. The next battle, the next council, the next letter from any ally who could even possibly help them win. He knew this was supposed to be their last stand, knew it when he tersely reminded Dimitri that his next move was to kill her, if he cared so much about the memory of his father and his brother. But as it turned out, he had never considered whether or not he was ready to be on the edge of this cliff, looking down as the road ahead of him abruptly ended.

Felix moved quickly, the way he was trained to do, until he could blend into the anonymity of the footsoldiers furthest away who were already setting up camp, unconcerned with Dimitri’s promises. They gave him a nod of recognition, handing him a bundle of already-cut firewood to move down the line, and he was quietly thrilled to have something to do with his hands.

Around him, even among the infantry, there were people grabbing each other in hugs, some of them laughing, some of them solemn. These people were celebrating being able to go home soon, back to wherever each of them came from, to spouses and children and friends. Felix thought again of Fraldarius Keep, his mother inside of it alone. He thought of the year after Glenn died, when he and his mother haunted the house in silence, mirror images of ragged grief. They’d have to hold a proper funeral for his father when they got back to Fraldarius. His home was a graveyard with a throne waiting for him.

The war was over and his father was still dead. Neither of those things felt real to him. His fingers pressing into the rough wood in his hands kept his mind here with their army instead of the cold gray north, though truthfully he didn’t want much to be here either.

He busied himself, like he was good at doing, as the crowd dispersed. He let himself be directed by a gruff soldier along with the other men whose names Felix had never learned, though they certainly knew his, and he moved bedrolls and tentpoles and cooking pans over to a fire someone else was building.

Somewhere in the shuffle, as Felix tried to think only of the coarse metal pot in his hands, the feeling of his knuckles gripping it and nothing else, he heard Annette call his name.

“Felix!” She called, brightly enough for someone he watched barely dodge certain-death blows only hours earlier. He turned to her, watched the tired smile on her face falter slightly as he did, and wondered just how bad he looked. Still, she surged forward, crashed into him with her small frame, and wrapped a hug around him quick enough that Felix could barely keep up. He almost dropped the cast iron pan he was carrying in his surprise. But before he could react much, she was pulling away again, looking up at him with a sweet grin. “You saved me out there earlier. Thank you.”

“Well,” Felix managed, feeling himself go warm, surprised by the praise. “You were close to breaking through that armored defense line. We needed you.” The memory came back to him easily, fresh as it was, of the shield as tall as he was slamming into him, a spearpoint to his temple that Felix aimed around just enough for it to not kill him, pushed Annette out of the way to take instead of her. He knew how to survive it, she did not. Her face had been concentrated, runes glowing around her in the air as the next armored knight in the line fell from a sparking line of magic. Felix’s blade did little against them, but it kept Annette up.

“Clearly I needed you too, then,” she countered easily, pleasantly, like it was the simplest thing in the world to rely on him. “Mercie healed you earlier, right?” Even Felix could hear the question she had slipped underneath that one, the concern in her voice — Are you okay?

Felix nodded. “I’m just tired,” he said, which wasn’t untrue. No other feeling of post-battle exhaustion could measure up to this.

“Me too,” Annette agreed, giving him another small smile, like she believed him. “You should get some rest soon. Get yourself used to peace.”

Saints, she really was optimistic, wasn’t she? She wasn’t alone, he knew. There were plenty of his former classmates who had spent so long waiting for this to all be over, waiting for their lives to have room for anything besides war. He had seen it on Dorothea, the way the fighting was wearing her down, Mercedes, and even Ashe. They all had a chance at normalcy now, an opportunity to become the people they had envisioned themselves to be before calamity forced them to be soldiers.

Felix didn’t have a vision of himself off of a battlefield. By way of some combination of circumstance and his own nature, he had never stopped to consider a world where he wasn’t fighting. He was certain that he was built for this, for the way his hand gripped a blade and the way he could focus his vision, move light and nimbly, be faster and stronger than whoever he needed to beat. He swallowed, tightening his grip on the iron pot in his hands. “I will,” he said, glancing away to abate his guilt at lying to her.

It was a week’s journey back to Garreg Mach, and Felix managed about three days of relative solitude before someone finally pinned him down.

He knew that Sylvain could tell he was avoiding him; Dimitri was used to it, and Ingrid seemed to be avoiding him right back, or maybe they would have realized too. On some level, Felix knew Ingrid must be feeling some of the same way — this war was her chance to fight the way she had been begging to her entire life. Where would she fall now that the fighting was done? Unlike Felix, she didn’t have the blessing or burden of being born into importance. She had her own decisions to weigh now, but no one was waiting for her to lead.

They kept their distance from each other, him, Dimitri, and Ingrid, and as always Felix watched Sylvain flit between them, always willing to build his own bridge, row his own boat out to each of them when they lived as islands. Still, Felix could shake him well enough, brush him off, sidestep Sylvain’s knowing looks.

Night fell as they finally traveled close enough to see the towers of Garreg Mach in the mountains on the horizon, still a few more days away. A practiced routine fell around them — there were soldiers cooking stew on the fire, the sound of weapons being sharpened (a practice that felt arrogant to let fall to the wayside), horses being tied and fed, tents erected. As in the days before, Felix had worked alongside the others, set up camp, ate an offered bowl of food and holed up in his tent until everything grew quiet.

When the firelight was extinguished, only a handful of soldiers on watch as everyone else slept, Felix crept out of his tent and walked. They were marching through the forest now, along a well-tread dirt path under a canopy of trees, and this was Felix’s favorite kind of place to get lost. The air was humid and warm, even at night, and he had left in his lightest clothes to feel more of it on his skin. This kind of thing always reminded him that he was alive.

He walked until he found a pond, the sound of crickets and frogs loud around the water, and then he sat. He didn’t have quiet around him for long before he heard the crunching of unconcealed footsteps approaching him. Maybe he would have tensed, reached for the dagger on his belt, if he couldn’t recognize Sylvain by sound alone.

“You followed me?” He asked dryly, not turning around to look.

A quiet laugh. “How else am I supposed to get you to talk to me?”

He felt a stab of guilt at that. Felix pulled his legs up to his chest, resting his chin on his knee, not saying anything in response. After a moment, Sylvain sat down next to him.

“So,” Sylvain started. Felix could see him turn in his periphery, facing Felix. “You wanna talk about it?”

“Not particularly,” Felix muttered, grinding the toe of his boot against the grass. “What is there to talk about?”

Sylvain sighed. “Are you coming home, Felix?”

There it was, then. Sylvain reached right for the heart of the thing. Felix stared ahead, out at the still pond. “I thought I’d have longer before I had to do this,” he said quietly.

Sylvain hummed. “I thought you might say something like that.” Felix turned to him, eyebrows furrowed. “Then why ask me?”

“Oh, shut up,” Sylvain complained, waving him off, but his voice was more gentle than it needed to be. He sighed again, but he had a wry sort of expectant look on his face. “What would you do, then, if you didn’t come home?”

Sylvain was chipping away at the box Felix was trying to lock all this up in, picking at the lock carefully, with a gentle hand, until it opened. Felix knew this, but he didn’t stop him. “I don’t know,” he said. “I could make a living on my sword.”

Sylvain nodded. “Is that what you want?”

“What I want?” Felix asked in return, wanting to laugh at the idea. “I don’t know. It’s something I know. It’s something I understand, and I’m good at. It’s all I ever had going for me.”

Sylvain didn’t hide his expression, the way he recoiled at those last words. “Never call me the biggest idiot in Faerghus again, if you’re going to talk like that.”

Felix rubbed his hand across his face, letting his forehead rest on his palm for a moment. “I can’t be a fucking duke, Sylvain.”

“Why not?” Sylvain asked him. “I know you never wanted this, and I know it’s coming sooner than it ever should have. But this is…” he paused, laughing to himself, his patient, gentle air dropping and frustration audible in his voice. “Do you know how many things I’ve watched you throw yourself into head-first without hesitation? How many blades I’ve seen you dodge just right, only inches away from your heart? It’s your father’s station that scares you, after all that?”

“I don’t want to be a part of it!” Felix said, his own hackles rising in return. “What part of that doesn’t anyone understand? Why is it so difficult to grasp that I fucking — I hate it, okay? I hate the way all of it is built, from the ground up. I hate that Ingrid still wants to be meat in the grind of the powerful punishing each other. I hate that my name has value, has a weight in gold, just because I was born to the right family. I have seen too many knights and commoners get chewed up and spat out by nobility trying to prove a point, I have buried too many of them. I am so sick of it, Sylvain.” He took a breath, realizing suddenly that there were tears in his eyes. “Goddamn it,” he muttered, wiping his face. “Why are you always here when I cry?”

“Don’t feel special, I make people cry all the time,” Sylvain commented, the heat gone from his voice. Felix looked away from him.

“If my father was still here, I could leave,” he said quietly. “I’ve given this country enough, haven’t I? I staked my life on winning this war, over and over again. Isn’t that enough? Do I have to keep playing this game?”

“You’d rather sell your sword to the highest bidder instead?” Sylvain asked. He sounded genuine, like he actually wanted to understand Felix’s answer. “Do you not see that as exerting power?”

Felix scowled out at the water; he hated when Sylvain made being right look easy. He didn’t respond for a moment, and before he could, Sylvain sighed again. “Felix, I know it’s a lot of responsibility, and a lot of bullshit. But I want you there. Dimitri needs you there.”

Felix turned to him sharply. “Did he put you up to this?”

Sylvain looked him over with judgment in his expression. “Saints, what do you take me for? Of course he didn’t.” Felix turned back away, sufficiently chided by Sylvain’s tone. “Do you think he even knows how much he needs you there? Of course he fucking doesn’t. I know him, and so do you. His heart is bigger than his brain sometimes, and he’s still weighed down with guilt. Those scars don’t heal in four months. He needs your mind. He needs someone shrewd to tell him no, to set him straight when he goes off-course. He’s set to be the king of all of Fódlan, Felix. He doesn’t have experience with Faerghus court, let alone a giant nation full of poisonous nobles, half of whose territory he just ransacked, heirs he killed.”

“I am not a diplomat,” Felix said, voice firm.

Sylvain shook his head, like Felix wasn’t getting it. “No, but you’re smarter than you want people to give you credit for, and he’ll listen to you. You’ll make him.”

“Do you really think I relish the idea of living my life according to what would benefit Dimitri? My father already died to benefit Dimitri,” Felix said, his jaw set, brows furrowed.

Sylvain’s expression mirrored his own. “We are not our fathers,” he said sternly, voice raising again.

But then he closed his eyes, pausing for a moment to collect himself, and spoke quieter. “We can make something better than our fathers could. We’ve all been battered around enough by the world they upheld to want to change things, and I think we can. And I want you to be there. Okay?” He let out a breath, looked out at the water. “That’s all I wanted to tell you. We would all be better off if you were there.”

Felix couldn’t muster an angry reply to that. Instead, he said quietly, “You told me once that if I wanted to go off and be a rogue mercenary, you’d join me.” He wasn’t sure what he was even getting at, it had just been itching at the back of his mind under everything else.

Sylvain gave a small huff of laughter. “Well I suppose the Goddess truly can perform miracles, because it seems I’ve grown up after all.” He reached his hand out and set it on top of Felix’s in the grass. “We’ve come this far, Felix. Please don’t leave before we can make things a little better than how they started.”

In all the worlds where Felix imagined leaving, giving up his title and running, he never imagined a world where someone would ask him to stay. Where Sylvain would ask him to stay. Felix looked at him, from his hand up his arm to his face, the worry on it.

“I’m not going to leave,” he said finally, admitting what he hadn’t been able to for days, what he’d been pretending to himself was still undecided. Every time he thought about striking out on his own, leaving duty and nobility behind, he thought of his mother alone in that castle. He thought of Dimitri, still weighed down under Glenn’s ghost, the way Felix knew he’d react to losing him too. And he fucking hated that he thought about it, about Dimitri’s sad shoulders and tired eyes, but there was nothing he could do about that.

What he really tried not to think about was Sylvain. Sylvain staying, going back to his father’s home, carrying out his father’s wishes. He’d get married to a girl with an important name and a pretty face, maybe even a crest if Sylvain’s father got lucky, and he’d be tasked with producing an acceptable heir. If Felix stayed, he’d have to bear witness. If he left, he’d never know if Sylvain ever figured out a way to be happy in spite of it all, in the end.

Next to him, Sylvain hummed again. His hand tightened on Felix’s, fingers gripping around his own, and Felix let him. “Is that a promise?”

“You need me to promise you?” Felix asked. They weren’t looking at each other. Sylvain gave another soft laugh. “No, I guess not. You’re not prone to going back on your word.”

“No, I’m not,” Felix agreed. He turned to look at Sylvain’s profile, the slope of his freckled nose, his long eyelashes, the set of his jaw. “Why are you so eager for all this? I didn’t expect it from you.”

Sylvain sighed again. Felix wished he’d stop doing that. “We’ve come this far,” he said again. “We’ve spent so long fighting. After all that, I want my place at the table. I want to at least leave this place better than I found it. I can’t do that as a mercenary. Or living as a merchant,” he said, turning to Felix with a minute smile. Felix looked away from him, pretending that remembering that particular thought didn’t make him blush.

“Someday I won’t be my father’s chess piece. I’ll get to take the reins on my own life. Until then, I’ve always been good at playing my own game under the table.” Felix tried not to read into that, think about exactly what games Sylvain was good at playing. “Besides, I won’t let Dimitri fail now, not after we held back an army ten times our size for five years. I’m not letting him mess this up.”

It was so frustrating sometimes, that Sylvain was so intelligent. He called Felix shrewd, and maybe that was true, but Felix had spent so long watching Sylvain’s mind move quicker, ten steps ahead of his, like it was built for this. He was built for this, whether or not he wanted to admit it; he was a natural politician, charming and quick-witted and with a good mind for both strategy and people. There was some comfort in knowing that even if he had to join Dimitri’s court of nobles, he’d have Sylvain on his side.

Sylvain pulled his hand away, and Felix turned to look at him again. Sylvain was looking right back, and Felix watched his eyes trail down his face (did they pause on his lips?), then back up. Sylvain had a terrible habit of seeing him better than other people could. What did he see now?

“You’re more than your sword, Felix. You always have been. You know that, right?” He asked, his tone serious but his voice soft. And for a moment, what Felix really wanted was to shift over in the grass, until he could lean against Sylvain’s side, let him put an arm around his shoulders. He wanted the steady warmth of him, he wanted a kiss on his temple, the easy way Sylvain touched him.

He didn’t move, though. He had to practice, now that he was standing on the edge of a world where neither of them were likely to be in arm’s reach of the other. He nodded in response to Sylvain. “If you say so.”

“I do say so,” Sylvain replied. He was right about a lot of things. Maybe he was right about this too.

Felix turned away. “You should get some sleep.”

“Look who’s talking. Are you going to stop walking around camp with a storm cloud over your head any time soon?” There was a laugh in his voice, his tone teasing in the gentlest way it could be, and saints, Felix hadn’t finished mourning this yet. The comfortable rhythm they had gotten into these last months. The way he knew it would have to stop soon.

“I’ll think about it,” Felix answered, smiling slightly to himself.

“I’ll count that as a win.” Sylvain pulled himself up off the ground, stretching as he did. “Alright. I’m heading back to camp. Don’t stay out here too much longer, it feels like rain is coming.”

“Just what we need,” Felix complained, tone mild. Sylvain made an agreeing noise. He reached down to brush back a piece of hair on Felix’s forehead, and Felix had the unfortunate experience of looking up at him while he was wearing a fond sort of look. “Goodnight. See you tomorrow.”

Felix could only nod. He listened to Sylvain’s footsteps crunching their way back out of the woods, back to their camp, and when they were inaudible again, Felix let himself fall onto his back and look up at the sky, and wait for the rain to fall.

Maybe, against all odds, something new would grow.

The first meeting of the United Holy Kingdom of Faerghus’ newly allied nobles was, to put it nicely, chaotic.

It had taken eight months of diplomatic exchanges between the former Adrestrian ruling families and Dimitri’s most patient advisors before any agreement to meet could even be made. There were plenty of nobles from the former Leicester and Adrestian territories who were sympathetic to Dimitri, to a new system (especially those with no hope of power in their previous countries), but Felix always knew that some would be hard-pressed to agree with anything Dimitri put forth.

They spent four hours going back and forth, the colorful group of nobles who had retained their power after the dust settled on a war, and very little was accomplished besides a handful of old men throwing their weight around and blustering.

“It’s progress,” Sylvain said, voice tired, as he, Dimitri, Dedue and Felix retold the events to Ingrid. They were sat in a garden, Ingrid still in her armor, come fresh from training new knights.

Dedue’s posture was finally a little more relaxed now, with a cup of tea in his hand. The Duscur-made sash folded over his shoulder, a deep turquoise with gold embroidery, made him stand out in that room. Felix watched out of the corner of his eye the way he held his posture straight and tall the entire time, through every question of why a representative of Duscur was a part of this council. Each time, Sylvain reminded the council that he was present as a representative of Sreng, and each time, Sylvain’s father glared daggers at him.

“Is it?” Dimitri asked, sounding discouraged. He was in finer clothing than he usually bothered with, and sitting primly with his cup of tea, he looked more like the young prince he should have been than he did a King.

“Yes,” Felix agreed. “No one threatened a coup, or stormed out. I’d say that’s a win.”

Dimitri groaned quietly. More and more these days, he reminded Felix of a younger Dimitri he knew. It was strange, seeing his hardened armor begin to fall away over the last months. After years of seeing nothing but a monster in him, it was startling to realize that it was easy to look at Dimitri as a person again. Not always a person he liked, but a person.

There were many aspects of his role as Duke that were difficult to step into, but sitting at Dimitri’s side and telling him what he should do differently fit him like a glove. It was the easiest part of his job, and he hadn’t entirely disliked spending the last two weeks at Blaiddyd in preparation for this meeting, escaping his more unpleasant duties at home. He wondered if Sylvain felt the same, but he suspected that Sylvain was enjoying himself on the diplomacy mission that Dimitri had sent him on.

When Dimitri first laid out his goals, his vision of what this country could be, making amends to Duscur was near the top of his list. It took two weeks for him to convince Dedue to act as an ambassador of sorts — a Fódlan war hero, a face for these nobles to trust, and a go-between for the Duscur people still living in the land Faerghus took from them. He was hesitant to take that kind of a position, but Felix knew he would in the end. Having spent as much time with the two of them as he had in the last year, he knew that if Dimitri looked at him right, asked him enough times, Dedue would agree eventually.

Sylvain was the one who said Sreng should have a spot at the table as well, if Duscur would. Hadn’t they had their land taken too? Weren’t their innocent people punished for the insurrection of a few? The Sreng people who lived in Faerghus land were treated as outsiders on both sides of territory lines, and they had no say in the situation, Sylvain argued.

Diplomacy and representation was the compromise between Sylvain, who wanted to release the territory back to Sreng and open their border to trade, and his father, who wouldn’t let it happen over his dead body. So Sylvain offered himself up to lead the effort, and most of his time had been spent in the north of his father’s territory and in Sreng, traveling and speaking with clan leaders. This was only the third or fourth time Felix had seen him in the last eight months.

“It was always going to be small steps,” Sylvain said, reaching over and patting Dimitri’s arm. “Nothing solid is built quickly.”

“Of course the Adrestians are resistant,” Ingrid said with annoyance in her voice, rolling her eyes. “They’re used to getting their power handed to them, generation after generation.”

“Don’t say Adrestians like that, or one of them will pop out and start berating you,” Felix said dryly. He’d heard it happen enough times that day to know. “Anyway, who knew Ferdinand von Aegir would be so helpful. Those Adrestian lords hate him for being on our side more than they hate us for having a side. He may even sway Gloucester over.”

“It’s big of him to take our attempt on his life in stride,” Ingrid commented with a sigh. Felix didn’t relish the reminder; it brought to mind the image of Dorothea, sitting in the cardinals office with her head in her hands, mourning an old friend after that battle on the bridge. But Ferdinand wasn’t the only presumed dead come back to life in that war (or even that battle — one day Felix wanted to find out how he and Lorenz Gloucester managed to survive after their army left them there), so it shouldn’t have surprised him so much. Their king was supposed to have died once too, after all.

“Oh, he’d love to hear you say that, I think,” Sylvain said with a smirk.

Dimitri shook his head. “Sylvain is right.”

Sylvain tilted his head in confusion. “About Ferdinand von Aegir?”

Dimitri turned to him with a furrowed brow, like he hadn’t even kept up with that line of their conversation, still fixated on the council meeting. “No. The only way out is through. It will take time, but we have to move toward allegiance in this country. I want their input, I want to be able to work together. It will make things easier, if there’s respect and trust among the nobility. We’ll keep meeting.”

It sounded soft-hearted when he said it like that, but he was right. If he wanted dramatic change, he needed people’s trust, and they wouldn’t trust him unless they could see that he cared about their land, their people. It was lucky that Dimitri did care, didn’t have to pretend — maybe it would break through to more of them eventually.

“Well!” Ingrid said decisively with a short exhale. “You did it, at least. I know you’ve been nervous for it to happen, but it happened, and you’ll keep moving. At least you can put it out of your mind for a while.”

“Until the next one,” Dimitri said, sounding a little pitiful. Felix, despite himself, gave a scoff. “It’s not for months. You can put off that worry for a while,” he said.

“What’s next, then? Duscur?” Ingrid asked.

“Duscur,” Dedue agreed with a nod. He glanced over at Felix, and Felix offered him a nod in return.

Dimitri and Dedue made the first trip to the former Duscur territory by themselves, Dedue acting as a guide, Dimitri bowing his head in apology as often as he could, from the sound of his reports back. Felix accompanied them on their next trip, and Dimitri and Felix spent most of it listening solemnly to the stories of the village elders that managed to stay alive through Faerghus’ supposed retaliation.

The part of his station that Felix liked the least was presenting himself as his father’s successor. Rodrigue Fraldarius earned the title of the king’s shield, but Felix knew well enough that he had subdued his enemies using plenty more than his defense. He knew his father was King Lambert’s right hand, and that right hand had taken Sreng, wrapped itself around Duscur’s throat in misplaced anger and grief after the King fell. Felix had a legacy behind him, and it was bloodstained. He didn’t know that he deserved to make amends for it, but if Dimitri was going to try, weighed down as he was by his own choices and his father’s behind him, he supposed he could try too.

So he would go to Duscur, stand alongside Dedue and Dimitri. He would wear his father’s face and his father’s title, and maybe he could turn them into something besides a synonym for conquest.

They sat in the garden, drank the tea requested by Dedue, and listened in turn to Ingrid tell them about the new recruits to the knights. She had been building Castle Blaiddyd’s defenses back up after the bulk of their knights were taken in the war. Her family wasn’t objecting too loudly, but Felix knew they were waiting for her to give this up eventually. And maybe she would, but it wouldn’t be anytime soon, from what he could tell. She was well-suited for it, and doing well, Felix thought.

It was strange, for life to keep moving. To be almost a year out on the other side of the war that had consumed his adolescence. To have the months stride along, just because you made it through one day, then another, then a week, then another. With the five of them together like this, it almost felt like no time had passed at all since they were in Garreg Mach as students. Dimitri still had Dedue by his side in a way that Felix had started to wonder about, the two of them duty-bound to each other and their roles, and Ingrid was spirited and hard-working, devoted to her training. He and Sylvain were different, he supposed, but he tried to think about that only in the vaguest possible terms to avoid cataloging all the ways they ever were.

They had started exchanging letters some time ago. When Felix returned home to Fraldarius after his first trip to Duscur, there was a letter sealed with the Gautier crest sitting on his desk. Racing against an errant worry that it was bad news, he pried it open eagerly to find a short account of a Sreng market, remarks about the cold desert air, and a small sketch of a stone monument they’d come across.

He hadn’t seen Sylvain draw anything since they were children, but he used to have a knack for it. It was something so small, but Felix found himself thinking about it often, wondering what other relics of their youth they tucked away during so much upheaval, if any of them could be retrieved. Felix wrote a letter in return, giving his own comments on Duscur, the way the forests felt different, a jewelry maker who offered them a place to stay on a quiet road between villages and the earrings Dedue purchased from her. They passed these notes, short, casual, and out of sync with both of them on the move, full of nothing of consequence. Nothing that would hint at the way they spoke to each other months earlier, the number of mornings Felix woke up in bed with him.

It was odd seeing each other in person again, when Sylvain arrived to Blaiddyd last week. Felix had arrived early to counsel Dimitri, but Sylvain had arrived early largely to pass on the information he had gathered and organized in secret, the part of his diplomacy trips his father wasn’t informed of. The part where Sylvain was promising to all the clan leaders he could muster up that when he took the title of Margrave, Sreng would have its independence, in return for peace and trade. It was delicate work he was doing, a game Dimitri was trusting him to play well, and Felix knew he would. He was well-suited for diplomacy and politicking, charismatic and adept in a way that Dimitri and certainly Felix never were.

Tomorrow, Sylvain was set to leave again, back to Gautier for a stint before he could make it back to Sreng. He had waved off Dimitri’s offer to stay in Blaiddyd instead of going home with a laugh that didn’t quite reach his eyes (Felix noticed.) “Don’t worry about me. I have a little more power at home these days, now that the King is my ally instead of his.”

Felix would be in Duscur by next week. At least on these trips to Duscur, Felix could follow the routine that came with travel, a routine he was used to; when he was in an office with advisors, he felt like a warrior without armor on in a battlefield he knew nothing about. Sylvain didn’t have that problem, he was sure.

They left the garden eventually, Ingrid and Dedue back to the training grounds, Dimitri back to his advisors, Felix and Sylvain off to their own quarters at Blaiddyd with their own matters to attend to. Felix had missives to write home, and a letter to his mother to write as well; Sylvain had his own business.

As they walked, just before they parted along the stone paths surrounding the castle, Sylvain looked over at him with a crooked smile. “Hey,” he said quietly. “It’s going alright, isn’t it?”

Was it intended to be reassurance or a genuine question? Felix wasn’t sure.

They were on what Felix grew up considering the “business” side of the royal grounds, where there was a bustle of people nearly all of the time. Knights, attendants, servants, the well-dressed retainers that trailed sitting nobles like fish in a school. People passed them on both sides as they walked, walked around them when Felix paused his pace to look at Sylvain.

“As well as it ever could have, I think,” Felix replied. It was a simple way to sum things up, anyway.

“Winning a war won’t cure pessimism, hm?” Sylvain asked him, smile wide, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. (Felix noticed.)

“Oh, and you’re an optimist now?” Felix asked with a roll of his eyes.

“You know how I like to pretend,” Sylvain responded. Felix frowned. He worried about Sylvain more than he should, stuck in that manor with his father. He had little negative to say about his time in Sreng, so it must have been a better option, but it was strange to be so far apart all the time. There was nothing he could say now, here, to convey any of that, and their letters stayed off the topic of each other’s well-being, stayed off any topic that could veer them into admitting they missed each other. Or at least Felix’s did; he couldn’t say for certain if Sylvain was doing it on purpose. Felix had always been more concerned with self-preservation than Sylvain was.

“Good luck out there, Sylvain,” Felix said instead of anything else he wanted to. Instead of stop talking like that, stop smiling at me when you don’t mean it, stop dodging anyone’s concern. “I look forward to hearing from you.”

It seemed to still him anyway. Maybe Felix had inherited his mother’s gift of voicing her concerns without ever saying them out loud. His smile faltered for a brief moment before it returned, smaller. He reached a hand out to rest on Felix’s upper arm, warm even through his clothes, and Felix felt the unfortunate urge to lean into it. He didn’t. “You as well,” he said simply. When he pulled his hand back, Felix caught the minute movement of him flexing it, like the touch had startled him too.

They each gave each other a nod before their paths split, each of them treading off to their respective realities, alone.

Chapter Text

Dear
Felix,

Do you remember the beasts we would fight in this desert in school? The big ones are still horrible, but the young are almost cute. If you ignore their mouths.

Sreng diplomacy leaves me with a hangover more often than not. The liquor is strong here - I don’t blame them for that, with nights this cold. My father would be thrilled to have something in common, no? I almost lost my horse in a bet last night, but I managed to turn things around and win two pack mules. Should come in useful if I keep getting talked into buying trinkets at markets.

Have you picked up any Duscur language? I’ve learned a number of helpful obscenities in the last few months. My translator lets me know very politely every time someone is calling me names - truly an educational experience. If you’d like to know how to say “spoiled shit-eater” in Sreng, I’m happy to pass on the information.

Hope all is well,

Sylvain Gautier

Sylvain,

You sound very upbeat about all of this. Good to know you are still a fool.

Would you have really given them your horse? I thought she was very precious to you. Or maybe you’ve brought along one of your less-favored for the long journey - pity to her. Congratulations on the mules, I hope they do well under your growing pile of useless junk. At least you have the decency to give back to the locals - how many other spoiled shit-eaters can say the same? I’m sure they’re giving you a more than fair price.

Dimitri’s clumsy practice at Duscur language far outstrips my own. Occasionally babies laugh at our attempts. I hope this is cathartic for their parents. We most successfully have learned to call anyone older than us zizi, meaning aunt or uncle. Duscur is a people of aunts and uncles, all raising a collective generation. It’s a friendly sort of idea, so it’s taken us a while to get used to it. Where we come from, after all, an aunt or uncle rarely cares for you much.

Dimitri does not possess a mind that would ever inquire about obscenities, nor does Dedue have a mind apt to teach them, though I’m sure we have endured plenty of unknown blows. Myself especially, without the muscle of Dedue at my side that Dimitri has deterring any onlookers.

I am returning soon with Dedue while Dimitri stays home. From the sound of it, the Gloucesters are keeping him busy over a proposed tax that they object to. I think they plan to storm Blaiddyd, kill him and pin him to a board like a butterfly. Best of luck to them.

Your father came to call recently. It may shock you to hear, but he seems displeased with you. Keep up the good work. According to him it should be you here, asking for more than your family’s fair share of profits on trade across the bay. I told him you would no doubt excel in the task, as you so enjoy cheating. I’m sure he is displeased with me as well, a fact that I am mourning night and day.

Safe travels,

Felix Fraldarius

On Dedue and Felix’s fourth trip to Duscur, they took a detour south before they headed west.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Dedue said, consulting a map on the back of his horse. He always sounded stoic, but Felix could read him well enough by now to hear the conversational tone in his voice. “But this is Duscur work too, in a way.”

“You’re in charge,” Felix said simply. Dedue turned to him and offered him a small smile before turning his horse with a gentle pull at her reins, leading them down a fork in the road.

The first time Dimitri sent them off on one of these trips without him, he said, “Each of you is the only one I’d trust to keep the other safe.” And while the sentiment was a bit dramatic, Felix did think they made a decent team. They were both people comfortable with quiet, pragmatic despite each of their respective motivations, and it made their trips easier than Felix had expected.

Anyway, he preferred coming to Duscur when it was just Dedue. When Dimitri came too, Felix just had to sit on his horse and watch Dedue show Dimitri different species of flowers, the way that Dedue’s eyes softened every time Dimitri asked another quiet question about a village on the road ahead. It was a personal bitterness that soured in him at the sight, not particularly fair, so he didn’t like being confronted with it; if he thought for too long about being remotely jealous in any capacity of Dimitri or the man who clearly loved him, surely he’d lose it.

Night was starting to fall, and Felix was considering calling out to Dedue to ask how much further they would ride today, when the light of a town blinked on the horizon. They slowed their pace when they finally approached it, their horses letting out pleased snuffling breaths at the slow trot. Neither of them, Felix knew, particularly liked being on horseback all day, but they certainly preferred it to flying. He didn’t know how Ingrid could stand to travel any distance in the air. She was cut from stronger stuff than him.

It was a fairly small town, but they passed a neighborhood of houses before they got to a lit street of shops and taverns. “Ah,” Dedue said, pointing down the cobblestone street. “There.” Felix followed his gaze and saw a guesthouse at the end of the road. Felix looked around at the people walking down the street as they made their way over, the happy bustle of it. He traveled through countless villages and towns in Faerghus during the war, but he still wasn’t used to the way they looked when they were populated, fed and happy.

They were tying their horses up in the stable attached to the side of the inn when Felix heard the sound of a wyvern nearby and looked around in surprise. You didn’t see many flying mounts in Faerghus villages, and especially not many wyverns, unsuited to the cold as they were. Sure enough, though, when he looked up into the twilight sky, he saw the outline of a large scaly head hanging off the roof, looking back down at him. “Hey,” Felix said to catch Dedue’s attention, pointing upward.

In his periphery, he saw Dedue crane his neck up too. “Is that…” Dedue started. Felix was squinting, trying to get a better view of the creature — was it saddled? — but then Dedue let out a short laugh. “Cyril is here.”

“What?” Felix asked, eyebrows furrowed, looking back around on the ground as if he was behind them.

“His wyvern has the same scar over the eye. It’s distinctive,” Dedue explained, like he was surprised Felix couldn’t deduce the same.

Felix looked back up, squinting at the wyvern. “How is your eyesight so good?”

“Duscur people like to say that it’s all the snow that makes Faerghus men blind and crazy,” Dedue answered simply. “But maybe it’s just my advantage in height, hm?”

Felix paused, looking over at him with annoyance. There was a look on his face like he was trying to hold back a laugh. “Are you teasing me?”

Dedue only gave him another small smile in return, mirth in his eyes. “Come, let’s go inside.”

Felix never saw this side of Dedue when they were in school, or even during the war, when outwardly he seemed content to be seen only as Dimitri’s guard dog. The impression that Felix had gotten of him in the last year since these trips started was that he was quiet, yes, and generally had a calm and level-headed disposition, but he was funnier and quicker than he let most people know. There was a friendly gentleness to him, for all his stature and strength, and when Felix glimpsed it, he wondered if it was Dimitri’s doing that he wore it closer to the surface these days.

All thoughts of Dimitri, though, were put out of his mind when they walked into the inn and he picked up the sound of familiar voices. Felix saw Ashe first, eyes squinted closed and mouth open in laughter, and that was expected. He knew they were coming to Ashe’s inn. But sure enough, next to him in matching laughter, was Cyril. His hair was longer now than Felix remembered it, and with a smile on his face, he looked young. Most unexpected, though, was Shamir turning around to look at them as the entered the door. Her eyebrows raised too, but she gave Felix a nod in greeting before looking at Dedue with a small smile.

“Dedue!” Ashe called over when he saw them. Dedue walked without hesitation over to their group, huddled together near the window at a table, so Felix followed him. “I told you to write before you came,” Ashe chided Dedue. When they got close enough to speak quietly, he turned to Felix with a small bow. “Duke Fraldarius, good to see you.”

Felix made a face. “Please call me by my name,” he complained. Ashe gave a small laugh, face crinkling into a sweet apologetic smile like he was good at.

“We’re on our way to Duscur,” Dedue said. “I wasn’t sure if we’d have the time to spare before this morning, but I wanted to see you before we left. I’d like to be able to give a report to the elders I meet that a strange Faerghus boy wants to feed people our food.” His tone was warm and fond, something Felix heard rarely on him, but he seemed unembarrassed.

“Ah! I’d appreciate some recipes, you know. If any of them have any interest in a strange Faerghus boy butchering their work,” Ashe joked easily.

Dedue nodded. “Yes, I’d like to collect some.” In truth, a decent part of their work in Duscur was recording information. From what Felix had learned, their people never put much stock into written word before the Tragedy of Duscur — why would they, when they lived so communally, all villages interconnected? But when the majority of your people are gone, there are only so many people still able to pass on your stories.

Dedue was playing ambassador, but Felix could tell his favorite part of the role was getting the older aunties and uncles they met to talk, tell their stories and recount their lives, translating out loud so Felix could write them down. Every village they had traveled through formed a sweet spot for Dedue quickly, and there was something very personal about watching his elders, their brown wrinkled hands, patting Dedue’s hair and pinching his cheeks when he left. They’d give up their recipes no problem, Felix knew, and his lips twitched in amusement at the idea of transcribing a grandmother’s spiced goat recipe on his official Duke business.

“Your wyvern is on the roof,” Felix informed Cyril. Cyril just furrowed his eyebrows, a very familiar expression. “Where else would she be?” He asked. Felix paused, furrowing his eyebrows back. “A stable?” He wasn’t an expert on the creatures, but he knew they were housed in an enclosed space at the monastery, at least.

Cyril just fixed him with a look like he was being obtuse. “She’s a lot smarter than a horse,” he explained slowly, like maybe she was smarter than Felix too. “She doesn’t need to be tied up.” Remembering why he had never spoken to Cyril much when they were at Garreg Mach, Felix just responded with a nod, like this made sense and he was the fool.

“So you’re an official King-appointed friend to Duscur now?” Shamir asked Felix, sounding amused at the interaction.

“I am ever at the King’s disposal,” Felix said dryly. “I come in his stead, when he’s not able to get away from Blaiddyd. Trust me, he’d rather be here than behind his desk.”

“I’m sure he would,” she agreed with a quiet laugh. “But from what I’ve heard, he’s doing alright on that throne. Is Sylvain with you?”

Felix blinked in surprise at being asked, thrown off-balance at the way she asked like it was her natural first question. His moment of pause attracted Dedue, Cyril and Ashe’s eyes, and Felix willed himself not to blush at the attention. “He’s been off on his own business up north,” he said coolly.

Shamir nodded. “Best of luck to him, then,” she said, seeming to pick up on his coldness. There was only another brief pause before she turned to Dedue, asked, “How has Duscur been treating you?” And the conversation moved on without him. The four of them had experience being friends, Felix could tell from their easy conversation, which was good, because he would prefer to be able to sit in quiet for a while.

There was a strange panicked feeling in his mind, and as his eyes moved around the inn and took in the details (the building had old bones, but new paint, clean and sturdy; the person behind the bar must be Ashe’s sibling, from how similar they looked), he tried not to wonder if all three of them were expecting Sylvain to be traveling alongside Felix. It was a very stupid thing to think about with this much embarrassment, but for Shamir of all people to pin him down like that without thinking made him itch. Was he that transparent at Garreg Mach? Shamir and Cyril hardly knew him, and he even kept Ashe at a distance. But Shamir knew to look for Sylvain right behind him.

He tried to forget it. He listened to Cyril and Shamir speak in hushed tones about their own line of work, which mostly amounted to keeping an eye out for wealthy assholes and redistributing their riches discreetly. Another one of Ashe’s siblings walked by, speaking to Cyril like they were already acquainted and introducing herself to the rest of them briefly with a very Ashe-looking smile, the same freckles and eyes as him.

“It’s been going alright,” Ashe told them, sounding optimistic. “We grew up near here, so we know the area, and Lonato’s estate left us some money we used to get started. I only have a few Duscur dishes on the menu so far, but I want to add more — it’s something really different, you know? And I think the message it sends —” he went on cheerfully. It was comforting that Ashe wasn’t holed up in Gaspard, that at least he came to his senses instead of jumping at the chance of knighthood, making a peaceful living instead. He wondered if he could have ever managed that, or if he’d be like Shamir and Cyril even if he had walked away from nobility, unable to stop until he could think of a way to use his blade to someone’s benefit.

As soon as he could excuse himself from the interaction, he did. He was tired from traveling, from the unexpected company, and whether he wanted to admit it or not, he was still shaken from having to think about Sylvain. When Cyril gave a loud yawn, Felix nodded and said, “I was going to retire soon. It was good to see you.” He offered a nod to the three of them in farewell, and Ashe bowed in response. Felix groaned, and Ashe laughed before calling his sister over and asking her to take Dedue and Felix upstairs to a room.

As they walked upstairs, Felix let out an exhale as soon as they were out of their sight, and he caught Dedue look over at him as he did it. When Ashe’s sister left them after another large smile, Felix set down his bag and sat wearily onto one of the two small beds in the room. Dedue did the same across the room, and it was quiet for a moment.

“Are you alright?” Dedue asked then, and Felix’s head popped up in surprise at the question.

“Yes,” Felix answered after a moment. “Just tired.” Dedue nodded.

“Did it cause you offense when she asked after Sylvain?”

Saints. Was everyone intent on questioning him today? Felix sighed. “Offense is a strong word,” he said. “It just surprised me.”

Dedue looked confused, but didn’t question him. Felix wondered when exactly they became close enough to have a personal conversation; if this was seven years ago, he would have scowled, insulted Dedue and stormed off. He used to have a lot of energy for anger that he just couldn’t muster anymore. It must have taken its toll on him, carrying it around for so many years.

“You don’t like for people to know much about you,” Dedue said eventually. “Is that it?”

“Are you really trying to guess what bothered me?” Felix asked in response, incredulous. Dedue seemed unaffected by his tone.

“I’m curious,” he said simply. “We’ve spent a lot of time together, Duke Fral —”

“My name, Dedue,” Felix interrupted tersely.

“Felix,” he corrected. “But I find you difficult to read. That’s all.”

Privately, that reassured him. He preferred being difficult to read. Still, this was an open offer of friendship, and no matter how tangled his feelings on Dimitri were now or ever, he wasn’t still an angry kid who felt the need to punish Dedue for that.

“It felt…presumptive,” Felix said diplomatically. “That’s all. I didn’t realize people were expecting Sylvain to be at my heels.”

Dedue hummed, like he was thinking about that. “Shamir is a particularly good marksman. She’s very observant. I wouldn’t worry about her perceptions, few people are able to share them.”

Felix sighed. “The fact that she observed it at all is the part I don’t like.”

Dedue’s eyebrows furrowed, confused. “Everyone knew you were friends. It was easy to see he was one of the only people you trusted. For someone like you, that means a great deal.”

“She didn’t ask about Ingrid,” Felix pointed out quietly.

“Felix,” Dedue said, the name sounding only slightly out of place coming out of his mouth, “She was only asking after him as your friend and ally. She wasn’t trying to imply…”

Felix snapped his head up again. “Imply what?” He asked, voice hardening.

Dedue shook his head. “Whatever you’re afraid people are implying. You are not a topic of much gossip, if that’s any comfort to you. I think you’ve successfully convinced people that you’re too taciturn to do much of interest.”

“Oh, well,” Felix huffed, equal parts comforted and insulted. He couldn’t expect much else from this line of conversation, though. “At least there’s that.”

There was another moment of quiet, then: “The King hasn’t wanted to tell you,” Dedue started. “But he and I are…”

“Dedue,” Felix cut him off with a shake of his head, wanting to get ahead of however Dedue was planning to describe just what he and the king were. “I know.”

“You do?” Dedue asked, wearing his own look of surprise now. Felix almost wanted to laugh at the sight.

“Yes,” Felix said, eyes closing for a moment, trying not to think of the many, many times in the last handful of months he had seen Dimitri look at Dedue like…well, like Felix wasn’t there. “Yes, I am aware. Why are you bringing this up now?”

“Oh,” Dedue said. “Well. I just felt odd not telling you. We have spent a lot of time together.”

“I suppose we have,” Felix agreed. “He didn’t want to tell me? I just assumed you both preferred to let people figure it out.”

At that, Dedue looked conflicted. “I don’t care to get between the two of you, but I believe he thought you might react negatively to me.”

That had to be the third thing someone managed to say to him tonight that hurt his feelings. “Ah. He was protecting you. I’ve earned that, I suppose. I never told you I was sorry, for how I once spoke to you.”

“And are you telling me now?” Dedue asked, but he was smiling again. Felix was going to open his mouth in argument, but Dedue waved him off. “Don’t concern yourself with it. I never took much offense. Of all the ways people spoke to me at Garreg Mach, you were fairly mild. Are you convinced I’m no longer merely a dog, then?”

It was a fair shot. Felix earned that too. “You’re certainly devoted, no one could argue that,” he said mildly. “I’ll never tell you that I think it’s smart, but if you weren’t willing to put yourself in danger in Dimitri’s stead, we wouldn’t have a king now. I can offer my thanks for that, at least.”

“You’ve grown downright tolerant,” Dedue said, his voice that teasing tone again. It got a quiet laugh out of Felix.

“I thought I was taciturn,” he said, and Dedue chuckled in return.

“If we’re thanking each other, then thank you for your help in Duscur. Dimitri is enthusiastic, but sometimes I think you’re better suited to this work.” He said it pleasantly, but Felix was struck by how unusual it was to hear Dedue refer to him as Dimitri.

“Enthusiastic,” Felix echoed. “Yes. He’s certainly that.” He thought about Dimitri’s wide-eyed questions, his eager tongue tripping over the phrases in Duscur that he’d memorized. He was happy to be laughed at by village elders and pointed at by children who found his coloring strange, accepting it all without ego. He led with empathy and apology in every step he took on Duscur land, and from what Felix had seen, Duscur was willing to accept it if he worked hard enough. And for all his idealism, he seemed to be getting through to the nobles in Fódlan, slowly but surely. Felix sighed. “He’s doing well, as king.”

“I believe so, yes,” Dedue agreed. “But I think he’d be surprised to hear you say it.”

“He isn’t likely to hear it directly from me any time soon,” Felix said dryly.

Dedue gave another considering hum. “Nor is he likely to tell you in turn how much he appreciates you being at his side.”

Felix chuckled. “I don’t know about that. He’s a sentimental man, and I always thought he delighted in being kinder to me than I am to him.”

“He does not delight in your rejection, no,” Dedue said, voice still light. Another sharp blow. No wonder he and Dedue didn’t speak to each other about things this personal, if he was this capable of hitting Felix where it hurt purely by accident.

“I don’t expect you to understand, but it’s difficult,” Felix said quietly, feeling tired again.

“I don’t understand, but he tries to,” Dedue said. “I do not think ill of you, Felix. After all, here you are. He knows you want him to succeed, and I think that carries a great deal of weight for him. It does for me as well, for that matter.”

“I think you’re a good man, Dedue,” Felix replied. It was more genuine of a compliment than he’d give most people, but they were already this far. “Painfully good, sometimes. I would say you reminded me of my brother, but, ah…he was as petulant as I am, I’m afraid.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that as well,” Dedue said, his tone soft. “But the comparison is an honor regardless. I’ve heard good things about his character.”

And something in him ached at the thought of Dimitri telling Dedue about Glenn. He wondered, briefly, if the Tragedy of Duscur had never taken place, if Glenn would be in Dedue’s place. Dimitri’s sword and shield. Dimitri’s…hm. He remembered being eleven and watching Ingrid fall in love with his brother. And at just barely thirteen, when Glenn got his knight armor, he remembered seeing a ghost of the same expression on Dimitri’s face from time to time. But by the time Felix had started to notice, Glenn was gone, and it was never anyone’s problem to figure out. He wondered what Dimitri told Dedue about Glenn, how his own affection shaped his memory of the person his brother was, how it differed from Felix’s own account.

You know, Felix, you really are growing more and more like your brother, Dimitri said to him once, almost two years ago. Always so sarcastic, and constantly looking for a fight. But deep inside, more than anyone, you… It had only been a month since his father died, and it stung him to hear. Looking back now, Felix wondered what he meant.

“Well, sorry for the dramatics,” Felix said with another sigh, and Dedue offered him a deep laugh.

“We’ll get some rest and start out early tomorrow. Thank you for allowing us the detour.”

“I don’t allow you anything,” Felix replied with a snort. “I meant it when I said you were in charge of this. You deserve that, don’t you?”

“I don’t pretend to deserve any responsibility in the royal court of Faerghus,” Dedue argued, rustling through his bag at his feet. “But I appreciate that.”

Stubborn, stubborn. No wonder he and Dimitri got along. When he left to wash up, Felix sat on the bed and rubbed his face with his hands. Too much of him got dredged up in that conversation, he could feel the silt floating around in him, unsettled. It had been some time since they came upstairs; maybe the others had gone to bed too, and he could go back down and sit with his thoughts and a drink before he fell asleep. It was better than lying here across the room from Dedue in the dark, trying not to let his mind race.

When he walked down the stairs, he was relieved to not see Cyril at first glance. The room was almost empty, actually, save for the darker gray tone of Ashe’s brother, the sibling he hadn’t been introduced to, and — ah. Shamir was still here, sitting at the bar. He briefly considered turning back around, but then she turned to look at him, and as much of a coward as he wanted to be tonight, he couldn’t back down from a challenge that overt.

“Fraldarius,” she greeted with a nod as he sat down at the bar next to her. Where else would he go? “Ale or liquor?”

“Liquor,” Felix answered easily.

She reached out a hand to grab the attention of the Ubert sibling who was wiping down the other side of the wooden bar. “Two more, please,” she said, gesturing to her own cup, before picking it up and knocking back the rest of the glass.

“So Cyril left the monastery,” Felix commented. If they were going to make conversation, which Felix was sure they were, he had his own curiosities too.

Shamir gave a quiet laugh as Bartender Ubert (and Ashe mentioned his name earlier, but Felix couldn’t remember now, could only remember that his sister was Willow) set down two glasses, passed one to each of them. “Thank your goddess for that,” she said. “That kid was shooting himself in the foot, staying tied up there. He’s too talented to be a servant.”

Something they could agree on, then. Cyril worked harder than most people Felix knew at the monastery, but most of what he talked about when he spoke was Lady Rhea. Felix always found it frustrating, another person who was willing to say their life was only worth the protection of someone else. “I suppose Byleth wasn’t a worthy enough patron?” He asked, half-joking.

“Byleth has no interest in keeping pets the way Rhea did. She’s content to use her own power for what it is.” There was an edge of judgment there. Interesting.

“She certainly has enough of it,” Felix agreed.

“So did Rhea, don’t be mistaken,” Shamir said. She picked up her new glass and took another drink. Felix did the same, and immediately regretted choosing liquor. He cleared his throat around the burn of it. “Byleth is certainly not Rhea, though. Wonder how the church will change.”

If Felix’s latest intelligence was to be believed, it had already changed some. Byleth was meeting with the Western and Eastern churches, aiming for some form of unity, like she had a knack for doing. “How is Catherine?” He asked. It seemed on-topic.

Shamir took another drink, then swirled her glass in front of her, looking at the liquid rather than at him. “Well, I presume. I haven’t heard from her since I left the knights after the war, but from what I know, she lives a quiet life in Rhea’s care.” She paused, still looking at her glass. “She made the choice she always would. Has he made his, then?”

It was a punch to the gut, and she must have known it, because she looked at him a little apologetically. “Listen to me. I’ve forgotten my station, your grace,” she said, an edge of irony in her voice.

“You can just call it a low blow and move on,” Felix replied curtly. He took another burning sip of his drink, his stomach warm with liquor, and wondered where Sylvain even was.

When the war ended, all of them shipped back off to their respective homes, he knew that he and Sylvain would stop…whatever it was they were doing. The fates that had hung over their head for years, held out of reach only because their lives had been so interrupted by war, were set to come crashing down on them as soon as they packed their things and left Garreg Mach.

For Felix, that meant stepping into a crown he had been trying to run from for years. For Sylvain, that meant playing his part. And his part, his father had always made clear, was to sire an heir. An heir with a crest and good breeding, from a titled girl with good looks to her name. Someone like his mother, who knew she was a means to an end, who his father didn’t mourn when she died because she had managed to finally do her duty after Miklan’s failure, and birth a crested child.

The two of them had pretended this reality wasn’t waiting for them long enough, Felix figured. The weight of it came loose, the hand holding the rope unclenched, and the simple truth of it fell heavy like the blade of a guillotine, severing whatever fraught connection they had formed. When they left, Felix knew it was gone. And it was; they hadn’t seen each other alone in over a year, not counting their brief exchange after the first council earlier in the year. Their letters barely even touched on anything personal, let alone intimate.

A year and a half had passed since the end of the war, though, and Felix had heard no rumors of Sylvain Gautier courting anyone. Sure, he had made himself busy in the north, but that shouldn’t stop the timing of these things, or his father’s plans. Still, no word from Sylvain or the court of nobles and fools he was a part of. Underneath the parts of himself he had tried to harden up as soon as their thread was cut, Felix felt a soft, nagging worry from time to time: was it just that he didn’t want Felix? Had he really gone and fallen in love (because that’s what it was, wasn’t it?) with someone who saw him as a wartime comfort?

He wanted to say no, of course not. Of course Sylvain cared for him. It felt like that, didn’t it? In their dormitory beds and in the comfortable warmth of his hand on Felix’s shoulder. He thought, as he often tried not to, of the letter he penned to Felix’s own mother. I hold Felix very dear. He thought of that night on campaign so long ago, and that night in the sauna.

But here he was.

“I’m not privy to his choices,” he said to Shamir finally.

Shamir hummed in acknowledgement. “Well,” she said, “Heinous as it is, you could always inquire.”

They didn’t say anything else to each other as they sat with their drinks. They were the only two left downstairs at the inn — even Ashe’s brother had gone off to tend to something. There was the noise of the fireplace, a distant clinking of bottles from the kitchen, and the silence of two people who had never been known for their friendliness.

When Shamir finished her drink, tipping it back before setting the glass heavily on the bar, she gave him another nod. “Safe travels to you, Fraldarius. Good luck in Duscur.”

Felix sat at the bar for a few more minutes, until he couldn’t hear footsteps upstairs above him, and swallowed the rest of his drink and the silly lovelorn feeling in his chest. Foolish. It was all foolish. Better to focus on work than a teenage infatuation that he always knew would end like this.

The only way out is through. He wasn’t sure if Dimitri or Sylvain had started saying it first, but it had been repeated often in the last year and a half. It was repeated every time they hit a new obstacle, a new roadblock. He wondered, not for the first time, how long it would take to get to the other side of this.

Felix,

Do not speak of my horses like you hold any respect for them, it’s an insult. Yes, Larkspur is home in Gautier, I visit her often. Does your horse even have a name, or are you truly heartless?

I would enjoy watching Duscur babies laugh at you and Dimitri both. The children in Sreng like pulling on my hair. Theirs is much curlier, so I imagine I must look constantly limp and deflated to them.

I will make a note to be sure to ask Dedue to teach me the rudest Duscur words he can think of next time I see him, though who knows when that will be. Perhaps I will write to him, ask for the words written so I can practice them daily. You underestimate him.

I’m assuming Dimitri survived his encounter with the Gloucesters, though I don’t envy him. From the rumors I’ve heard, they’re usually quite good at bending the powers that be to their will, and breaking them if they meet resistance. That said, have they ever dealt with someone as pleasantly stubborn as Dimitri? I’ve heard further rumors that Ferdinand von Aegir is sweet on Lorenz Gloucester. It takes all kinds, I suppose, but maybe he’ll manage to make Lorenz less of a prick than his father.

Do you think that last bit would anger an interceptor? I hope so.

Autumn is fast approaching, which means snow will start falling here in the the north. I don’t look forward to it. I grew too used to southern winters, now the wind up here rattles my bones. My next trip to Sreng will be my last for a spell, as their dust storm season will begin in the last months of the year. When will you be home?

If you are in Fraldarius land, I may come to see you come to call. Not on my father’s business, thankfully.

All my best,

Sylvain

Sylvain,

Do you expect that anyone is attempting to intercept our letters? If so, they must be disappointed to read their contents.

No, I do not usually name my horses. I hope they take no disrespect. We are civil to each other as a species, and that is the most I can say about my bond with the animals.

I won’t comment on your gossip, but you seem to have a lot of it. The Gautier house’s fortune will change dramatically with such an observant man of the people in its midst. The Kingdom will give its thanks to all the innkeepers you’ve chatted with one day, I’m sure.

As I write this, I think the first snow is falling here now, so my sympathies go to the north. My uncle is staying here for the winter, and I am not looking forward to hearing so many stories of my father. I may be away on business for most of the season, though. Byleth has requested me at Garreg Mach to report on some bandits in Fraldarius territory, and I’m set to return to Duscur again by Guardian Moon. It’s a shame I am sorry to miss you.

It’s proved to be a busy year so far. I expected things to slow down after the war, but peace is even busier. Are you alright? I hope you are well, and you keep warm up north.

Looking forward to
Kindly,

Felix

❂❂❂❂
Late winter, 1187
❂❂❂❂

Winter lasted far too long in the north of Faerghus. That wasn’t anything new, but traveling between Duscur, which was warm enough that he only needed light furs, and the frozen plains of Fraldarius had him particularly tired of the gray skies and snowy ground this winter.

At least his uncle had left. All told, Felix only had to spend about three weeks with the man, and that was enough. He was a pleasant enough person, generally, but he possessed many of his late brother’s least enjoyable qualities with the added bane of stupidity.

“You’re too harsh on him,” his mother chided when he finally made good on his threat to leave for the season and the doors closed behind him.

“How can I not be?” Felix asked, knowing he sounded petulant. His mother only offered him a gently scolding look. “He’s not your favorite person either.”

“Well, no,” his mother admitted. She adjusted the fur collar of her dress, necessary even indoors. There were only so many fireplaces. “But he’s some of the only family we have.”

On that, of course, he and his mother had always disagreed. He found it difficult to accept, the way that bloodlines mattered so much to so many people, more than the substance of a person.

“I’m sure he misses your father, and so do I,” she added. “So I’ll let him tell his silly stories.”

“It shouldn’t be a surprise that you are kinder by nature than I am,” he said in return, softening the words with a small smile.

His mother waved her hand at him, dismissing the thought. With a stern little frown on her face, her eyes bright amber in the lamplight of the hall, he saw his own face in hers. The sharpness of his nose and the soft slope of his jawline in her own. For all the times that he saw himself in portraits of his father and brother, Felix forgot sometimes that he was always the son who looked more like their mother. When he and Glenn were children, his mother would hold his face in her hands and push his hair back, voice soft when she said, “Don’t let your hair fall into your eyes, Felix. I like to remember you have mine.”

Here and now, she said, “Don’t speak ill of yourself like that to me. I won’t hear it.”

“Alright, alright,” he agreed with a sigh. These things were never worth the argument. “It’s drafty in here, I’m going to go sit in the library.”

“You work too much, Felix,” she said. Her scolding tone had dropped, replaced with a hint of concern, and it made him feel guilty like it always did. Were all mothers so good at that, or just his own?

“What else would you have me do?” He asked her, hoping that she wouldn’t answer him seriously.

“You’re always alone here,” she said quietly. “I worry about you, you know. I…” she trailed off, gathering her fur around herself again. “You’ve spent so much of your life outside of this home, and I’ve spent much of it worrying. You’ve been though so much that I haven’t seen, and you survived it all. Now you’re home again, you’ve taken your father’s title, and I still worry about you. I’m glad you’re still here, more glad than you’ll ever know. I just wonder if you’re happy.”

Felix wasn’t equipped for this at the moment, but he supposed that this was how it felt to be on the other side of him as a teenager, foisting his emotions off onto the people around him. But his were angry, something he knew how to respond to, and hers now were somber in a way that quieted him.

“There are people who care for you, Felix,” she went on when he didn’t respond. “King Dimitri —”

“Mom,” Felix cut her off with a pained sigh. “I don’t want to talk about Dimitri.”

“Fine then,” she said, her voice sounding so much like his own when he was short. “Ingrid Galatea, she still writes to me on occasion. Did you know that?”

Felix blinked. “No,” he said quietly. His mother nodded. “And Sylvain Gautier.”

“He writes to you?” Felix asked incredulously. “No, no,” she said with another dismissive wave. “I just know he…you have always been close with him.”

Felix swallowed. “He’s a busy man these days,” he said, but the defense sounded weak even to him.

“And so are you, if your work schedule is to be believed. But I have lived with a Duke Fraldarius for a long time, Felix, and we both know that you have little business right now.”

Felix crossed his arms like a sulking child. “You should have become Duchess yourself then, if you’re so involved.”

“I would have, if I knew my son would spend his time wasting away in the library,” she responded in kind.

There was no winning with her, Felix knew. They were both too prone to digging their heels in. (Did he get that from her, too?) Instead, he let his attitude drop. “I’m fine, mom,” he said simply. “I…things have been busy, going back and forth from Duscur. I spend a lot of my time traveling in a group, I like being alone here.”

That wasn’t the entire truth, of course. But sometimes if she liked his story enough, she would choose to believe it. In this case, he wasn’t sure he convinced her; there was still a small worry line between her eyebrows, aimed at him. But she nodded. “Goddess knows you’re an adult,” she said with a sigh. “I know you take your responsibilities seriously, and I thank you for it. But please take care of yourself.”

If he wasn’t trying to convince his mother that he was perfectly well, he would have given a hollow laugh at that. It seemed like so much for her to ask of him, when he barely knew how he would accomplish such a task. He was alive, wasn’t he? He was alive and fed, clean and warm, things that had not been guaranteed during the war. Yes, he was alone, but he had been practicing accepting that since he was young. Other people always…knew how to keep each other close, in a way he couldn’t ever quite grasp. He was a sensitive child, and then his world fell apart and he didn’t know what to do besides kick and scream until people learned to leave him alone, accepted his distance.

Not Sylvain. The thought came unbidden, traitorous, and made his fingernails bite into the skin of his arm where he had them crossed.

“I will,” he said to her, intent to leave this conversation as quickly as possible, because he couldn’t think about this anymore.

Of course, even as he strode across the keep to the library, warm and empty as he expected it would be, the thought didn’t leave. There was the recurring churn of guilt in his stomach as he thought about Sylvain, alone in Gautier. The way he had rejected his offer of company at the beginning of winter, just because the thought of the two of them here by themselves made him feel panicked. Sylvain had always been his friend, had always offered the olive branch and waited for Felix to take it, and this time Felix knocked it out of his hand.

Worst of all, he thought about a conversation he had with Dimitri last month, around the quiet fire of a Duscur orphanage after everyone they had spoken to had gone to bed. Of course they would let Dimitri and Felix stay the night, even after talking all day about the children left without families after the Tragedy of Duscur, the way that places like this were struggling to get by. Dedue had gone to bed too, looking withdrawn, and Felix couldn’t blame him for that. He wasn’t sure what made him stay by the fire with Dimitri; maybe it was the air of loss around them, after an emotionally draining day.

They didn’t talk for a while, just sitting with the quiet, but when the firewood next to the hearth had run low, Dimitri said, “There’s a pile of wood out back waiting to be chopped.” And they went out there in the dark, silently working until they were both breathing heavy in the cold.

When they came back in, wood piled in their arms to set next to the fire, the atmosphere between them was different, no longer a precious introspective thing. Something had cracked open in the act of making themselves useful out of guilt, out of their own reflexive self-pity after a day of being reminded that they were both accomplices to and survivors of the same tragedy, their own families taken from it in the end.

“Dedue told me that he told you,” Dimitri said out of the blue after he sat back down on one of the worn, mismatched armchairs gathered around the fireplace. “About us.”

“Yes,” Felix agreed. They were both still catching their breath from exertion.

“I’m sorry for not telling you sooner,” Dimitri said, and that made Felix pause, looking over at him.

“I didn’t blame you for keeping it to yourself,” he said quietly. “I never treated Dedue well, and you…we…” he trailed off, not sure how to finish the thought.

“We don’t talk about these things,” Dimitri finished for him, giving him a self-effacing smile, sadness somewhere in his expression.

Felix paused again, nodded. “No. We don’t.”

“I care for him deeply, Felix,” Dimitri said then, moving past it. “The more we work in Duscur, the more I can’t believe he has stayed by my side for so long. I have experienced so little hardship compared to him, but he watched me suffer under the weight of it all the while.”

“I don’t think he believes you suffered less than him,” Felix argued. “For whatever that’s worth.”

“Yes,” Dimitri agreed, “I know. He is the most empathetic and kind-hearted person I have ever met, and it took me so long to even see it, so wrapped up in myself. If I can spend my life trying to match even half of his thoughtfulness, I’ll be a better person for it.” He sighed deeply to himself, then, and went quiet.

Felix wasn’t sure how to respond, if Dimitri was even looking for one or if he just needed to get this off his chest. So he stayed quiet, looking at Dimitri out of the corner of his eye, the slouch of his back, the mess of his hair fallen out of its ponytail. Far from kingly. That was a comfort, at least.

“I plan to ask him to marry me.” The words pierced through Felix’s quiet observation, his eyebrows raising in surprise.

“Oh,” Felix managed. “That’s — I see.”

“But doesn’t he deserve better?” Dimitri asked, voice quieter. “Assuming he would have me, we couldn’t get married officially for a long time. The council is too shaky, I can’t have them lose trust in me or my motivations for marrying a Duscur man. And I can’t bear for them to malign his character any more than they do now. Doesn’t he deserve to be more than a secret or a rumor?” He let out another sigh, putting his face in his hands.

Saints. Dimitri really was still Dimitri, wasn’t he. Big-hearted, even after the last ten years, despite all the evil things Felix had ever thought of him. It made his chest tight for a moment, but he swallowed that rogue emotion down. It had been a day full of them, full of conflicting grief and guilt. His father was the one who pulled so many of the triggers, after all, on the Duscur people. It was in his father’s name, his father’s love of a lost friend, that many of these children’s parents were killed. Yet he was a victim too, of the people orchestrating his father’s grief, the ones who killed him, who got his brother stuck in the crossfire. It was all so goddamn complicated. But here was Dimitri, heart heavy with grief and with feeling unworthy of loving a man who felt unworthy to love him back.

“You two must be meant for each other,” Felix said with a quiet laugh. “I bet he doesn’t think he deserves you either.”

“I know,” Dimitri said miserably.

“You should both stop worrying so much.” That made Dimitri pull his face from his hands, turn to Felix. Felix looked away from him, shifting his gaze to the wooden altar above the fireplace, ten small wooden carved figures placed there for easy access to give thanks to each god. Seiros, notably, was not among them, but he figured it was only right to keep a goddess of war out of an orphanage. “He’s a smart man. He knows what situation he’s in, and he wants your success. If he doesn’t want to be a kept secret, he won’t agree to it. But he will. And you would too. Just propose, and let him worry about whether or not he’ll reject you. You’re both harsher judges of yourselves than each other, after all.”

When Felix glanced back at him, Dimitri’s face was blank with shock. Felix looked away again quickly, cheeks going pink. The fire crackled in front of them, the flames making shadows on the walls.

“I…thank you. Thank you, Felix,” Dimitri said, voice low and hard to read.

“I’m only telling you the truth,” Felix replied, embarrassed. He pulled his legs up to his chest in his armchair, wrapping his arms around his shins.

Quiet fell around them again. Felix ran his eyes over each of the figures on the mantle, rhythmic, to keep himself occupied. He had too many thoughts running through his head.

“If I can return the favor of being an outside observer,” Dimitri said quietly, tentative. He paused, like he was waiting for permission. The way you approach a dog who’s been known to bite. Saints, he needed to get some sleep soon. Felix turned to him, gave a slight nod.

“I think you and Sylvain both miss each other.”

Felix’s mouth dropped slightly in surprise, pulse quickening, feeling an all-over blush coming on. “What?” He asked softly.

Dimitri shook his head. “I don’t know what happened with you two, exactly, and maybe there’s a reason you’ve split ways, but —”

“How did you know?” Felix asked.

Dimitri frowned slightly. “Even before the war, I suspected you two were…complicated. But while we were at Garreg Mach last year, I figured you were involved in some way. You’re both guarded people, I felt no reason to pry. There was certainly enough else going on.”

It was a shock, that anyone could read him and Sylvain so clearly. He blinked a few times, thinking that over, before he remembered that Ingrid did much of the same. As if they could keep secrets from each other. Felix let out a humorless laugh, running a hand back through his hair. “Okay,” he replied simply. What was there to do besides accept it?

“You’re happier when you’re with him,” Dimitri said, voice quiet.

And that, after a day tangled under a web of grief and shame, sadness threatening to settle in his chest, was what finally made his eyes well up. He looked away, glanced at the bright light of the fire, then up at the mantle again, darting his eyes along the wall until he could blink back the threat of tears.

Even after Felix brushed him off with a quick acknowledgement, after they had eventually put the fire out and gone to sleep, Felix had to think about every word Dimitri said.

And now his mother. Were they trying to form a union?

Felix rested his elbows on the wooden table of the library, putting his face in his hands. Yes, he was lonely. Yes, he missed Sylvain. But Sylvain had more to lose in this situation. There were expectations placed on him, a life planned. It had been a year and a half since the end of the war, since the last time Sylvain seemed to want anything besides friendship. And goddamn it, he still loved him too much to be friends.

He thought of Sylvain in Gautier Manor, alone for the winter. Was he lonely too? Was he lonely for Felix?

The snow fell outside the window. Another month of gray skies and long nights before spring could even hope to break through, and then the year would be ending. Four more months and it would be the two year anniversary of the Battle of Enbarr. Time kept passing, and sometimes Felix felt mired in it, standing perfectly still.

If one thing was certain, it was that nothing ever stayed the same. So this would end sometime, wouldn’t it? The lonesome creaking of his heart? He sighed, tired of feeling sorry for himself. Maybe in the spring, he’d find it in himself to come alive again.

Chapter Text

Felix,

I’ve sent the quickest word I can. Dimitri just received a report that Sylvain was brought back to Gautier Manor injured late last night. Not sure of the cause yet, but it was an emergency situation from the sound of the report. I wanted to let you know as soon as I could. Dimitri will send an update when he receives one later today.

With love,

Ingrid

Felix looked up at the messenger being escorted by a guard, who gave him a bow before turning to leave. He heard his heartbeat loud in his chest, mind still churning to parse this information. Without thinking, he pushed himself forward, past the messenger and guard, walking out of the room with quick purposeful steps.

It was a single-minded urgency that kept him pressing onward, down the curving stone stairs to the ground floor of the keep, heading toward the western gates, toward the stables. In his path, he ran across a page he knew, and stopped in front of her.

“Liliana,” he said, “Could you do me a favor? Give this to my mother, and let her know I’m traveling to Gautier.”

She seemed surprised at the task, but nodded at him, accepting the letter. “Safe travels, Mister Fraldarius.”

He was surprised he had the poise to ask it at all, as frantic as he felt at the moment. He could feel his pulse jumping in his skin, a cold grip of fear in his stomach. He rushed on, feet moving as quickly as he could manage toward a horse. A pegasus would be faster, but he didn’t know the way by air like he did by horse, and one of the faster horses could get him there by nightfall.

He tightened a saddle onto a large black stallion with anxious fingers. He had ridden the horse before, but it was so tall and wide that the ride was always slightly uncomfortable for someone Felix’s size. He didn’t care about comfort now, though. He had to move.

His mind was empty of anything besides worry and the way he begged the universe at large to let him go faster. He rode for hours, stopping only briefly to let the horse rest under the warm sun (though the further north he went, the cooler the already-temperate summer air became.) He took every shortcut he could, moving relentlessly until the sun began to fall and Gautier Manor was finally visible on the horizon.

When the guards recognized him, they let him through the gatehouse, rushed to help him off of the horse and take his reins. “I’m here to see Sylvain Gautier,” he said, feeling breathless after the last push of riding to get him here. His muscles burned from holding position on horseback for so long, but he barely felt it.

Whether it was the fierceness of his tone or his reputation for stubborn persistence, it didn’t take much more to be ushered into the manor, toward where Sylvain was being treated by a physician. Felix was tensed, prepared for the worst, which wasn’t hard to do when he had seen Sylvain in so many states of injury. If he had stayed home, he would have received Ingrid’s update by now, with any information on Sylvain’s actual condition. But how could he have waited?

By the time he was finally led into the room, dim with candlelight and the faint glow of healing magic, he was so ready to see Sylvain at the verge of death that it was almost surprising for him to simply be lying in bed, weak-looking but awake. Not bloodied, not missing any vital part — just tired. His own surprise, though, was dwarfed by the shock on Sylvain’s face when he saw him.

“Felix,” he breathed, and the mage who was sitting at his side, hands glowing a pale blue as they pressed into the exposed skin of his torso, turned around in surprise. His magic went dark.

And…oh. Felix had been so focused on getting here, he hadn’t considered what he was going to do now. “Hello,” he said, feeling a little foolish. “Sorry to…interrupt.”

The mage, dressed in the white robes of a bishop, shook his head. “I was just finishing. Mister Gautier, I will return in the morning. Get plenty of rest.”

Sylvain didn’t respond, sat staring at Felix with his face slack with shock. “You…did you ride here?”

Felix considered the mess his hair must be, the dirt on his clothes, how quickly a lie would be seen through (his horse was in their stables, after all.) “Yes,” he responded instead. “I…Ingrid sent word that you had come back injured.”

Sylvain nodded. “And you rode here.”

“Yes,” Felix said defensively, tone quiet with embarrassment.

“Well,” Sylvain said with a quiet laugh, sounding exhausted. “It’s nice to see a friendly face, I’ll say that. Sit down, would you?” He gestured to the wooden chair at his side, where the mage had been sitting.

“Are you alright?” Felix asked him, moving uncomfortably to take a seat. Saints, eight hours of riding could take it out of you. The muscles in his legs and stomach had gone stiff from overuse, aching.

“I’ve been better,” Sylvain said through a strained voice, hauling himself up to sit. Felix offered his hand ineffectually, but Sylvain didn’t take it. “But I’ve also been worse. Still, I don’t recommend being stabbed with a poisoned knife. I was lucky to be within a day’s travel to a healer, she said with how deep the stab wound was, if I had gone much longer the poison may not have been curable.” He let out a sigh.

“A poisoned…how did this happen?” Felix asked, eyebrows furrowed. His stomach churned at the thought of it, at the phantom sensation of pain.

Sylvain shrugged weakly. “Oh, you know. How do any assassination attempts happen? With a blade and a dream.”

Goddess, Felix could slap him for sounding so relaxed about this. “Stop being a smartass.”

“I’ve had a long twenty-four hours, alright? I’ll be as much of a smartass as I want,” Sylvain griped at him in return. Felix rolled his eyes, crossing his arms in the chair. When he looked back down at Sylvain, his eyes tracked down his torso, to the place where his shirt was pulled up to expose a stitched-up scar just below his ribs. Even with the healing process kickstarted by magic, it looked nasty, a purple bruise around it.

“Saints,” Felix muttered involuntarily, overwhelmed.

“Don’t gawk,” Sylvain complained. He pulled his shirt down to cover the wound. “You’ll get a kick out of this,” He said, lying his head back against the bed. “They only did it because they thought I was my father. Yelled his name as they ran up to me. I think I should start to worry about my looks, if I’m being mistaken for that man. You don’t think they’re fading, do you?”

Felix put his head in his hands with a sigh. “You almost died,” he said quietly into his hands. “And you want me to tell you you’re pretty?”

“Almost is a highly relative term,” Sylvain argued.

Felix dragged his hands across his temples, then back through his mussed hair. “You’re the picture of beauty,” he said scathingly. “What happened?”

Another sigh from Sylvain. “It was a man with a grudge, a complete rogue. He didn’t seem to know that the Margrave’s son was in Sreng, or that I had been for a year. He just wanted my father dead. The feeling is mutual between them, you can imagine, but he was caught and imprisoned in Sreng, and I’m not letting my father interfere.”

“And he’s allowing that?” Felix asked.

“Times have changed. I have strength and ability that he doesn’t, and he’s a man who has always relied on fear tactics for obedience. Simply put, he’s more afraid of me these days than I am of him.” Felix could see the true tiredness on Sylvain’s face, his bravado slipping away as he said it. “So yes. He’ll let that man sit in Sreng instead of making some kind of example of him, and my work will continue.”

Felix often found himself wondering if being in this house made Sylvain feel like a child again, trapped. From the sound of it, he’d taken more control than Felix knew. Still, was that any better of a feeling, being your own father’s warden?

“You aren’t worried about this happening again?” Felix asked.

“I’ve formed good relationships with at least four of the clan leaders. I can either show I still trust them despite this, or I can leave and lose that progress.” Sylvain shrugged, wincing as he did. “That’s the diplomatic answer. My personal answer is that I won’t let one angry man ruin two years of work. I can’t exactly blame him for wanting my father dead, after his buddies swooped in, beat them into submission and then handed off the territory to my father.”

Felix nodded, looking down at his hands in his lap. “I see,” he said quietly, not disagreeing with the logic. The pulse of fear that had been loud in his chest since he received Ingrid’s letter that morning was starting to dissipate. Sylvain’s eyes slipped closed, and Felix didn’t say anything. He should sleep.

“Felix,” he said softly, his eyes still closed. “Why are you here?”

Felix blinked, surprised. “I…” he started, trailing off. “I was worried.”

Sylvain gave a soft hum, but said nothing else. Felix didn’t know quite what to make of it, but he was relieved to not have to explain himself further. When enough time passed that Felix wondered if Sylvain really had fallen asleep, Sylvain broke the silence again and said, “The servants have all gone to bed, and I don’t think you want to wake them. You can sleep in my chambers. Put on some clean clothes, too, you smell like you’ve been horseback riding in the sun all day.” He smiled to himself as he said it, small and tired.

“Nothing can stop the humor of Sylvain Gautier, not even attempted murder,” Felix muttered in response, earning a tiny breathy laugh from Sylvain. “Get some sleep.”

“Trying to,” Sylvain replied. “But there’s a madman in the physician’s room keeping me awake. He says he’s too stupid to wait for a missive on my condition and needed to ride across the country to get it himself.”

“Really, Sylvain?” Felix complained at the remark, derisive, cheeks going warm as he stood to leave.

“Stop arguing before I start mocking you viciously.” Sylvain’s eyes were still closed, an amused expression on his face. “And put out the candle, please. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Felix made his way slowly through Gautier Manor on the path he (mostly) remembered leading to Sylvain’s chambers on the other end of the manor grounds. He felt like a schoolchild snuck out of bed, the silence of the manor heavy and eerie. His footsteps were quiet and fast, hoping to avoid at all costs running into Margrave Gautier. He was relieved when he made it to the familiar enough doors of Sylvain’s bedchambers, but when he entered, he realized again that he was too focused on the journey to think ahead to the destination.

He hadn’t been in this room since he was twelve, and it was strange to be here again. There was still the same four-poster bed, heavy velvet curtains drawn back on either side; Felix remembered being young and thinking it looked stately, his own bed simpler. Before he could get mired in memory, he walked over to a basin of lukewarm water no doubt prepared for Sylvain when it was hot, and gave himself a cursory wash. If he was sleeping in Sylvain’s bed, he wasn’t sleeping in it in his current state. It was perfumed with honeysuckle, a smell that permeated the grounds of this castle in the summer, and it was so violently nostalgic that it frightened him for a moment.

He untied his hair, dried himself off and found sleep clothes to borrow, hanging slightly large on him, and finally allowed himself more than a cursory glance around the room. It was neat, a combined product of his recent absence and Sylvain’s usual tidiness, but his writing desk was in quiet disarray. In a moment of weakness, he walked over and glanced at the papers strewn across it. There was a book open to a complicated pattern of note-keeping that may only make sense to Sylvain, little tick marks under illegible headings, and a pile of what looked like historical accounts spread next to it. On the front of the desk, swiped to the side, a half-finished letter sat next to an abandoned quill and ink well.

His eyes scanned across it without much interest, but when his mind caught up with him, he realized the top line read My Dearest Darling Dorothea. He furrowed his eyebrows, feeling a strange drop in his stomach. He shouldn’t read it. He really shouldn’t read it. He had to read it.

I do promise to you that I will make it back to Enbarr someday. I’ve never even seen you perform properly, and that’s a damn shame. I know you must be great up there.

Regarding your question, I think it bears reminding you: you are a beautiful, intelligent, perfectly lovely woman. Who wouldn’t be thrilled to learn of your feelings? You should tell

The letter cut off. Felix closed his eyes, feeling embarrassed for looking and embarrassed for letting it break his heart a little. Stupid. He lived through many years of Sylvain flirting with women, being charming and convincing, earning kisses and dates and nights snuck out. Why was this any different? Who knew what he was even replying to, or if this was genuine. He ran a hand through his hair and gave a long, drawn-out groan. He needed to rest.

(Felix was certain that sleep would prove difficult until he climbed into the bed and realized just how tired the ride had made him. That was certainly the reason he fell asleep so easily; he was sure it had nothing to do with the way the bed smelled like Sylvain.)

The first thing Felix was aware of when he woke up was the ache of the muscles in his legs and his back. The second thing, though, which violently unseated the first, was that there was someone next to him in bed. His eyes shot open, his body moving away abruptly on instinct, and he was on the other side of the bed before he could even process what was happening. And then, cruelly, he was reminded of his first thought as he registered the soreness in his body at the motion.

On the other side of the bed, Sylvain winced as he opened his eyes. “Ow,” he complained, bringing a hand to his side.

Felix tried to push through the tired confusion in his mind. “What? Why are you…?” And then, processing the pain in Sylvain’s face, he said, “Shit. Sorry.”

“I really don’t recommend Sreng poison. They have a whole other recipe over there,” Sylvain said through a pained voice, hand pressed to the wound in his side. He was dressed, simply and loosely but not in the sleep clothes he had been in last night. Felix blinked at him with sleep-heavy eyes, still not understanding why he was here, or what time it was.

“I woke up earlier and got up to take a walk, but I got dizzy and too tired to make it back. I only meant to lie down for a moment.” He let himself fall back into the bed, body heavy, and closed his eyes. “In my defense, you were curled up all the way over there when I laid down over here.”

Felix looked over, realized how close Sylvain was to the edge he first laid down on, how far Felix must have moved in his sleep. He shooed that thought away. “And who told you that you could get up and walk across the grounds? Last I heard, a physician told you to sleep.”

Sylvain groaned. “Did you ride all the way here just to nag me?”

“I should have. You’ve always needed some nagging to actually follow directions,” Felix groused in return, making a face at him even if he couldn’t see it.

“Oh, shut the hell up,” Sylvain complained, no heat in his voice but enough finality that Felix let him have the last word. A moment of quiet passed, and then Felix asked, “Do you want me to get the physician?”

“Yes,” Sylvain admitted, sounding reluctant.

Felix thought it was very mature of him to not make a satisfied noise in triumph before he tied his hair up loosely, ignoring his embarrassment at walking out of Sylvain’s bedchambers in his pajamas to focus on his mission of finding a servant nearby.

When he made his way back after successfully locating an older woman who he remembered meeting as a child (and who remembered him in turn, embarrassingly) and asking her to let the physician know Sylvain needed him, Sylvain was sitting up in bed, head tipped back and eyes closed.

“Are you alright?” Felix asked when he saw him.

“Yeah,” Sylvain answered. “Just lightheaded.”

“Follow doctor’s orders next time,” Felix said in a gentler tone of voice than the one he used earlier.

Sylvain sighed. “Are you leaving today?” He asked. It caught Felix off-guard. He hadn’t even gotten that far yet.

“Do…you want me to?” Felix asked, confused at the change in topic.

Sylvain furrowed his eyebrows, eyes still closed. “If you’re not, then I should have a room made up for you and your clothes washed, that’s all.”

The thought of getting back on the horse and riding home, sore as he was, did not appeal to him. He could do it, but he wanted to wince just thinking of the bruises he’d get on his legs from pushing himself again.

“If you want me to stay, I will,” Felix said quietly.

Sylvain opened his eyes, turned his head slightly in Felix’s direction, and after a moment he gave an amused little huff. “I bet you’re hurting, huh? From the ride here?”

“That’s not — if you’d rather I go, I’ll go!” Felix argued, cheeks warm with embarrassment.

“I don’t want you to go,” Sylvain said simply, sounding unbothered, which only made Felix more flustered.

“Then I won’t,” Felix replied. He crossed his arms, turning toward a window in Sylvain’s bedroom.

“Wonderful,” Sylvain intoned.

Felix was on the verge of saying something in return, but there was a knock at the door, and it startled him into remembering that they were, in fact, expecting someone. And he was still standing here in his sleep clothes.

“Come in,” Sylvain called.

“I’m getting dressed,” Felix muttered, walking over behind the screen surrounding Sylvain’s wardrobe.

“No, I think you look sweet, like a little ghost haunting the manor,” Sylvain argued in a teasing voice as the physician walked into the room.

“Mister Gautier, you really shouldn’t have —”

“I know, I know,” Sylvain interrupted, sounding tired. “Don’t worry, I’ve been scolded plenty already.”

The physician gave a quiet chuckle. Sylvain could charm anyone, couldn’t he? Felix gave a quick glance through his drawers of clothing before grabbing a loose pair of linen trousers and a tunic that looked too small for Sylvain, changing his clothes quickly. When he stepped back out from behind the screen, he saw the mage sitting at Sylvain’s side, hands glowing against his skin. The knit of discomfort between Sylvain’s eyebrows had dissipated, looking relieved at the feeling, and that was somewhat comforting, at least.

“You just planning to hover over me all day, Fraldarius?”

It broke Felix out of his preoccupation. “No,” he said, shaking his head vaguely. “I should write home. And to Ingrid.”

“Give them my love,” Sylvain replied, voice thin and weak enough to worry him. In all the states Felix had ever seen Sylvain in, this was the most concerning. “And stop looking at me like that. Tell him I’m going to live, would you?” He aimed the last remark at the physician, who chuckled again.

“Yes, you’ll live, if you let yourself rest enough to heal. That means at least a week’s bedrest. And bedrest means the furthest journey you should take is to the gardens and back.”

Sylvain sighed. “Okay, that was more depressing than I thought it would be.”

“Learn to sit still or die trying,” Felix said with a roll of his eyes. The physician laughed at him, then, and Felix enjoyed the sour look on Sylvain’s face.

“I think he would be a good influence on your recovery,” the mage said, sounding amused.

Sylvain snorted. “You hear that? You’ve been promoted to good influence. I never thought I’d see the day. Ingrid and Dimitri would be so proud.”

“They would,” Felix agreed, displeased at the thought.

He didn’t realize he was still standing there, hesitating, until Sylvain opened his eyes again to look at him and said, “Go. Let someone know you’re staying, they’ll make up a room for you and bring you something to eat. Write your letters, rest your legs. I’ll call for you when I’m up again so you can nag me every second I’m awake.”

“What an honor,” Felix said with a mocking lilt to his voice, but he nodded. “Rest well.”

Amelia, the head of the servants who Felix remembered knowing as a child, told him that she had already gotten a room made up for him after the first time he found her. She said it pleasantly, her round face good-natured, and it was so strange for someone so kindly to work in a manor that felt so gloomy. The stone of the walls was dark, everything built to keep out the cold, so in the summer it all felt heavy and eerily quiet. He always had the feeling here that the Margrave was somewhere just out of sight keeping his eye on Sylvain, though he was sure that wasn’t true now, if it ever had been before. He could tell this was Sylvain’s staff alone, and suspected that he and his father occupied separate halves of these grounds and rarely crossed paths. It made the place feel lonelier.

Ingrid, Dimitri and Felix didn’t spend much time here as children. More often, the four of them were rotated between Fraldarius and Blaiddyd, sometimes Galatea in between the two. It was more likely for Sylvain to need to be away from home to avoid Miklan, or simply want to escape the harsh northern winter. He only remembered being in Gautier around this time of year, honeysuckle blooming on the trees in the garden, air still crisp, never hot, but the sun warm overhead.

He wrote to Ingrid first, intent on giving her (and Dimitri, by extension) a full report of Sylvain’s condition. He was still writing when Amelia brought him something to eat, a dish Felix recognized as one of Sylvain’s favorites.

“All you do is work, you boys,” she said as she set the food down on the small table in the corner of the room. He thought of his own mother saying the same thing, then quickly tried to stop thinking about that.

“I’ll stop soon,” he said to her quietly, feeling tired. “Thank you.”

“I’m glad you’re here, Mister Fraldarius,” she said, gathering herself up to leave the room again. “He hasn’t had a friend here in a long time.”

She couldn’t have known that it would make Felix’s chest ache, so he didn’t begrudge her. He only ate his breakfast and tried to drown out the strange cocktail of emotions swirling around him — guilt, worry, fear, and despite himself, a familiar affection for Sylvain.

How long would he stay here? How long could he stay here before he felt like he was walking headfirst into a fire and letting himself burn?

That afternoon, when Sylvain called for him again, they went to the gardens closest to his chambers. They walked side by side, close enough that it was reminiscent of so many nights spent the same way (and saints, he was sentimental today.) He wanted to sigh, but didn’t want to alert Sylvain to a single thought in his head. At least if they were only his own, he could try to ignore them.

Felix thought he would leave the next day, until he woke to the sound of pouring rain and thunder loud enough to rattle the walls. The rain was moving across his entire path home, he was sure; these summer storms rolled in from the bay, and would turn the entire route back to Fraldarius into wetlands. He ate meals with Sylvain in his bedchambers, the sound of rain hitting the window pattering underneath their conversation. He watched Sylvain jump at the sound of thunder and laughed at him. He looked through the trinkets and woven cloth and tapestries and pieces of carved stone that he brought back from Sreng, listened to Sylvain tell him with genuine enthusiasm about each merchant who sold them, and tried not to think about why he found it so attractive.

The rain kept up all night and into the next morning. Sylvain listened to him talk about Duscur, about the way he carried his father’s guilt on his shoulders so often as they spoke to people who had survived Faerghus’ best attempts at wiping them out. About Dedue, the way his shoulders were lighter when he spoke his native language, a smile coming to him easily. He talked about Ashe, his inn that Felix had visited once more since his first visit, his upbeat determination to introduce people to Duscur food and culture. Sylvain listened; Felix tried not to think about why he found it so attractive.

The rain meant the garden wasn’t worth the visit, so they walked laps around Sylvain’s halls instead, until Felix told him to stop pushing it and get back in bed. Sylvain pretended to argue but let Felix lead him back, obedient. Felix missed, in every moment, the feeling of Sylvain in his hands. Metaphorically, pooled there in his palms, pretending to chafe against Felix’s complaints but staying there anyway, warm. And literally, too, but that was easier to bear, a familiar thorn in his side.

It was so easy to fall back into this, their same old push and pull. Before their last six months at Garreg Mach, maybe it would have just felt like settling back into friendship. But something had shifted in them, inexorably, in those last months. Too many nights spent in the same bed, too much of each other given away. Next month would be the two year anniversary of the end of the war, two years since Sylvain last touched him soft and gentle, with something other than friendship on his mind. But sitting in Sylvain’s bedchambers in the firelight, Felix felt the same way he remembered feeling when they walked through the monastery grounds; something in him wanted to reach out and touch, and something else held him back. His mind tried to urge his hand forward, but his body wouldn’t allow it.

He would leave soon. Maybe not tomorrow, but the day after, assuming the rain was done and the path home had gone dry. And if he would just reach out and grab Sylvain’s hand, at least he would have something like closure. Rejection. Maybe — he tried not to consider the possibility — even reciprocation, by some strange, unlikely circumstance. More likely rejection, but then he would know, wouldn’t he? Then he could let his heart break and mend, instead of sitting cracked and fractured, clumsily tied together in his chest over a boyhood infatuation that the two of them had let sit and fester for years.

But just like in the quiet grounds of the monastery, when he would stare down at Sylvain’s hand and find himself unable to reach forward and touch him, he was locked up. It felt like an uncrossable distance, all the empty space between the two of them. And for all his overthinking, the loud buzz of want in his mind that he couldn’t find a way to quiet, Sylvain never reached out either.

The night before Felix planned to leave, the skies gone blue and sunny again for almost two days, he had a terrible dream of waking up on a bright, calm morning against Sylvain’s skin. He dreamt of the warmth of his bare chest, the rhythm of another person against Felix’s ear. Waking up from it felt like stepping outside into the cold of winter without a coat, an all-over gasping sort of chill. He had to go home.

He didn’t wait for Sylvain to call him, just walked from the guest hall to Sylvain’s chambers, dressed in his own clothes again. After five days of borrowed clothes, it was at least comforting to wear pants that fit again, a shirt that billowed only relative to his own frame.

It was a rude thing to do, walking into Sylvain’s bedroom uninvited, but he had done plenty of rude things to Sylvain in his life. This wouldn’t even make the top hundred. It was a swift punishment of his manners, then, to walk in and find Sylvain half-dressed, the physician dressing the much more healed-looking wound on his side.

“Oh,” Felix said stupidly as he walked in, an automatic response by his body that made him feel foolish. He blinked, making a concerted effort not to look down the length of Sylvain’s bare torso.

Sylvain’s eyebrows raised, but he seemed relatively unbothered. “Good morning?” He questioned, hand on his hip. Then he made a face as the physician finished his work before standing up and turning back to look at Felix as well.

“Hello, Mister Fraldarius,” he said pleasantly. He looked back at Sylvain then, and said, “It’s looking much better. I expect it’ll only take you a few more days to feel back to normal. In fact, you’re officially cleared for only a half-day of bedrest for the next few days.”

At that, Sylvain let out a sigh of relief, head tipping backward and eyes closing, and Felix took the chance to look him over. the scatter of freckles on his chest, the soft outline of muscles still visible even under two years’ worth of obvious rest, a softness to him that didn’t used to be there. Stupid. He should be training more, it wasn’t like he was out of harm’s way — look at what happened to him last. Good to know he was still neglecting basic —

“Felix?” Sylvain asked, and Felix’s eyes snapped back up to Sylvain’s face as he felt a warm flush crawled up his neck, across his cheeks to his ears.

“Good morning,” Felix said finally, ignoring the desire to sink into the floor. (Was the physician laughing under his breath? Screw him.) “I’m going home today. I should leave before the sun gets much higher, so I just…” he trailed off, the force of his own embarrassment making it difficult to move forward. “Wanted to let you know,” he finished after a short pause.

For his part, Sylvain just gave him a friendly smile. Worrying. “Do you think I’m cleared, medically, to walk to the stables and back?” He asked the physician.

“Only if Mister Fraldarius can convince you not to do anything else for the rest of the day,” he said lightly.

“He can convince me of most things,” Sylvain said, looking back to Felix with a soft smile still on his face, and it was too gentle, too intimate. Felix gave a roll of his eyes as an excuse to look away.

“Good meeting you!” The physician said to Felix on his way out, gathering his white robes about himself. “Safe travels. Sylvain, I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

“Can’t wait,” Sylvain said in a very Sylvain voice, upbeat and sarcastic but with no mocking, like he was making fun of himself more than anything.

“Well,” he said when he turned back to Felix as the door closed. “Let me get dressed and I’ll see you off.” And then he looked Felix over up and down, offered him another small smile. “I forgot that you look nice in your own clothes.”

“And how awful do I look in yours, then?” Felix asked, making a face, not allowing himself to blush at the compliment. It wasn’t like he was wearing anything particularly nice; it was one of his several sets of nearly identical white shirts tucked into fitted black trousers.

“Oh, just terrible,” Sylvain replied with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. “You brat. Can’t you take a compliment?” He walked off behind the screen in front of his wardrobe, and Felix watched him open his drawers in silhouette.

“First of all, historically, no,” Felix replied with a scoff. “Second of all, it was backhanded.”

“It takes a backhanded person to see an insult in a compliment, how about that?” Sylvain lobbed back as he pulled a shirt on.

It was Felix’s turn to roll his eyes then. He crossed his arms, turning his head to the side. He had taken to wearing his hair in a ponytail high at the back of his head lately, and he knew his hair was getting long when he felt it flip against his shoulder with the motion. “Don’t call me a brat,” he said finally.

Sylvain stepped back out from behind the screen. “Sorry, darling,” he said with a charming smile, patting him on the shoulder as he walked past Felix toward the door. He opened it, looking back at Felix and motioning him forward. “Let’s go, your grace.”

Felix leveled him with a glare. “If I ever try to poison you, I hope you know I’ll succeed.”

“You say the sweetest things,” Sylvain said, bringing a hand to rest over his heart with false emotion.

Felix sulked. Sylvain laughed. They walked across the grounds, birds and loud summer bugs making their noise as they made their way toward the stables.

“You know,” Felix started, arms still crossed as they walked. “I could come with you, the next time you went back to Sreng. If you could use a fighter at your side.”

Sylvain looked over at him, pace slowing slightly. “I thought you were busy in Duscur,” he said, turning back to the path ahead and walking at pace again after a moment.

“I’m home for a while,” Felix said. “It was recent news to me, but Dimitri is making the next set of trips himself.”

“I see, so you’re wondering how to fill your time,” Sylvain said.

“No, idiot,” Felix replied. “I think you could use…the protection,” he finished, realizing as he said it what he was saying. His underlying hypocrisy.

Sylvain didn’t comment on it. Instead, he said, “To get this straight, you’re worried about me, but you think having an additional person in my traveling party who looks like and has inherited the title of a historical conqueror will calm things down.”

Was he really so self-centered as to forget? All his time in Duscur had pushed the fact that Rodrigue and Lambert took Sreng further from top of mind. He faltered. “I…right.”

“You’re already treading through enough of your father’s mistakes as-is,” Sylvain said, voice quieter. “You don’t need another avenue, I don’t think.”

Felix sighed. Sylvain was right, of course, as he had such a terrible habit of being. “This could happen again, Sylvain. This could make someone else bolder, someone who doesn’t care that you aren’t your father.”

“You know that I know that.”

They both slowed, the stables visible in the distance, and faced each other instead. Sylvain looked earnest, and Felix hated that. “I’ll be fine, Felix. I know the risks, and I’ll manage them. I’m not a total idiot, you know.”

“No,” Felix said with another small sigh. “You’re too smart for your own good, actually.”

“I made you a promise, didn’t I? I don’t intend on breaking it.” His voice was soft.

Felix turned back to the stables, walking forward again. “And did you intend on being stabbed?”

“I orchestrated the whole thing, actually, that’s the crazy part,” Sylvain replied sarcastically, following suit and walking in step with him.

Felix snorted. Sylvain smiled at his own joke. Their hands almost touched between them as they walked through the stable gates, asked a stablehand to bring out Felix’s horse.

“Does this horse have a name? I think they deserve a name, after what you’ve put them through,” Sylvain said, voice pleasant.

“Not that I know of,” Felix answered.

“That’s a shame. Get thinking, I expect him to have a name by the time you’re home. I look forward to hearing it.” Sylvain smiled at him, and Felix have a short laugh in return, amused at the sincerity of it.

“I’m no good at coming up with names. Even the cats I fed at the monastery never had names.”

“Try hard, then,” Sylvain offered, sounding upbeat. Felix rolled his eyes again, but good-naturedly.

There was a beat of quiet. “Thank you for coming,” Sylvain said, voice softer and more genuine. “I missed you, you know.”

“We’re always saying that to each other,” Felix muttered. He regretted it as he did; it brought to mind too many overlapping memories, too many quiet moments.

“Well,” Sylvain replied. “Someday we’ll have to stop splitting apart.”

He stepped forward, then, and wrapped Felix in a hug. And Felix watched him do it, saw the lead-up to the motion, but it still took him by surprise. It was a good feeling to remember, even if he didn’t want it to be. It was a release in the tension in his shoulders, it was every brushed hand and averted gaze that he had been willing himself to connect for five days. It was the foolish bone-deep instinct to relax in Sylvain’s touch. It was embarrassing. He brought his own arms loosely at Sylvain’s back and let his head lean forward against his shoulder.

Above him, Sylvain leaned forward and pressed a small kiss to the top of Felix’s head. The sort of thing he’d seen Sylvain do to Ingrid before, short and chaste, more caring than intimate. Despite that, it lit him up from the inside, a lantern illuminated in the dark hollow of his chest and shining through him.

“Stay safe, Sylvain,” Felix said, closing his eyes for a moment. He forgot that this felt so good.

“You do too,” Sylvain replied. The feeling of his voice vibrating above and against Felix was too much. He was reminded suddenly, violently, of his dream this morning.

He stepped back out of Sylvain’s grip. “You better take the short way back and rest for the day,” he said firmly, brushing past the gentleness of the moment now that it felt too raw against his skin.

“Of course, of course,” Sylvain agreed, sounding harangued.

The stablehand was walking toward them with Felix’s horse, tall and muscular. “Saints, you can ride that thing?” Sylvain asked. He scoffed. “No wonder you were sore.”

Felix blinked at him, the innuendo hanging in the air, and when Sylvain realized he just looked back blankly, like he had surprised himself with it. When he opened his mouth to say something, maybe to make a joke in earnest, Felix just shook his head. “No,” he said, and Sylvain seemed to accept that, nodding.

Felix reached behind himself and tightened his ponytail before reaching up to the saddle and pulling himself with only a little difficulty onto the horse. “Finish recovering well,” he said, looking down at Sylvain from his new height. “Every time you try to do something you shouldn’t, picture me in the corner about to throw something at you.”

“That’s powerful,” Sylvain said seriously. It earned a small laugh out of Felix. “Have a safe journey home.” He patted the hind of Felix’s horse, encouraging him forward, and the horse started into a walk.

With messy hair, a week’s worth of a beard grown into his face and his simple clothes, for a moment Sylvain looked more like a stablehand himself than a noble heir with diplomatic duties. Felix looked back at him, the way he was bright in the morning sun, and felt something warm and awful in his heart, a wrenching reminder that he was still in love.

He turned back, facing ahead, and with a dazed mind, he wondered if it was really closure he wanted after all. Or if it was just the feeling of Sylvain’s hand on his own.

Dearest Felix,

I’m writing this just after you departed from Gautier. I have a long day of rest ahead of me, so I thought I would spend some of my time getting this ready and waiting for you when you arrive home.

Eager to learn - what name did you decide on for the horse?

I hope you were comfortable enough in your time here. From what I’ve heard, the house is alight with gossip about you. I’m sure that will thrill you. You have charmed the servants with your mysterious good looks and lack of charisma.

I have spent much time alone here in my life, but I always notice it most after someone leaves. I hope to recover soon enough so I can make my way back to the north. I’m actually quite fond of the friends I have made in Sreng. Truth be told, I would have liked you to come along, as potentially unwise as it is.

One day, too, I would like to make it to Duscur. It’s strange, I always thought I would have an abundance of time on my hands once we finished the fighting, but I suppose that was a lack of experience with duty speaking. Or maybe I thought I could avoid it all - I’m usually good at things like that.

I have so many friends across the map of this country, and never enough time to write, let alone see them. I suppose that’s one way to spend the rest of my time on bedrest. I’d like to write to Ashe, hearing you speak of him made me remember my fondness for him. Mercedes, too. Last I heard, she was working in Garreg Mach as a cleric. Doesn’t that sound like her? I hope she scares the children senseless with ghost stories. Dorothea Arnault is performing opera again in Enbarr. Have you heard from Annette? She always cared more for you than she did me, so please tell me how she’s been.

I’m in a nostalgic mood, it seems. Sorry if it catches you by surprise. What can I say, you’ve made me wistful. I foolishly hope to see you again soon, though I know that’s proven difficult. I missed You looked I enjoyed having you here, despite the circumstances.

All my love,

Sylvain

Sylvain,

I hope you’re still at home when this reaches you. I came back to a mess of letters from minor lords in the west working themselves up over idiotic concerns and lost track of time in replying.

I did think of a name for the horse, but I’m not certain it’s a very good name for a horse. I told you, I am bad at these things. I think he would suit the name Oak, though. Thoughts?

What is there to gossip about me? I am a very uninteresting man, ultimately. Is everyone who walks through the doors of that manor subject to rumor? If so I think you only have your own behavior to blame. I did no charming - as you have pointed out, I lack all possible appeal.

Besides my selfish reasons for suggesting I accompany you, I would enjoy seeing Sreng. Two years in and out of Duscur has taught me that Fódlan prospered for many years by painting the outside world as cruel and foreign, until they could take parts of it for themselves. I hope you are right, that we can build something better than our fathers could. Every day I get older, closer to their supposed wisdom, and resent their choices more.

You said you were wistful - I must be feeling cynical. I think our work helps me feel optimistic about our chances of righting some of their wrongs, but then I return home and speak to the fools sitting in power in my own neighborhood and I’m reminded that our work is only the first brick in a new building. It’s a good thing I’ve always been predisposed to enjoy arguing. I have much of it to do.

Regarding friends, you have always been better at tending to them than I have. Though yes, I do speak with Annette every once in a while. She’s teaching in Fhirdiad, at the sorcery school, though currently I think she is only apprenticing. She will do well there, I think. Goddess knows she always preferred a classroom to much else. I did see Mercedes last I was at Garreg Mach, very briefly, and she seemed well. To be frank, it’s strange for them to be apart, isn’t it? Though it’s none of my business.

If you can’t tell from how much I have written, I have found it strange, having so much time at home. It’s even hard to spend much time in the training grounds - the knights aren’t skilled enough to spar with, and they treat me much like I once saw knights treat Dimitri, with foolish reverence for my station. Am I too much a Duke to be a fighter any longer? I’ll begin to lose my quickness soon. Maybe this winter I will travel to Blaiddyd just to have Ingrid as a worthy match, though she’s busy with her own knights.

If you haven’t left for Sreng yet, I look forward to your reply. If you have, I look forward to your reply next month. I will repeat it again in the hopes the universe will listen: stay safe.

Felix

P.S. Isn’t it foolish for a man like you to sign a letter with “all my love”? Surely you are in need of some of it, as much as you throw it around. Be more frugal in the future.

My most beloved Felix, whom I cherish with all I have,

It seems we are ships passing once again. Well, I am a ship anyway, since I’m the only one moving for now. Sreng was uneventful! Thank goodness for that. I earned many a free drink for the accomplishment of refusing to die. I hope any future assassins take note that much like a cockroach, I am difficult to kill, and make the process very annoying for everyone involved.

I will address a few points of your previous letter quickly: first of all, I did clearly outline your appeal, which is that you are terribly handsome. Haven’t you observed from my own pursuits that this makes up for much fault in one’s personality? You are also, from my own eavesdropping of the servants, shorter than anyone expected you to be. The intrigue was abound.

Oak is a fine name for a horse. In fact, I think you are lying about your capabilities. I am certain there are some farm cats you are fond of wandering the Fraldarius grounds - please give them some names. It’s a matter of respect at this point.

With my well-honed senses, I detected a bit of gossip in your last letter. I am equal parts shocked and thrilled. Please write at length about your beliefs on Mercedes and Annette’s splitting of ways in your next letter, I believe it will lift my spirits tremendously. They are not particularly low, but think of how happy I will be once I receive this information.

In regard to your post-script, you are of course mistaken. I am a fountain of love to give, never running out. I am also a liar. I constantly hand out all my love, left and right. But to maintain my sincerity I will go to greater lengths going forward to convince you that I am capable of giving so much, and that in fact I can manage to be even more effusive.

Now, onto your more dour subjects. Sorry to hear you are back in your natural brooding habitat. I joke, of course, because I am sure I would be brooding in your position as well. I believe you are still more fighter than Duke, and I believe that makes you a good Duke. I also believe that you will never lose your quickness. It is something fundamental to you - your mind moves quickly just as your body does.

I am sorry you have to do so much of it, but at least you are terribly skilled at arguing with old men. You make them so angry - I actually miss seeing it. I look forward to the next noble council this winter, I expect you to have a lot of pent-up energy. Maybe you’ll even get to draw blood.

At the risk of sounding self-important, I do believe we are doing good work in our respective missions. Dimitri is lucky to have you at his side. I think your time in Duscur accomplished much that may have been difficult for him. I told you once that he would need you, and I think I was right. He needs you to fight with the old men too, of course. A King shouldn’t be hated in court, but a Duke certainly can be.

The building is slow, but if we move brick by brick, we will find ourselves with a structure one day. Have faith. Our fathers never lived in a world where they had to fight to survive - that was all done much before their time, and they received the benefits of a world view unaltered, with more power than sense. I hope we are different in that regard.

If you write back quick enough, you’ll catch me at home. I know this is a thrilling goal, please work hard to achieve it.

With love overflowing,

Sylvain

Sylvain,

I am glad to hear you arrived and returned without any issue. I suppose drinking yourself stupid is one way to celebrate surviving attempted murder. I never realized that all these years, your pursuit to be so thoroughly annoying was all to dissuade people from trying to kill you. Seems a bit counterintuitive, but of course we are very different people.

If you keep complimenting my appearance I’ll assume you need a favor, or maybe some money. As an aside, fuck you.

I will not gossip with you, I will only say that I always knew Annette and Mercedes to be very close. I believe they are still friends. I was mostly surprised that Annette would strike out on her own. She’s a very smart woman, but I always thought having Mercedes behind her gave her more confidence. However, if Mercedes truly wanted to remain at Garreg Mach, I am glad Annette left. Her father, with all his Goddess-given guilt, had enough of the church for the family. No offense meant to Byleth, but I’m glad Annette is in Fhirdiad instead.

I hope that was enough to make you deliriously happy. You know how concerned I always am about pleasing you, you foolish man. It’s incredible that you can be just as inane via written correspondence as in person. Please save me any further explanation of your love and the status of its flow.

I will admit, though, that you are right about how good I am at angering the tenured members of our court. I think I was born with it in my blood, but with so much training on the job, I believe I am only now truly excelling in the field. In my opinion, I am also winning most of the fights. I suppose if I’m forced to work with them, it’s good to know I can almost always force their hand if I need to.

With all criticism aside, I do appreciate your reassurance. I have missed You have always been my Despite your best efforts, I do trust your judgment. You are right that I provide a weapon in Dimitri’s arsenal, and I most certainly would rather be that than a shield. I believe I am fighting for the right things, and that he is too, but of course, the foolish and the wicked must believe in their own cause as well.

You approach wisdom sometimes, you know. It’s impressive.

I feel foolish remarking on the seasons in letters, but it’s strange to be in autumn once again, winter so close. The last year has passed in a daze. How many more times will you be able to travel to Sreng before the dust storms start?

I’m not sure if my reply will be quick enough to catch you, but I hope it does. I enjoy hearing from you so oft I do miss I look forward to hearing from you.

Felix

Felix,

I was called home from Sreng early with news that my father has fallen ill. You are the first I am telling of this, so please inform Dimitri.

The physicians are still trying to understand what happened or what’s wrong, but in the day I’ve been home, things have gotten worse. He’s very weak, and no one is certain if his condition is going to improve.

I am writing to you out of selfishness, and I am embarrassed to ask, but you are the only person I would. If you find yourself able, I would appreciate your company here. I am very sorry to invite you into a situation so bleak, but I can’t express how much it would mean.

I am sending my quickest messenger with this letter, and I am hoping the situation here stays the same until I can get another letter to Blaiddyd.

Sylvain

When Felix laid eyes on Sylvain, the tired slump of his shoulders and his sallow face, red-rimmed eyes, he knew he had come too late.

He had tried to make haste, but he also tried to form a better thought-out plan than racing across the countryside on horseback. When he received Sylvain’s letter, his reaction was nothing like the frantic panic that urged him north after learning of Sylvain’s injury. Instead, he felt a cold sureness that this was how Margrave Matthias Gautier would die. It was fortunate, at least, that surviving so much loss made you more familiar with the strategy to surviving it. He knew what it was like to have a mind emptied by grief, and knew that Sylvain needed someone who could think right now. So he had to think instead of rushing north. He had to send word to Dimitri, send word to the knights to get him the fastest flying rider who knew the way to Gautier, make sure he arrived prepared.

He had considered the possibility of arriving to a Sylvain already grieving, he had just hoped that he wouldn’t.

Felix walked across the stone floor of the entrance hall with his sights trained on the shape of Sylvain, the sunset in the windows washing him with color like a painting. He dropped his bag as he moved, unconcerned with it, and didn’t stop until he could crash into Sylvain, wrap his arms fiercely around him as if he was expecting Sylvain to protest. He didn’t, of course. He only sagged into Felix’s touch, voice quiet as he said, “You came.”

“Of course I came,” Felix muttered in reply. He wasn’t sure how Sylvain didn’t realize that Felix would always come when he called. That no matter where they stood, no matter how many years it had been since, Sylvain was the only person who could keep him steady when his knees threatened to buckle after his own father died. Of course he came.

Sylvain didn’t say anything for a moment, just leaned against him, heavy. After a moment, he pulled back, and Felix let him go. Sylvain rolled his neck, ran a hand through his hair, and said, “It’s been a long day. Well, it’s been a long few days.” He sighed. “He’s dead.”

Felix nodded, looking down for a moment. For all his thinking, he hadn’t thought of exactly what he would say to this news. I’m sorry seemed out of place, but so did anything else. Instead of offering any platitude, Felix asked, “What can I do?”

“What a question,” Sylvain said, voice hollow. “Probably many things that would be invaluable. Maybe one of his advisors can provide you with a list tomorrow morning, they’ve been circling me like vultures all day, which is odd because I’m not even the one who died.” He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, took a deep inhale as he pulled himself taller, straightening his shoulders. The stress was visible, in all the places it dragged his posture down to the ground, in all the tired lines of his face. “At the moment, though? Not a fucking clue.”

Duke Rodrigue Fraldarius died far away from his duties, while they were already being looked after. When Felix entered Fraldarius Keep after the war, he was given a stack of documents by an advisor who had been tasked with chasing after his uncle for the last set of months, already used to explaining all the parts of the job. It wasn’t like this, his father dead, his staff scrambling to figure out what to do in the meantime. For all his familiarity with grief, Felix had never handled the administrative side of it.

He had handled Sylvain before, though, even stressed. So he stepped forward, brought a hand up to rest on Sylvain’s shoulder. A grounding touch, casual, the kind of thing that Sylvain could do and make look effortless. Felix was sure it didn’t look effortless when he did it, but that didn’t matter right now. “What if I got you a drink?” He asked, hand smoothing against a wrinkle near his collar. “Actually, what if I got you the nicest bottle in your father’s cellar?”

At that, Sylvain offered him something like a smile, breathing out a surprised-sounding laugh. “I’m already glad you’re here,” he said. It had the cadence of a sardonic remark, Felix thought, but it sounded too sincere. He was suddenly aware of the warm point of contact between his palm and Sylvain’s shoulder; if this was any other situation, maybe he’d pull back. But his hand was there because it’s what Sylvain would have done to him, to offer some small comfort, and he wouldn’t take it back now. So he let it lie, let himself feel the warmth unflinchingly. He could take it for a little while, if it meant the color came back to Sylvain’s cheeks.

They sat on the floor of Sylvain’s bedchambers, fireplace lit in front of them, as Sylvain uncorked the bottle. It was an aged bottle of mead, with a fine paper label and gilded lettering that claimed it was made from Leicester’s finest honey, and Sylvain was removing the cork haphazardly with Felix’s pocket knife.

“I remember when he got this,” Sylvain said, brow furrowed in concentration as he shimmied the cork out. “About ten years ago. He bragged about it to some visiting lord he was trying to impress, made me come to dinner to behave like I was marriageable. But then he wouldn’t let anyone drink it, because if we drank it then, he couldn’t brag about it to someone else later.” He pulled the cork free, making a small flourishing gesture with it on the end of Felix’s knife. “Fucker. All about appearances. It never failed.”

“And did you behave?” Felix asked him.

“Have I ever?” Sylvain asked in return. Felix gave a small laugh.

Sylvain shook his head. “That man,” he said simply, before he lifted the bottle of mead and drank from it, head tipped back. Why did he always look so good when he did that?

Felix took the bottle when it was offered, took a more measured sip than Sylvain. He didn’t plan to drink enough to feel it, but he didn’t want Sylvain to have to drink alone. It certainly tasted expensive, he’d give it that.

“Saints, today has been awful,” Sylvain said, leaning back to rest his weight on his hands, propping him up against the floor. They were sat on a large fur rug, warm in front of the fire, and the windows on the other side of the room let in that moonlight-snow reflected blue darkness of a winter night in Faerghus; if there were any place in this manor that felt comfortable, tucked away and safe, it was here. Maybe that’s why Felix could see some of the weight coming off of Sylvain’s shoulders already. “I had just sent word to Dimitri, when you arrived. I expect he and Ingrid will be here within a few days. For…the funeral. Fuck.” He shook his head again, reached out to Felix for the bottle again. When he got it, he took a long pull of the mead.

“We have too many of those, the four of us,” Felix commented, pulling his legs up to his chest.

“Hey, the good news is that Dimitri and I are fresh out of family to bury now,” Sylvain said with a grim sort of sarcasm on his face.

“Silver linings, I suppose,” Felix said mildly.

Sylvain took another drink. They sat in the quiet for a few minutes, Sylvain drinking and offering the bottle to Felix occasionally.

Felix was taking a small sip when Sylvain said, “Thank you for coming, Felix.”

It took him by surprise, and he found it difficult to process for a few seconds as he set the bottle back down, extended it back to Sylvain. “You were always there, when it was me,” he said finally, feeling like he was explaining the obvious.

“I hope you didn’t feel indebted to me,” Sylvain said, frowning slightly.

Felix furrowed his eyebrows. “Haven’t we been through this? We look out for each other. It’s not about debt.”

Sylvain thought that over, took another drink of mead. The bottle was half-empty now, and Felix had only had a few sips. Ah, well. If there was ever an occasion for Sylvain to over-indulge, this may be it. Eventually Sylvain offered him a nod, looking down at the floor for a moment.

“I never imagined that I would have to watch it happen like this,” Sylvain said quietly. “I hate the man, but to see him go out slowly, unhappily. It wasn’t pleasant.”

“No,” Felix agreed. “I’m sure it wasn’t. I’m sorry you had to be there.”

“It was very strange. He held my hand at the end. He hasn’t touched me in years.” Sylvain spoke in short sentences, his voice starting to go a little slow; the alcohol must have been catching up with him. He took another drink, as if to punctuate the thought. “Margrave Sylvain Gautier,” he said then, sounding unimpressed.

“Margrave Sylvain Jose Gautier,” Felix corrected him.

“Right,” Sylvain said. “Thank you, Duke Felix Hugo Fraldarius.”

“I said it nicer than that,” Felix complained, wrinkling his nose.

“I can say it as nice as you want,” Sylvain replied, giving him an exaggerated wink.

“Shut up,” Felix huffed.

Sylvain drank again, then sat up, stretched his arms before moving himself over on the rug, closer to Felix. He leaned over until he could rest his head on Felix’s shoulder, and Felix felt himself go stiff before he could recalibrate the way he was sitting, reach over to rest an arm around his shoulders. This kind of thing came easy to Sylvain, he was always good at doling out this sort of casual affection. Of course he wanted that same comfort in return. And Felix could give him that, with an ease that he could ignore if he told himself it was for Sylvain’s sake.

Sylvain let out a huff of breath, relaxing into Felix’s side. “My head’s a mess.”

“I know,” Felix replied. “Trust me, I know.”

Sylvain nodded, cheek rubbing against the fabric of Felix’s shirt. “You were right. I needed to get drunk.”

Felix reached up to pull gently at a lock of his hair. “I don’t remember saying that, exactly,” he said quietly.

“It still hasn’t sunk in yet,” Sylvain said, voice slurred. “That I’m going to wake up tomorrow and he’ll still be dead.”

“Every day will feel like that for a while,” Felix agreed with a small sigh. “Eventually you stop expecting to see them around corners.” His hand was still near Sylvain’s hair, so he stroked gently at it, and was surprised and slightly embarrassed at the way Sylvain tipped his head back into the touch immediately.

“There’s so many ghosts in this goddamned house.” Sylvain pulled away slightly, took another drink of mead, then settled his head back onto Felix. “I’ve inherited them all.”

“I think you’re harder to haunt than your father was,” Felix said, running his hand through Sylvain’s hair again. “Your heart’s too good. Maybe they’ll all get bored and leave.”

Sylvain gave a small laugh, but it sounded humorless. “Sometimes I think I’m no better than him.”

“Then you’re delusional,” Felix replied firmly. “He was a weak man obsessed with power. He was a greedy coward, and a terrible father, and an asshole. Don’t be stupid.”

“You should repeat that speech at his funeral,” Sylvain said in his slurred voice.

“I’m being serious,” Felix argued, not letting Sylvain drop this. “You are better than anyone here tried to make you, and you’re better in spite of them. No matter what small part of him you see in yourself, you’re wrong. You’ll always be better than him.”

Sylvain didn’t argue with that, but he did turn his head, and Felix felt a wetness against his shirt. He brought his arm back to rest across Sylvain’s back, squeezing his shoulder in an attempt at something like a hug, and Sylvain let out a shaky breath against Felix’s collar. They didn’t slot together well like this, Sylvain broad and at an odd angle, but Felix still wasn’t expecting it when Sylvain turned his body, curled into him like a kid.

“What if I’m not?” Sylvain asked, voice muffled against Felix’s shirt. “What if I keep getting older and more selfish? What if it turns out I was never any different from him, I just knew how to lie?” He was crying still, softly enough, but it was the most outwardly emotional Felix had maybe ever seen him. He was always so good at keeping his lid screwed on tight — is this what he was trying to keep down?

“Sylvain,” Felix said softly. He wrapped both his arms around Sylvain as much as he was able to. “If you want, I can tell you that’s not true. I think I know you pretty well, and I think I’m too smart for you to have tricked me, however you think you’ve tricked everyone who loves you. But that won’t help, because you’re stubborn. So instead I’ll just say that you’re drunk. You’re drunk and you watched your father die today. I know well enough that it’s hard to have perspective on all of this, but I also know it’ll pass, eventually.”

A sniffle from Sylvain, but no dissent. Felix rubbed his back, hands moving on their own in some mimicry of comfort, like his body could tell he needed it to run on autopilot for him to pull this off successfully.

“And I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’ll still be here, when it does,” he continued quietly. “Do you really think I would like you, if you were anything like your father? Do you really think you’re so good at lying that you could lie like that for this long? To me?”

“No,” Sylvain admitted, voice tiny and muffled.

“So trust me, then, if you can’t trust yourself,” Felix said with finality, feeling his point had been proven. “You can do this. All of it. And you’ll do it so much better than he ever did.”

Sylvain didn’t say anything else for a while. He just sat there, curled up into Felix as close as he could be, and cried longer and harder than Felix expected. After a lifetime of being on the other end of this dynamic, he wondered if he made Sylvain worry this much, when it was him. Or if Sylvain was just better at being the one who comforted.

Eventually, Sylvain pulled back, looking worse for wear. Felix reached out and brushed back Sylvain’s hair out of his face, accidentally let his hand linger against his cheek for a moment too long before he remembered to pull back.

“I made a mess of you,” Sylvain said, looking down with a wince at Felix’s shirt.

“I remembered to pack this time,” Felix replied with a shrug.

“Will you stay here?” Sylvain asked, the look on his face so puppydog sad that if it were any other situation, Felix might accuse him of faking it. He held back a laugh at the pitiful expression on his face, his eyes red and swollen, lips pouting.

“That was the plan, yes,” Felix agreed.

“No,” Sylvain shook his head, then looked slightly dizzy. He gestured around to his room when he recovered. “Here, I mean. Tonight.”

“Oh,” Felix muttered. He blinked, trying not to think of his own cowardly urge to scramble far away from the big, terrible truth of loving Sylvain. “Yeah. Of course,” he said instead.

Sylvain nodded, taking a big breath, like he was trying to calm himself down. It was helplessly endearing — Felix actually felt palpably helpless against it. And as terrifying as it was, he wanted to hold him steady, run his fingers through his hair, press small kisses to his face until he believed that he was the person Felix knew he was.

He didn’t do that, of course. They were toeing that same line that Felix couldn’t even begin to understand, where they were just old war buddies, childhood friends, until they had to acknowledge the fact that they knew each other better than that. That they were more familiar with each other’s touch than they pretended to be. And for all that Sylvain fancied himself a liar, Felix could play along too. Had been, for years and years, and now wasn’t the time to stop.

“Come on, get ready for bed,” Felix said, picking himself up off the floor to stand. “Busy day tomorrow, I’m sure.”

“Wish it wasn’t,” Sylvain replied with a sigh, but he took Felix’s offered hand to pull himself up, stumbling slightly as he did.

“I’ll do my best to shield you from the unpleasantness, how about that?” Felix asked. He held Sylvain by the elbow as he walked over to his wardrobe, his footsteps staggering. No wonder the mead was so expensive, if it was this strong. He’d be miserable in the morning, which Felix figured would make it easier to do things on his behalf anyway.

Sylvain wrestled his shirt and trousers off with no need for assistance, thankfully, so Felix went about changing his own clothes. When he turned back, reaching up to pull his hair out of its ponytail, Sylvain was looking at him with a dazed expression, blinking like he was surprised to be caught staring. Felix rolled his eyes, grabbing him by the elbow again and steering him toward his bed. “Control yourself,” he muttered, tossing him back gently so he fell sitting onto the bed. He pulled the velvet tie on the curtains hanging around the four-poster bed loose, and the curtain fell in front of Sylvain’s face.

“Hey,” Sylvain protested, and Felix rolled his eyes again. He walked around the bed to the other side of the room, to poke at the dying fire in the fireplace until he was sure it was going out.

“It’s so the sunlight doesn’t kill you in the morning,” Felix said. “You’re welcome.”

“Your hair’s so long,” Sylvain replied, sounding muddled.

“Yes,” Felix replied simply. He tucked it behind his ear as he shuffled around the cooled ashes, waiting for the embers to stop glowing. It was the longest it had ever been, hanging down past his shoulderblades, and there was a curious fascination that had kept him from cutting it much in the last couple years. It was longer now than his brother or father’s hair had ever been, and much more of a nuisance, but he sort of liked the way it looked.

When he was satisfied with the fire, Felix walked around the room and extinguished the lights, before he shuffled into the unoccupied side of Sylvain’s bed. As soon as he laid down, Sylvain weaseled his way over, until he was close enough to rest his head on Felix’s chest. Saints, he was set on breaking Felix’s heart. There was something too overwhelming about Sylvain’s uninhibited need for touch, the sweet way he sought it out like a cat begging for attention. Felix just sighed, bringing a hand up to card through his hair gently.

If he was being honest, something the two of them were usually avoiding, this felt better than he remembered. Sylvain was warm and heavy, soft to the touch, making content little sounds against his chest. It was like something out of one of Felix’s most embarrassing dreams. Or it would be, if there wasn’t a pall of grief hung over the room, only Sylvain’s drunkenness distracting from it. Still. The warmth was nice.

A low groan woke him from sleep, the sound scratching against his mind and pulling him into consciousness. Felix gave a questioning noise in return, eyes still closed, and then he felt Sylvain worm his way between his arms while Felix was lying on his side, huddling in close to his chest. “I drank too much,” Sylvain said in a hoarse voice against his chest, sounding miserable.

“I know,” Felix mumbled in return, still half-asleep. His arm moved to wrap around Sylvain’s back on instinct.

Sylvain let out another groan. “Am I getting old? Why do I feel so awful?”

“You’re twenty-eight,” Felix said, furrowing his eyebrows even with his eyes still closed. “You just drank an entire bottle of fine aged mead by yourself. I think your hangover is in proportion to that.”

“How would you know, you bastard?” Sylvain groused. Felix gave a soft, sleepy laugh.

“I’ll get up soon and talk to your father’s advisors,” Felix said, fighting a yawn as he said it. It must be early morning still, but it was hard to tell with the curtains around the bed pulled. “You can stay in bed sick.”

Another groan then, but it sounded relieved. “Saints above, he’s an angel,” he said, voice still too weak to sell the sarcasm much, but Felix laughed again anyway, and Sylvain did too. And oh, that was a relief to hear. He hadn’t expected the lightness in his chest at the sound. “They’ll be thrilled to see you, I bet.”

“Oh, I bet,” Felix commented mildly. He didn’t think about that, though. He let his mind stay here, with his hand stroking against Sylvain’s upper back, this little space he had carved out where Sylvain could remember he was cared for.

The advisors, of course, hated Felix. He expected this. He hadn’t expected them to greet him with such open disdain, but it didn’t surprise him much.

“Aren’t you the King’s pet?” One of them asked in that voice that political advisors were so good at, where they sounded perfectly pleasant as they said something truly heinous.

Felix only offered him a thin smile in return. He’d heard worse. “Lovely. I expect you’re all gathered to grieve your former careers, with the new Margrave taking his seat. My deepest condolences. Please pass on your bureaucratic concerns, and I’ll catch him up to speed.”

“Is that your role? His assistant?” The same man asked him coolly.

“I knew your father, you know,” another man said, a glare on his face. “He managed to be the King’s concubine. Are you only settling for the new Margrave, then? Or will you have them both?”

It was impressive, to have someone say so many things that offended Felix at once. Still, these men were nothing. They were high-born snakes who had found a well-appointed little hole to live in, and who knew Sylvain wouldn’t tolerate them now that his father was gone. They were lashing out for the sake of their own pride; to give them his anger in return wouldn’t do any good. “Thank you for your well-wishes for the dead,” he said instead of anything else. “It seems that you won’t need to attend the funeral, since you all seem to have accepted Matthias Gautier’s passing with grace. I’ll let the Margrave know. Anything else?”

They didn’t know how to handle him then, which made sense for the staff of an ill-tempered egotist. That made things easier — he could get what he needed.

After the advisors, Felix met with the priests, gave the go-ahead to begin preparing for an appropriately noble and pious funeral. He talked to the cook, asked him to send rice porridge and hot tea up to Sylvain. He walked around Gautier manor with false confidence set in his shoulders, intent to look like he was sure of himself. It invited fewer questions. And for all Sylvain’s talk of ghosts, Felix felt free from that eyes on the back of his neck feeling that this place usually inspired.

By the time Felix made it back to Sylvain’s chambers, it was late afternoon, and the sun was already threatening to go down outside. They were nearly at the beginning of a new dark winter, but it suited this place and its many glowing fireplaces, the heavy stone walls built to keep the cold out. The fire was lit again in his bedchambers, crackling gently, and he found Sylvain sitting at his desk, still wearing his sleep clothes.

“There he is,” Sylvain said, not pausing in his writing as he said it. “Here I am,” Felix replied in turn. He finally let his posture drop, let himself be as small as he was. There were no pretenses to keep up in this room. “Feeling better?”

“Somewhat. But you know I’m no good at doing nothing,” Sylvain said. His quill scratched against paper until he must have finished his thought, when he looked up at Felix and gave a tired-looking grin. “I’ve heard that you’ve been busy.”

“You hear a lot of things,” Felix said. He walked forward until he reached the lounge chair sat under the window on the eastern wall of the room, sat in it heavily. He was tired too, after a day of pretending to be collected. “I asked your father’s advisors to collect their recent notes from meeting with him. I expect they won’t do a very good job at that, seeing as they detest us both, but it’s something. The funeral will be the day after tomorrow, the priests will have more details in the morning but the news has been spread. I spoke with the head of the servants, they can clear out your father’s space of his belongings, if you’d like.”

Sylvain watched him as he spoke, his hair messy, his face wan. “That’s a good idea,” he said quietly.

Felix shrugged, letting his head fall back against the chair, closing his eyes briefly. “I didn’t think you much wanted to sort through his collection of fur coats yourself.”

“I might have, if his taste wasn’t so terrible.”

“Yes, I’m sure the people are looking forward to the change in fashion that your regime will bring,” Felix said dryly, eyes still closed.

The scratching of Sylvain’s quill picked back up. “I heard the advisors left furious,” he commented casually, sounding unbothered.

“Idiots. I know they resent my family, but they do it for such stupid reasons.” He settled into the chair, let himself relax slightly. “Of all the things to begrudge my father for, loving the king is a poor choice.”

“I would agree that Rodrigue had bigger problems than who he was sleeping with, yes,” Sylvain agreed. Felix opened his eyes to make a face at Sylvain, displeased with the word choice. “But for my father…he had some opinions about it, certainly.”

Yes. Felix was aware, had been made aware not long after King Lambert died. He remembered eavesdropping on an argument between Sylvain’s father and his own, full of suspicion over his father using the king to get proximity to power, accusations that with Rufus on the throne, Rodrigue was the one truly controlling things and Gautier had been cut out of any consideration. Matthias Gautier was a jealous man, an insecure man — this was an explanation that made sense to him. It didn’t occur to him that a relationship so flagrantly frowned upon (as all relationships that weren’t for the purpose of breeding were, among the perpetually stupid noble class) would ever be pursued for the sake of emotion.

But for all of his father’s faults, he did have love to give. Felix always knew he loved his mother, but when he learned the exact nature of his father and Lambert’s relationship, it didn’t surprise him much. It must not have surprised his mother much either, for her to be willing to share her husband without much fuss. He loved Dimitri too, like a son. So much made sense after he learned the reason his father was so connected to Blaiddyd, and why Lambert’s death hit him the way it did. And yes, the fact that this relationship was an open secret, that people had many reactions to it, had been brought to his attention many times in the last two years, often just as kindly as they had been with Matthias Gautier’s advisors.

“I know everyone thinks that Fraldarius has the ear of the King,” Felix said, bored with the idea.

“More than the ear,” Sylvain muttered.

Felix made another face. “You know, Dedue once told me that people don’t gossip about me.”

“Dedue wouldn’t even know where to find the good royal gossip. The stuff he’s exposed to is seasons behind,” Sylvain said dismissively, waving his hand. “People gossip about you plenty. It’s just no fun, because you don’t care about what they have to say. But between Rodrigue and Lambert and the way you behave on Dimitri’s behalf in council, yes, you can trust that people suspect the same of you.”

Felix always had an inkling of this, but it still wasn’t pleasant. He frowned. “Do I want to know how I’m characterized in this line of gossip?”

Sylvain seemed to consider. “I think people give a lot of credit to your…” He drifted off, gesturing vaguely with one hand up and down Felix’s body. “Wiles.”

Felix groaned, covering his face with his hands. “I knew I would hate it. Not only do people think we’re involved, they think I’m his whore?”

“Don’t you think it’s projection?” Sylvain asked, sounding amused. “I think if you’re a miserable old nobleman theorizing that the Duke is seducing his way into power, you maybe wish you were the one being seduced by him.”

“I hate that even more,” Felix complained, voice muffled behind his hands. Sylvain laughed.

“I wouldn’t take it personally, though,” Sylvain said. “Everyone in that council gossips about everyone, and usually they have much worse things to say. Let your only crime be seduction.”

“Surely not my only,” Felix said with a snort. “I don’t suffer the delusion I’m particularly popular.”

“You inspire a lot of respect from some people, actually. You’re a smart, skilled warrior, after all, and a smart, skilled man,” Sylvain said simply. “It doesn’t hurt that you’re good-looking.”

Felix looked over at him, but Sylvain was looking down at what he was writing. “I’ve heard enough comments on my good looks, thanks.” Sylvain smiled to himself at that, shook his head.

“Anyway,” he said. “Yes, his advisors are idiots. It’s some small comfort, at least, that they’ve spent the last few days angry as all hell. Thank you, for attending to them. For all of it.”

Felix waved him off. “It’s nothing.”

“Don’t be stupid. Of course it’s not nothing.”

Felix didn’t reply to that, fiddling with a button on his vest, and Sylvain didn’t push it. His quill scratched against paper, the fire crackled, snow fell outside.

“Is your stomach strong enough to handle a real dinner, or should I request some more porridge for you?” Felix asked after a few moments of quiet.

“Oh listen to him, making requests. No, I think I can handle dinner. Are you asking to accompany me?” Sylvain looked up from his writing.

“What else would I do?” Felix asked defensively, crossing his arms

“You’ve been doing my errands all day. Maybe you want a break from the mess,” Sylvain offered. He said it neutrally enough, but Felix didn’t like the implications.

“You aren’t the mess. You’re just you,” he said. Sylvain’s expression went warm, and Felix didn’t know what to do with that, so he just stood up. “Besides, I’m done with the mess for the day. Tomorrow there will be more, I’m sure, and I can deal with as much of it as you’d like.”

Sylvain shook his head, standing himself. “Don’t worry, I’m not planning on hiding away forever. I’ll jump into the fray tomorrow. I’d like if you tagged along, though.”

“I’m at your service,” Felix said with a little smirk that he hoped acknowledged the humor of the statement.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Fraldarius,” Sylvain said with a showy wink, and Felix just rolled his eyes. “Do I ever?” He asked.

And whether he knew it or not, Sylvain’s expression softened. “No,” he said simply, giving Felix a smile that felt too genuine. And Felix, as he often did, looked away to prevent the brightness of it from sticking to his vision and making him see stars.

When Dimitri and Ingrid arrived the following afternoon, it felt like some sort of reunion. They were dressed as Felix was, slightly more formally than required and in mourning whites, which contrasted with Sylvain’s casual attire and the scruff of his unshaven beard as they greeted them in the entrance hall of Gautier manor.

Ingrid pushed forward, hugging Sylvain hard enough to make him give a little grunt at her impact. “Hi, Ingrid,” Sylvain greeted her quietly, wrapping his arms around her back. He brought a hand up to pat her hair before she pulled back.

“You look awful,” she told him earnestly. “Aww,” he intoned sarcastically in return, mussing her hair.

Ingrid made a face and pulled her head away, moving on to hug Felix. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said to him quietly, and he felt only gently embarrassed by it. “You too,” he said in return.

Dimitri was hugging Sylvain when Ingrid broke apart from Felix, and when he moved in the same path Ingrid had, coming to greet him too, they both just looked at each other, nodded, before Dimitri reached a hand out to pat Felix’s shoulder. Felix, awkwardly, reached a hand up to pat at his arm as he did. They both pulled back after their strange little dance, and when they turned to the others, Ingrid and Sylvain were both staring at them.

“Where’s Dedue?” Felix asked stiffly, feeling uncomfortable at the attention. It was strange, after all, to see Dimitri without him.

Dimitri sighed slightly, like this was a point of contention. “He didn’t think it was his place. He’ll come tomorrow, with everyone else.”

“I would have been happy to see him,” Sylvain said. “For what it’s worth.”

“Tell him that,” Dimitri said, shaking his head. “But it’s no matter.” He gave a small smile, and it looked gentle and a little pained, as he so often did. The poor bastard.

“Well, good to see you both. Are you hungry? Ingrid, I asked the kitchens to just keep cooking until you say stop.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be grieving?” Ingrid asked, shoving him gently.

“If I am, aren’t you supposed to be nicer?” Sylvain asked in return.

“You should at least put a little more effort into your appearance, you know. People will be talking about how your father died and you walked around like you didn’t even —”

“Who? Who will be talking about it?”

“People!”

Dimitri laughed under his breath as the two of them bickered, and they walked toward the dining room. To eat together just the four of them, in Gautier manor, felt like a very strange time capsule. Ingrid, as always, ate quickly and enthusiastically, while Dimitri picked at his food, and they talked about anything besides the funeral tomorrow.

A true nobleman’s funeral was a regimented affair. The ceremony would be deeply religious, they would all be dressed very formally, and the only people in attendance would be other nobles, whose job was to silently judge the amount of piety and formality and pretend to be sorry for the loss.

When they all returned home after the war, Felix and his mother had a smaller version for his father, with an appropriately smaller ceremony. The last real funerals he had to attend were Glenn and King Lambert’s, and this would land somewhere solidly between the two in pageantry. None of them were looking forward to it, he was sure. So instead Ingrid complained about the cold up here, the disadvantages of flying so far north, and Sylvain teased her pegasus’ ability. They talked about winter, as was so common to do in Faerghus as it settled in to stay — they wondered if it would be as snowy as last winter, or as cold as the winter before. They talked about the next noble council, how it would be a relief to travel to Derdriu and see the sun for a few weeks, and Ingrid groaned, sounding jealous.

They sat and talked after dinner, until they couldn’t speak for yawning, Dimitri very obviously trying hard not to let his eyes drift closed. When Sylvain finally shooed them off, convincing them they were allowed to go to sleep, neither Dimitri or Ingrid mentioned that Felix was staying by Sylvain’s side. After they left, though, Sylvain turned to him too. “You can go to bed too, if you’d like. I’m going to my father’s —” he cut himself off, let his eyes close briefly. “My study. The study.” He shook his head, like he wasn’t sure which was better.

“What do you have to do there, tonight?” Felix asked, suspicious of him and his familiar desire to slink off and pretend to be fine somewhere.

Sylvain shrugged. “I want to read through his notes a bit. I have a feeling I’ll face some inquiries about my plans as Margrave tomorrow.”

“I could help,” Felix offered quietly.

“You could sleep,” Sylvain said in return.

“You should sleep,” Felix argued.

“I will!” Sylvain said defensively. “Just not tired yet.”

Felix crossed his arms, unconvinced. “You need to get up early tomorrow, you know. You have to look presentable.”

“Oh, don’t lecture me about looking presentable,” Sylvain said with displeasure. “I know better how to present myself than you have ever needed to know. I’ll be fine, Felix. I’ll come to bed in a few hours.”

“Fine,” Felix said. “But if you’re miserable tomorrow with bags under your eyes, just know I was right.”

“Of course,” Sylvain said, sounding unimpressed. But he reached out and rested a hand on Felix’s back. “Get some rest. You need to wake early too.”

They hadn’t discussed any further, after that first night, the idea that Felix would sleep anywhere besides Sylvain’s bed. It was unspoken last night, and it stayed that way now. Without any further argument, Felix walked himself across the grounds back to Sylvain’s chambers, which were looking messier than Sylvain alone had ever kept them. Felix’s clothes were strewn around his half-unpacked bag, there were more half-written letters on the desk, and an almost-finished bottle of mead was still sitting on a table near the fireplace. Felix had gotten the impression that the staff were avoiding cleaning in here, like they didn’t want to intrude on him. As he dressed for sleep, he had the realization that maybe the staff didn’t want to intrude on them, and that made him blush, standing there alone in the dim candlelight.

He tried not to attribute his tossing and turning to Sylvain’s absence, but the fits of sleep he fell into weren’t restful. After waking up for a third time to find the bed still empty, he sighed and resolved to go do something useful. He pulled on Sylvain’s house coat over his sleep clothes, stepped into a slightly too large pair of cloth slippers, and went off on his search.

Felix wasn’t overly familiar with the layout of Sylvain’s father’s wing of the manor, where they had no reason to be as children, but seeing as it was currently uninhabited he figured he’d have an easy enough time finding Sylvain. He shuffled down the hallways, the stone cold from days of so few fires being lit in these rooms. Eventually, he saw a half-open doorway spilling light, and he walked toward it purposefully.

“Is that you, Felix?” Sylvain asked, voice carrying into the hall before Felix could even see him through the doorway. He blinked in surprise, walking forward and pulling open the door to find Sylvain’s back turned against the door as he sat at a long table built into the shelves of books on the wall.

“How…?” Felix asked quietly, gathering the house coat around himself as he stood in the doorway.

“You’re surprised that I know the sound of your footsteps?” Sylvain asked, his tone casual, his back still turned.

Felix felt a familiar sting, the bite of a thorn on a rose stem against the pad of your finger. Sylvain could say things like that like they were nothing, no knowledge that the pretty points of him could puncture Felix so easily. He held back an inhale of breath at the words, thankful that Sylvain couldn’t see his face. “It’s nearly dawn,” Felix said, pushing that feeling down.

“Ah, shit,” Sylvain muttered, and he turned. Felix supposed he knew what Ingrid meant when she said he looked bad; he had scruff on his chin, dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was a mess. It brought unfortunate clarity to the fact that Felix thought he had a handsome sort of edge to him, despite his raggedness. Maybe because of his raggedness. How embarrassing. “Fair enough. I’ll come peacefully.”

“I’d hope so,” Felix said with a snort, leaning against the doorframe. “Hurry up, I’m cold.”

“Well, who told you to walk around at night in only my shabby house coat?” Sylvain asked, tidying the papers in front of him, blowing out a candle. The only light left was the glow coming from a small orb of fire balancing on one of Sylvain’s fingertips. It was a training exercise Felix recognized, a practice step in learning fire spells, and a skill Felix always found himself a little jealous of. He had aptitude enough to learn a little magic, but he was never suited to fire, and here was very little practical application to the weak line of electricity he learned to stretch between two fingertips when practicing lightning spells, after all.

“Anything worth reading in there?” Felix asked in a hushed voice as they walked, no desire to hear his voice echo in the stone hallways.

“Very little,” Sylvain replied with a sigh. “I keep expecting to finally read through a journal that makes me feel like I know what I’m doing, but shockingly, it hasn’t happened yet.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Felix said. “I did, eventually. I hope.”

“You’re right,” Sylvain said, sighing again. “There’s just a lot of work ahead.”

In an absurd sleepless moment of bravery, Felix reached down and grabbed Sylvain’s hand with his own. Sylvain turned to look at him, and the fire on his finger sputtered out. He lit it again with a quick motion of his hand, looking back at the hallway ahead of them. “You’re capable,” Felix said, not acknowledging the moment. “You’ll do well. One thing at a time, anyway. Tomorrow first, then you can worry about the rest.”

Sylvain nodded. They walked the rest of the way in silence, but their fingers stayed clasped together at their sides.

When Sylvain got into bed, Felix rolled over into his space, shoving his cold toes under the warmth of Sylvain’s legs, resting the cold tip of his nose against Sylvain’s bicep. “Poor Felya,” Sylvain muttered, voice sounding tired immediately after lying down. “Always cold.”

“Do your job and warm me up, then,” Felix muttered back, wriggling his feet further against Sylvain’s legs.

Sylvain just hummed, pulled Felix into his side. “Get some sleep, you need to be up early to make yourself presentable,” he teased in a quiet voice, and Felix laughed softly against Sylvain’s skin, petal-soft.

In the morning, they got dressed quietly. Sylvain’s clothes had been hung in front of his wardrobe earlier that morning by a knocking servant, a pair of black trousers and an ornate white and gold vest and jacket, a white shirt with a ruffled collar beneath it. While Felix got the gold buttons of his high-waisted white trousers fastened, Sylvain called him over for assistance in straightening the cape that hung from his jacket, the lining the same deep red as the Gautier house flag.

It was a level of finery that they saw each other in very infrequently, and there was no denying that Sylvain cut a nice figure in his most opulent clothing. “You look becoming of your station,” Felix commented quietly, pulling on his own white jacket, cut short to hit his waist.

“So I’m presentable, then?” Sylvain asked with a small smirk. He was clean-shaven again, hair styled to his usual liking.

Felix gave him an appraising look up and down, then nodded vaguely. “I would say so.”

It was an intimate thing, to look in the same mirror as someone and preen yourself. Felix hadn’t expected that, but he had never had a captive audience for the process of putting himself together as much as this event required.

When he was ready, his tall black boots fastened high on his legs, the gold sash on his jacket arranged, he looked at Sylvain expectantly. “Are you ready?”

Sylvain looked back at him, eyes scanning him up and down. “Your hair,” he said, sounding surprised.

Felix blinked, tucking it back behind his ear at the mention of it. “What about it?”

“You’re not putting it up?” Sylvain asked.

“I…no,” Felix said, doubting himself hearing the tone of Sylvain’s voice. His father and brother wouldn’t have, and the memory of them was all he had to guide him in times with this much unfamiliar pomp. “Does it look bad?”

“No,” Sylvain said, shaking his head eagerly. “No, you just look…striking.”

Was…Sylvain calling him pretty? Felix felt himself go warm. “Thank you?” He said in return. “This is a strange time to compliment me.”

At that, Sylvain let out a surprised laugh. “Well, I didn’t know I would. Let me sink back into solemnity, then, and we can go.”

They met Dimitri and Ingrid, both dressed the part. Ingrid’s white dress was obscured by a heavy dark cloak embroidered with white thread, a large white fur trim on the hood, surely a family heirloom like many of the same cloaks passed down to Faerghus girls were. Dimitri’s white trousers and jacket carried gold accents down every stitch, every button, and he wore a long blue cape over one shoulder, affixed with tassels to the epaulet on his opposite shoulder. His own hair, shoulder-length now, was untied from its usual small ponytail, and Felix felt bolstered in his own styling choice, self-conscious of it ever since Sylvain pointed it out.

“I think Faerghus should have more balls and fewer funerals,” Sylvain said as they walked through the manor, to the carriage taking them to the cathedral where the Gautiers were buried. “You all clean up nice.”

“What a time to flirt,” Ingrid said with a scoff.

“Can’t I pay anyone a compliment anymore?” Sylvain complained.

“Is that your goal as Margrave, then? To increase the number of social events?” Felix asked dryly. The heels of his boots clicked against the stone floors as they walked.

“It’s suited to your strengths, at least,” Dimitri said, with the tone of someone perennially trying to find a bright side to things.

They piled into the carriage in high enough spirits, but as they drew closer to the imposing stone cathedral situated only a few miles off of Gautier manor’s grounds, their mood sank. It was a dozen bad memories tied up into one; Felix was wondering when it would sink in for all of them. Ingrid held one of Sylvain’s hands between two of her own, looking through the window of the carriage with an uneasy expression.

Ushered into the stone entryway of the cathedral, stained glass windows red with snow-bright sunlight shining through them, they drifted out of their four-person cluster. Dimitri went off to find Dedue, and Ingrid went in search of her own father. Felix wondered if he should find his mother, but then Sylvain turned to him and muttered, “Please stay with me.” And there was a desperate edge to his voice. He was a man so skilled at controlling people’s perception of him, at smooth talking, but he was rendered nervous by dozens of nobles seeing him in his title for the first time.

Felix nodded. Sylvain nodded at him in return, letting out a relieved exhale that Felix was sure he wasn’t meant to hear. He stayed close to Sylvain’s side, then, and walked with him into the cathedral. Sylvain had already caught attention, guests in their fine white clothing going quiet as he walked past. It was all about appearance from this point on — a fitting tribute to a man obsessed with them in life. Sylvain had a serious look on his face, as he was supposed to, and Felix kept himself trained into a downturned expression at his side.

No matter your feeling on the dead, a Seiros funeral was a dour affair. Long hymns, longer sermons, repeated calls for prayer. A distinguished priest stood at the pulpit in his heavy ornate robes and spoke of the Goddess and of the remembrance of spirit. Felix willed himself not to think of the handful of other funerals he’d attended, the remnants of the mourning, and tried to quiet his mind as he bowed his head in prayer, then picked it back up, joined along in murmured singing. He was aware of Sylvain doing the same, successfully looking like he was doing more than going through the motions. If the two of them weren’t so visible, maybe Felix would rest a hand on one of Sylvain’s, or on his leg. A reminder that this would be over soon.

After hours of ceremony in a cold stone cathedral, they buried Margrave Matthias Gautier. Dimitri, Felix, Sylvain and Ingrid carried the casket to the grave, a slight departure from tradition but one that no one questioned; everyone knew that the four of them were raised together. With a final prayer led by the short priest, it was done.

The four of them fell into a hug, unshed tears in Dimitri’s eyes that none of them acknowledged. He had been too young, too small to carry his own father’s casket at his funeral twelve years earlier.

“It’s over,” Felix said quietly, gripping tight into Sylvain’s shoulder, and Sylvain nodded. “It’s over,” he repeated.

The gathered nobles all tread back to the cathedral, embellished white clothing as bright as the snow around them, in the wake of the new Margrave.

When Felix woke the next morning to the muffled sound of birdsong and the threat of bright sunlight waiting outside the velvet bed curtains, he wondered when he would be expected to leave.

He found his mother after the funeral the day before, let her press a kiss to his forehead, and when she asked when he would be home, he realized he didn’t have an answer. He intended to stay as long as Sylvain needed him — would Sylvain still need him? His gut feeling was yes. He remembered the nerves in him yesterday. But currently, Felix’s intuition was not at its top performance; he was wooly with the remnants of the wine from the night before still sour on his tongue.

None of them could deny Sylvain had the right to celebrate after the funeral was over, nor could they turn down the fine crystal glasses of wine he supplied them. The five of them piled into a den and drank a Sylvain-encouraged amount of wine, and it was good company enough that they let themselves be tricked into intoxication. Even Dedue, whose overlarge frame was balanced by the fact that he rarely partook, drank enough to show signs of tipsiness, his smile easier to coax out than normal, his hand comfortable on Dimitri’s knee.

Soon, Sylvain would have to get to work. Felix knew he had plans with Sreng, and those certainly would be enacted soon, to make good on his promises. An upheaval of change was coming to Gautier, soon to be restored to its original territory size if all went well. He would need to appoint new advisors, get appraised of his father’s activities more than he had already, keep things running in the meantime. He would be far too busy to need Felix hanging onto his elbow, and Felix had his own duties to get back to outside of playing house with the new Margrave.

Maybe it was because he was caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t notice Sylvain rolling into his space, moving to press behind him with a lazy arm slung around Felix’s torso. He almost jumped at the touch, but it felt too nice to move away from.

In a sleep-rough voice that rattled through Felix’s ribs, Sylvain muttered, “Will you go home today, Felix?”

It was startling. Felix blinked his eyes, feeling more awake. “How did you know that’s what I was thinking about?”

“I can always tell when you’re thinking of leaving,” Sylvain said. His voice was so close to Felix’s ear, his hand steady on Felix’s chest.

More thorns on roses. A pretty sort of hurt. “I was wondering how long you’d want me here,” he said.

Sylvain gave a yawn behind Felix’s head, and he could feel him stretch. There was something about lying this close together, remembering that they were both, underneath it all, soft animals, that made him hum with want. He wanted to touch Sylvain, remember the feeling of his muscles working beneath his skin. He wanted to learn the feeling of the new soft places on his body, smell the morning on him. For a moment he felt like a hungry dog, desperate for scraps.

He had been able to push his own desires to the back of his mind, more or less, for the last few days. Sure, Sylvain was Sylvain — Felix was used to the way it felt to notice the beauty of him, to love him. But it was startling to remember just how much he wanted him, now that the more immediate need to take care of him was subsiding as life began to move forward again. He would need to leave this standstill they created, this temporary shelter where they touched like this, where they held hands like schoolkids. And just as it always did, Felix was sure it would hurt like a blade to his skin.

“If you’re waiting for me to tell you I don’t want you here, you’ll be waiting a long time,” Sylvain said, moving away from Felix onto his back.

“Don’t say things like that,” Felix muttered, still on his side turned away.

“Things like what, exactly?” Sylvain asked in return. His high spirits of the night before had faded, then, into something more indelicate.

“Don’t pretend I’m someone who you can impress with flattery,” Felix said. He closed his eyes, not particularly looking forward to whatever this conversation was turning into. Sylvain sounded tired, and Felix had a headache from the wine the night before.

“You always accuse me of things,” Sylvain muttered. “You never believe I’m telling you the truth.”

At that, Felix’s annoyance at Sylvain for picking an argument won out, and he pulled himself up into a sit to glare down at Sylvain. “The truth about what, Sylvain?” He asked.

Sylvain sighed, bringing his hands up to rub at his eyes, then down his face. “I’m so tired of pretending I don’t want you at my side.”

In an instant, the little spark of irritation Felix was using to light kindling in his chest extinguished. He remembered the orb of flame going out on Sylvain’s fingertip in the dark only days before, and felt an echo of that now. A sputter, a puff of steam. “What?” He asked, his voice whisper-quiet, his heartbeat loud in his chest.

“You heard me,” Sylvain replied, lying on his back and looking resolutely up at the wooden panel above their heads. “And I meant it.”

It did nothing to slow Felix’s pulse, which was approaching a panicked quickness now. When he didn’t say anything, Sylvain turned to him, eyebrows raised. “Have I rendered you without comment for the first time in your life, Felix Fraldarius?”

“What’s your aim here?” Felix asked, defensive.

“My aim?” Sylvain asked, sitting up himself. “Saints, you are the most frustrating person in the world. My aim is to finally ask you what the hell it is we’re doing here.”

Felix had been a fool to think his annoyance would fade early. “And this is when you’ve decided to do that? The morning after you bury your father? No matter how much you pretend like it’s meaningless, you’re out of your right mind right now, and —”

“You don’t know what mind I’m in,” Sylvain said, voice pitched up in volume just enough that when he finished speaking, the sound settled around them. “You loved your father, Felix. I didn’t.”

Felix swallowed, setting his jaw. “No, I suppose I don’t know,” he said, his voice quietly angry, “But I do believe you’re lying to yourself. I do believe that you still remember being a child and looking at him and believing he would protect you. I have no love for the man, Sylvain, but yes, I think you do. Somewhere in you, no matter what it looks like, I believe you have to deal with the fact that you loved him and he’s gone. You’re not so fucking complex that I couldn’t possibly understand that.”

“This wasn’t my point,” Sylvain said, voice quieter now, as if realizing that he had pissed Felix off had ever shut him up before. “I’m not blind with grief. I’m not saying things I don’t mean.”

“Then why are you saying them now?” Felix argued, his own volume increasing. “Why are you doing this now?”

“How long should I wait to bring it up, then?” Sylvain asked, matching his tone. “Until when? You certainly never have.”

“Fuck you,” Felix said in return.

Sylvain gave a frustrated groan. “What do I have to do to get you to tell me how you feel? Tell me no, already! Just put your cards on the table and tell me no, once and for all, would you?”

Felix looked at him with a furrow in his eyebrows, his frightened pulse drowned out by a familiar current of anger. “I am not your rebellion. I am not an impulse decision, or an itch to finally scratch to make your father roll in his grave. You didn’t want me when he was alive, but you want me now? How else am I supposed to take that?”

“You think I didn’t want you?” Sylvain asked him. His voice was hard to read, his face just as angry as Felix’s, which only served to make Felix angrier.

“If you did, what was stopping you?” He asked. There was dark murky water being dredged up in him, the undertow he had been avoiding so as not to get swept away with it. Every time they had seen each other in the last two years, every time Sylvain looked at him and Felix thought it seemed awfully like how Sylvain used to look at him, Felix had pushed down the urge to grab him by the shoulders and ask where they stood with each other. What he ever meant to Sylvain.

Sylvain looked down at his quilt, lips flattening into a thin line. “The war ended. Things were supposed to go back to how they should be. You and Dimitri…were patching things up.”

Felix just looked at him, trying to puzzle together what he meant. “And?” He asked.

“Was I supposed to step in the middle of that? You carried him around with you for so many years, I wasn’t blind to that, even if you were. You can’t walk around with your heart so heavy, so fixated on someone for that long without…” He trailed off, shaking his head.

Opposite him, Felix felt his jaw dropping in surprise, looking at Sylvain with incredulity. “Do you think I love him?” He asked slowly.

Sylvain didn’t answer. Felix was furious.

“Did you think,” he started, voice shaking with some mixture of anger, fear and shock. “Did you really think, after all these years I spent at your side, that you were my second choice?”

Sylvain looked up at him finally, hurt on his face. “How could I not be?” He asked.

There was a pause, a moment in which Felix earnestly held himself back from gnashing his teeth, reaching over and slapping Sylvain in the face. “You are the stupidest man in this goddamned country,” he said, fighting back angry tears. “You are the biggest idiot I have ever known. You are — you —” he cut himself off, letting out a frustrated growl, and tore back the curtain to get out of bed.

He paced the floor, feeling a truly unique sort of anger burning him up from the inside out. Stupid, how stupid. He was only vaguely aware of the sound of Sylvain getting out of the other side of the bed, but when he started speaking, before Felix could even register what he was saying, he stormed over and surged forward, leaning up to press a furious kiss to Sylvain’s lips.

Felix wanted to dig his nails into Sylvain’s skin, to bite, to leave him raw. He wanted to breathe fire right into him, watch him burn with it, the way Felix had burned.

“You stupid —” he breathed between frantic kisses, “Foolish —,” another kiss, the press of teeth to Sylvain’s bottom lip, “Witless man.” They were clutching each other tightly, he realized, though he hadn’t been conscious of tightening his grip on Sylvain. When he could bring himself to pull back finally, a frenzied feeling buzzing through him and his breathing ragged, he said, “It was always you.”

Sylvain stood in front of him looking shell-shocked, mouth hanging slightly open. “I could kill you right now,” Felix aimed at him, breathless and angry.

“Please don’t,” Sylvain managed, seeming to come back to himself.

“I thought you would get married. I waited to hear word that you were courting, and then years passed. I thought maybe you just…” he trailed off, some of the heat draining from his voice with the vulnerability of the admission, even half-uttered. “You’re known for your passing fancy, you know. I didn’t think of myself that way, until you went quiet.”

“Passing fancy?” Sylvain asked, giving a hoarse laugh. He pressed forward, their faces close again, and brought a hand to brush Felix’s hair back from his face. “You’re stupid too, then.”

“No, I’m not done, you have idiocies I haven’t even gotten to yet,” Felix said, but his voice was quieter, captivated as he was by the sad little smile on Sylvain’s face, his big doe eyes, his freckles, his stupid long eyelashes.

“Stay a little longer, then,” Sylvain said back. His hand was resting against Felix’s jaw, thumb against his cheek. “Stay as long as it takes to list them.”

“I need you to know you were wrong,” Felix said.

“What else is new?” Sylvain interrupted.

“Shut up, Sylvain,” Felix insisted, incensed again. “I can’t believe you ever — you were my only choice. You were my choice before I even know I was choosing something. You’re all I’ve ever known how to want. Do you really think yourself so unworthy? You — ugh.” His voice was shaking again, and he smacked lightly at Sylvain’s chest with the palm of his hand.

“You’re very pretty when you’re angry, you know,” Sylvain said quietly, the pad of his thumb tracing over the line of Felix’s cheekbone.

“Don’t flirt with me, asshole!” Felix snapped.

“You kissed me first!” Sylvain accused. Felix had no rebuttal to that, so he glared instead.

“I rode across the country to make sure you were alive, and you thought I loved someone else?” Felix asked, not ready to drop it yet.

Sylvain sighed. “Well, it did make me start to wonder.”

“Stupid,” Felix muttered again, giving him another light smack.

“Are you done?” Sylvain asked.

“I’ll never be done,” Felix threatened, narrowing his eyes.

“Then I look forward to the opportunity to continue the discussion,” Sylvain said. “But can you take a short break?”

“For what?” Felix asked, unimpressed.

“For me to tell you that I love you,” Sylvain supplied, and that did as he must have intended and shut Felix up. “I have loved you for a very long time. And I meant what I said earlier, about wanting you by my side.”

Felix felt a terrible lightness in his stomach, a sensation that was usually followed by a hollow sort of sadness. It wasn’t this time, though, and Felix wasn’t sure how to stomach the rose without the thorns.

“Then I’d like to be there,” Felix said, voice quieter, more delicate. It felt very strange, offering himself so openly. He felt exposed, unprepared, as he stood at the edge of this cliff with Sylvain.

“If that’s settled, then, can I kiss you again?” Sylvain asked. He leaned forward minutely, their foreheads pressed together.

“I think you should,” Felix breathed, and before he could even finish forming the words, Sylvain pressed forward into him. And it was so strange to kiss Sylvain without dreading when it had to end.

They kissed slowly, cautiously, like they were trying not to shatter something fragile between them, and Sylvain’s hands on him were light. It was the diametric opposite of Felix’s shaking, desperate kiss earlier, but both were familiar. The two of them ended up on either side of that same coin fairly often, didn’t they?

When Sylvain pulled away, Felix felt himself hover in the air, body wanting to lean into him again. He settled for leaning forward to rest his forehead against Sylvain’s chest. Sylvain’s chin rested on the top of Felix’s head, one hand holding his lower back.

“You’re all I’ve ever known to want,” Sylvain said quietly above him, repeating Felix’s words. His other hand was brushing through Felix’s hair. “That’s romantic, Felya.”

“Oh, shut up,” Felix muttered into his shirt. Above him, against him, Sylvain laughed. And as tentative as this felt, the unreality of the two of them resolving a decade’s worth of unspoken wants and fears, he felt himself smile in return.

“I didn’t say it to sound pretty,” he said after a moment. “I said it because I meant it.”

“Felix,” Sylvain said seriously, and Felix picked his head up to look up at him. “I would never, ever accuse you of saying something just because it sounded pretty.”

“You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that?” Felix asked, tone mild. He had better things to be mad at Sylvain for than teasing him.

“You asked once if we would drive each other insane,” Sylvain said. He still had a hand stroking through his hair, so goddamn gently. His face was still tired, but there was a happy tilt to his eyes. He looked endearing, as he so often tended to. “Do you remember that?”

Felix did, of course. He remembered every second of that night in the sauna, whether he wanted to or not. “Privately,” he said, voice quiet, “I’ve always sort of liked driving each other insane.”

A smile spread on Sylvain’s face, warm and honeyed with the sort of earnest sweetness that Sylvain tried not to broadcast too often. And of course, he was beautiful. Bloodied, hungover, angry, scheming, grieving — Sylvain was always beautiful.

Old habits died hard; Felix found it difficult to take in the light of Sylvain, hot and bright as it was, for too long. It was too much, he wasn’t used to being able to reach out and touch it. “I’m going back to bed,” he said, cheeks sun-warmed in the happy glow of Sylvain. “It’s too cold out here to stand around.”

Sylvain gave him a nod with a soft breath of laughter, stepping back from their embrace. “I’ll have some business up north for a while, I imagine, and then we’ll be in Leicester for the council meeting, but maybe I’ll spend the end of winter in Fraldarius,” he said. “I’d like a break from the cold, if you’d have me.”

“I’d have you,” Felix aimed over his shoulder as he walked back over to the bed, pulling back the curtain to get into the warmer interior. “My mother will be thrilled. She thinks I’ve been lonely.”

Sylvain opened the opposite curtain, climbed into the other side of the bed. “And have you?”

“Well,” Felix said, pulling himself back under the covers, where it was still warm from their body heat. He moved toward Sylvain, not interested in holding himself back from this. “Yes, I have. But that doesn’t mean I want to hear about it.”

Sylvain let him press his cold feet against his shins, reached under the covers and took Felix’s cold hands in his own. “I have too,” he said quietly, and then he leaned toward Felix and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

Felix closed his eyes briefly, letting out a soft exhale. He felt the heavy weight of love on his chest with Sylvain curled warm around him, and let himself savor a short break from the cold.

Chapter Text

Dear Annette,

Happy early birthday. I’m sending along some things I’ve picked up in the last few months that made me think of you. I’ve been traveling so much and I have no one else to buy pretty things in markets for — Ingrid is uninterested, as I’m sure you could guess. I hope they at least make nice decorations for your quarters, even if you aren’t interested in wearing them.

Thank you for your congratulations in your last letter. I have never known how to share personal matters, especially in writing, but you are my friend, and I did want you to know. I find it embarrassing to discuss, especially to someone who has known us both for so long, but despite that I will admit that I have been quite happy. I am very happy also for you and Mercedes. I agree, there is something very strange about falling in love with an old friend. It often takes so long to sort through in your own head. I am glad we are both on the other side of it now, I find it much easier.

I’m happy to hear that Mercedes is doing well, and Byleth too. Was it strange to be back in Garreg Mach? I haven’t been in a couple years, and last time I was there, the war had barely ended. I imagine it must be looking better these days. I’d be interested to hear what Byleth is like as an archbishop, it’s been too long since I’ve seen her. I can understand why you’d prefer the Sorcerer’s Academy, though. Far fewer knights in training, and only a fraction of the amount of noble brats.

Glad to hear you’ve completed your apprenticeship. They were fools to not move you on sooner. Is your skill worth nothing? (I know you’ll tell me again that I don’t understand academia, and I will say again that I do not want to.) I know you’re nervous, but I don’t think that your students being taller than you will be an issue. Most people are taller than you, and I’m assuming they, like me, never think much of it. You’re a very talented mage and I have always thought you made a good teacher. Manuela and Hanneman could never describe anything practically the way you could.

You were right in thinking it’s been a busy spring for me. I was in Duscur just before the new year with Dedue, he sends well wishes. The earrings in my package were made by a cousin of his, actually, who he was happy to find last year. I visited Sreng for the first time last month. Sylvain and Dimitri have been busy figuring things out, but the Gautier land taken from them has been returned to its rightful owners, and almost no one is angry about it. It’s the sort of miracle that only those two could pull off, and it’s very strange being able to tell you about it now after so much political secreting.

Anyway, I stayed a while after it was all settled. I had only been in the outskirts of Sreng for the rare battle, never anywhere near civilization, but the cities are very beautiful. I have grown so used to rural Faerghus and Duscur that I had forgotten what it’s like to wander a big city. Sylvain was a useful guide. Unsurprisingly, he’s made a number of friends up north. They helped me haggle for the hairpin and the scarves. I know they’re too light for practical Faerghus use, but I hope you’ll like them anyway.

Someday soon I would like to see each other again. I scarcely know how time passes so quickly. I will be in Gautier for the summer, and though it is not my place, I will invite you to visit anyway if Sylvain’s presence isn’t too much a deterrent. Mercedes is welcome too, though I know you both lead busy lives and careers. I know Ingrid is planning to visit at some point, maybe you could come together, if you find yourself able. The summer is nice this far north. It’s still cool, but the flowers bloom strongly.

We are very grown-up these days. It’s strange to realize every time I write a letter like this, talking of where I will spend the season and inviting along the friends whom I miss. Soon enough it will be ten years since we started school at Garreg Mach. I keep making it to new birthdays I never expected to see - to think that we are twenty-seven and twenty-six now. It makes me sentimental for friends who I never expected to stay by my side. On that note, I am always thankful to receive your letters. Happy birthday again.

With love,

Felix Fraldarius

Once the rain started, Felix regretted choosing to sulk in the tree branches. Even as far south as they were, Faerghus spring was never warm, and the rain running down his loose strands of hair and the bridge of his nose wasn’t helping. It wasn’t a very well-thought-out plan, he was realizing now. But he was already up here, bow in hand, and he wouldn’t be seen backing down now.

“Good luck shooting squirrels,” Glenn teased with a roll of his eyes when he and Dimitri went off with their spears into the woods, intent on hunting with them. Ever since he hit a growth spurt and caught up in height to Dimitri and Sylvain (who had both been taller than both of the Fraldarius brothers since Dimitri was ten years old), he was full of himself for learning how to use a spear. That and the knight training. He kept giving self-important speeches about how lances offered better defense than swordsmanship, really, especially as a mounted warrior. Felix was tired of hearing it, and tired of the way that Dimitri and Ingrid mooned at him while he parroted back whatever his instructor said to him that day. They would all be trained one day, what was so impressive about Glenn?

Something, obviously, for Dimitri to follow him around so eagerly. As soon as Glenn mentioned the spears Dimitri shot up out of his seat around the campfire to join him. Their fathers were doing their own hunting — yesterday the old men took their sons with them, tried to show them good technique, but in keeping with tradition, Sylvain’s father had enough of the kids messing up the hunt and convinced them to go alone today.

“I’ll take them out,” Glenn had said to their father confidently when he informed them of this. Felix had rolled his eyes, wanting to push him into the mud.

“Be careful,” their father warned seriously. “Keep your brother safe.”

“I can keep myself safe,” Felix muttered, crossing his arms. Glenn was only three years older than him. What made him so capable?

“Having someone looking out for you doesn’t hurt, though, does it?” His father aimed at him with a small smile. He reached down and patted Felix’s head amiably. If Felix wasn’t a brooding twelve year old on a camping trip he hated, maybe he could have appreciated that. However, things as they were, he kept scowling.

Anyway, Felix didn’t like using spears. He was still too small to be any good at controlling them; even Ingrid was taller than him now, and they’d always come more naturally to her anyway. He was good with small things, like daggers, thin-bladed swords, even arrows. So he let Dimitri and Glenn wander off, was sure Sylvain would follow them, and he marched with his bow strapped to his back over to a climbable-looking tree with enough dense branches to provide plenty of hiding spots.

At some point after the rain started falling, Felix heard footsteps walking up to the tree. He peered through the leaves below him to see Sylvain’s red hair in sharp contrast to the muddy ground below him. “Felix?” He called up.

“Shhh!” Felix scolded. It was the first rule of hunting to not scare off the animals.

“Oh, are you really hunting up there?” Sylvain asked.

“Yes!” Felix replied in a loud whisper.

Sylvain paused, pulling his coat around himself. “Well, can I come up?”

“You didn’t go with the hunter-gatherers?” Felix asked with another roll of his eyes, giving up on trying to be quiet if Sylvain wasn’t going to follow suit. It’s not like he’d seen much besides a hare to shoot at, anyway.

Sylvain sighed, looking up at the tree like he was trying to find Felix in it. “I don’t care about any of this. It’s just too boring to sit at camp alone.”

Sylvain never seemed swayed by Glenn and Felix’s competitiveness, or Dimitri’s earnest desire to do what he was told. It meant that several times throughout their life, he found himself looking at Sylvain and realizing oh, there was a different way to react to all of this.

“You can come up,” he said.

“Or you could come back to camp?” Sylvain offered, and Felix scoffed at him. “Yeah, alright,” Sylvain said, resigned, before Felix saw him push his sleeves up and pull himself onto the lowest branches of the tree, making his way up.

After a few minutes of Sylvain’s labored breathings and grunts, he pulled himself up equal to Felix’s level, looking only slightly more unsteady than him on a sturdy branch. “Saints,” Sylvain said through a huff of breath. “You’re crazy.”

“You’re the one who followed me,” Felix said, making a face at him before turning to the little viewspot he had perched in front of, looking for an animal. “Now shhh.”

To his credit, Sylvain did. He found a comfortable enough sitting spot on his branch, and he let them sit in the quiet of the rain as Felix was determined to find something to aim at. After at least ten minutes passed with no luck, Felix looked back over his shoulder at where he was sitting, eyes closed as he leaned against the trunk of the tree. “Why’d you come up here just to sit?”

“I told you. It was boring being alone.”

“You could have gone with Glenn and Dimitri,” Felix pointed out.

Sylvain made a face, eyes still closed. “I don’t need to hear Dimitri ask Glenn how to best hold a spear for the tenth time this weekend.”

At that, Felix gave a small laugh. “Yeah,” he agreed, something unknotting in his stomach at the idea that someone else felt the same way. That he wasn’t on the sidelines alone.

“Besides,” Sylvain said, opening his eyes to look at him. “I didn’t want you to have to spend all day alone out here.”

Something about the sentiment of it made Felix blush, and he turned back to his supposed hunting. “I wouldn’t have minded,” he lied.

“Why would we both be alone when we could keep each other company?” Syvlain asked with a scoff, like Felix was stupid for saying otherwise.

Felix didn’t have a good argument for him. He turned back again, and Sylvain’s eyes were closed, his head leaned back against the tree. His fur-lined hood was pulled up around his head, haloing his freckled face, and his messy orange hair was visible beneath it. With his eyes closed, long-lashed, he looked peaceful. He looked…pretty.

Felix turned away, cheeks still warm, and tried to focus on focusing his mind, quieting his breathing. The rest of the day, though, he could feel Sylvain behind him, a warm steady presence too distracting to ever entirely look away from.

It took about a year for Sylvain to accept that Felix would force him to train. For another year after that, he kept whining about it, but Felix didn’t have to pester him into coming out to the knights’ training yard anymore; he just followed along at the right times, well-trained. After their fourth year together, he had finally stopped complaining, joking or not. By now, in their fifth year together and their first year of marriage, it was routine.

It was a Sunday morning, just after dawn, so here they were, standing across from each other in the dirt-floored training yard. Felix’s adjusted his fingers around the hilt of a fine thin-bladed sword made in Sreng, a gift made to fit his hand and his height. (It was terrible, how good at gift-giving Sylvain was. He showed Felix up every time.) He glanced across from him at Sylvain’s stance, the grip he had on the handle of his scimitar. In his years of forced sword fighting practice, he had settled into preferring long, curved blades, which always made for an interesting fight.

Felix steadied himself, gripped his fingers tighter around the hilt of his blade, and in the moment before they started, he thought (as he always did) of his brother.

The act of sparring always held some small glimpse of Glenn. Felix wasn’t a believer in spirits, but when he squared up for a duel in a dusty training yard, the smell of metal lingering around the place, he could feel his brother across from him. Just behind whoever he was fighting, like he was waiting for his turn next. It was a thought that served some motivational purpose — if Glenn was watching, he’d need to do well, impress him. He’d want a chance to beat Glenn next. And it was always oddly comforting, in a strange way, to invoke the spirit of childhood competition. Of awe for someone bigger and stronger, who you wanted so badly to show your worth to.

In truth, he had been thinking of his brother more often lately, certainly more often than he had been sparring. Winter was around the corner, and soon enough the snowy wind would whip them right into Felix’s thirty-first birthday. He was never fussed about aging, but it was strange, getting closer to being twice as old as your older brother ever was.

He took a centering breath, a steady quiet inhale, and stepped toward Sylvain. Across from him, Sylvain was on the defensive, stance wide, sword readied to swing. The length of his blade meant he could keep good distance, if he was able to out-maneuver Felix’s speed. Felix tread around him lightly, getting a sense for their pace. No two fights were the same between them, and that made each one at least a little exciting.

Sylvain’s eyes tracked his movements, so familiar with him, which Felix quietly liked every time he saw it. He couldn’t describe the feeling well, but he never felt more himself than when they did this. There was something about a training spar that made him feel like the core of himself, and Sylvain saw that and understood it. Sometimes this was like a conversation between them, and sometimes it was more intimate than that; Sylvain was uniquely good at handling him in both of those regards, so it made sense he was good at handling him here too.

With every one of his own footsteps, he thought of Glenn’s. The only person who was ever quicker than him. He knew he was much faster now than Glenn ever was, but would he be still faster than Glenn if he had lived?

“You’re restless today,” Sylvain muttered, eyes still focused on Felix’s movement. Felix swung his sword, but Sylvain’s blade met his and twisted it away.

Their blades clashed together a few times in a row, both of them looking for an opening, and then Sylvain thrust forward, taking him by surprise. It was only his reflexes that saved him, pulling him back before he was even aware.

“Don’t get distracted, Fraldarius,” Sylvain teased, a grin on his face like he was pleased with himself.

“Don’t get cocky,” Felix replied easily, readjusting his grip before stepping forward, feinting right to open up Sylvain’s left side, and getting a clean hit to his blade. “Point.”

“How can I, when you so graciously devote yourself to humbling me?” Sylvain asked in turn.

Felix stepped back, waiting for Sylvain’s next move. “It’s lousy work,” he commented, and Sylvain laughed. Felix smiled, the way he always did when he made Sylvain laugh.

“Stop playing around now, would you? It’s insulting.” Sylvain fixed his posture as he said it, and then lunged forward. Felix parried him, spun his blade to keep up with Sylvain’s next slash, and the two of them traded unsuccessful hits back and forth quickly, the metallic clang of blades echoing around them in the early morning air.

He didn’t know why his mind was stuck on Glenn any more than usual. Maybe he just woke up in a mood. But with his muscles and his senses so distracted with tracking an opponent’s blade, his thoughts wandered again. It was pointless engaging in what-ifs, meandering thought experiments, but sometimes he couldn’t help himself from wondering what Glenn would be like if he got to grow up too. Would they have gotten along when they aged out of childhood? Would they still spar with each other now?

Sylvain turned just right and caught Felix at the right moment to knock his sword out of his hand. “Point,” he said with a flourish a little curtsy, stepping back to a neutral position and waiting for Felix to pick it up. Felix blinked, breathing heavy from keeping up with their volley back and forth.

“What’s on your mind? You really are distracted,” Sylvain said, adjusting his wrist guard.

Felix just shook his head. “This first,” he said, picking his sword back up and moving toward Sylvain with a quick lunge that almost caught him off-guard. Sylvain didn’t argue, but he did look amused, even as he parried.

It used to chafe at him, the way that Sylvain could see right through him, the way he could pick out an imperceptible shift in his mood. But after all, Felix had the same practiced ability for reading Sylvain. It was only fair to be known in return.

Felix ducked low, used the moment of surprise it caused Sylvain to slash up and land a clean hit against the guard of Sylvain’s scimitar. “Point,” he said.

The thing was that in his mind, his brother was a fixed point, a collection of easy childhood love and easier childhood grievance. He was a scrapbook of memories. And that was easier to parse when he was younger; even during the war, he was so young, it was so easy to see Glenn’s memory as a contemporary. It got harder and harder, the further he got into adulthood, to remember who Glenn really was, and imagine who he would have become. He had been alone for a long time.

Well, he amended, not alone. He moved fluidly around Sylvain, just out of the reach of his blade. He was never alone. Even in his loneliest, most self-pitying moments, he had so many people who loved him, who he had been so intent to push away at so many points in his life. Sylvain moved purposefully then, extended his body to throw Felix off his balanced stance, landed a hit against his blade that forced it to aim downward, disabled. “Point,” Sylvain said. Felix could tell he was less interested in joking now, the energy of the fight getting to him and making him want to win.

It was a refreshing feeling, being pulled out of his murky introspection to remember that he was terribly attracted to Sylvain. It was a feeling he had grown so used to that it was almost grounding — the floor was steady under his feet, the air felt cool on his skin, Sylvain was the most attractive man alive.

Sylvain’s improvement with a sword after steady training was one of many things Felix was always right about. He had a good mind for it, sharp-witted, a good judge of character. After years of forced practice, he was highly skilled, albeit perhaps not quite as skilled as Felix.

For his part, Felix kept getting better too. The ritual of practice kept him feeling like himself, and as time passed, he started to feel the benefit of the sort of wisdom that piled up the more life you lived, even as young as he still was. He could feel himself sharpen, get smarter and stronger, even in the last few years. He was better now than he ever was as a blood-spitting teenager or even as a soldier pushed to fight for his life. There was a balance somewhere in him now — maybe that had come with time too, or maybe it came from learning how to accept love when it was offered.

Felix took another steadying breath, looking over Sylvain across from him. The ponytail pulling back the top layer of his hair was coming loose with exertion. Felix loved him. These two observations he completed in a quick glance. Slowly, he made his approach toward Sylvain’s position, sword extended out from himself and ready to swing. Restless, Sylvain called him, and he was right. He was so used to training to fight groups of people, trying to dodge so many hits at once, that he often forgot that slow precision could be so much more advantageous one-on-one.

He put one foot in front of the other, the muscles of his body coiled like a snake ready to attack. He held eye contact with Sylvain, waited for any shift in his attention; his eyes would move away when his body did, Felix knew. Sylvain was adapting to Felix’s change in pace, keeping his distance by walking in similar slow steps away from him. They circled each other for a moment, the air between them tense with anticipation of a winning blow, until Felix found his moment. Sylvain’s foot scraped over a piece of gravel, just different enough from the dirt floor that it made a quiet sound that cut through their tension. In the second he took his eyes off Felix, he changed stances, arcing his blade over and knocking Sylvain’s sword down into a disabled position. “Match,” Felix said, satisfied. “You’re really very good, you know.”

“That’s why I keep winning,” Sylvain replied, his focused expression relaxing into an easy sort of grin.

“Keep practicing,” Felix said. “You’re sure to catch me unawares one of these days.”

Sylvain scoffed, sheathing his scimitar on his belt and walking toward Felix. “I’m happier protecting your back than beating you.”

“That’s because you’re a fool,” Felix said simply.

“Yes, yes,” Sylvain agreed dismissively, waving his hand.

Felix walked over to a rag he left hanging on a post, spreading polish onto his sword before he put it away. Sylvain made fun of him for doting on it, but it was his gift, wasn’t it? Shouldn’t he just be happy Felix liked it so much?

“So what’s bothering you?” Sylvain asked.

Felix shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about Glenn a lot. Nothing in particular, just…I don’t know. Anymore, when I miss him, it makes me wonder who he’d be if he was still here.”

Sylvain hummed. “I wonder that sometimes too,” he said. “The problem I always run into is that I really like who you are, and you don’t know who you would be if he was still here either.”

“You’re right,” Felix agreed with a nod. “It’s just odd, experiencing so many things he didn’t. Sometimes I feel like his older brother.”

“It’s a unique experience, getting to be both,” Sylvain commented. Felix gave a breath of laughter, not much humor in it. “He’s closest to the veil in places like this, I think. Sometimes I think about him here too.”

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” Felix asked.

“I’m sure he’d be upset that thinking of him would interrupt your training in any way,” Sylvain said, a gentle sort of smile on his face.

“Interrupt is a strong word, considering I still beat you,” Felix said without looking away from his blade.

Sylvain gave a laugh. “You’ve got an answer for everything.”

“Yes,” Felix said simply, but when he looked up at Sylvain he gave his own small smile. “I do.”

When he finished with his sword, he sheathed it, wiping the metal polish from his hands before they turned to leave the training grounds.

They usually spent autumn in Fraldarius, and they’d only been settled in again for a month or so, the season creeping up on them in damp mists and gray skies. They spent winter here too, at least part of it before Dimitri inevitably summoned them all to stay at Blaiddyd. Once the sun thawed the north enough that they could see the grass underfoot, Felix and Sylvain went up to Gautier until the cycle started over again. He had grown to like the routine of it. After spending so long feeling so far away from home, it was peculiar to have several.

It was strange to be the one who survived. It was strange to have to keep living and rebuild the structure around you, to have to find new love to remind yourself that it didn’t die with them.

Like he could hear Felix’s thoughts wandering, Sylvain sidled up to him, putting a hand on his back while they walked. “Is the gloom getting to you?” He asked, tone light. It was gloomy today, wasn’t it. The air was misty and barely lit, the sun not yet convinced to come out properly.

Felix shook his head. “No, I think I’m doing alright,” he said, leaning into Sylvain’s space. “Every once in a while I have to remember that.”

Sylvain didn’t say anything, but he squeezed his arm tighter around Felix’s back, turned and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. They walked the long way around the grounds without either of them bringing it up; they were both partial to a walk, after all.

Sometimes, mornings like this ended with the two of them hot-blooded and handsy, rushing back to their chambers so one of them could press the other back into bed. Sometimes they ended in peals of silly laughter as they teased each other like kids, inventing reasons to chase each other cat-and-mouse on their way back out of the sprawling grounds. It wasn’t uncommon for them to end like this, either, with a sort of peaceful calm settled between them.

The air smelled like autumn, like damp trees and soil, and like Sylvain’s cologne and the iron tang of metal polish still on Felix’s hands. It was a dozen sense memories all at once, and Felix felt gently nestled between them all. The warmth of Sylvain at his side helped, as it did with most things.

“I love you,” Felix said at some point, not prompted by much besides the flowing stream of his own thoughts, babbling around in circles today.

“Oh, that’s nice to hear,” Sylvain said, his hand squeezing at Felix’s side again. “I was so hoping that you did, when you married me.”

Felix turned to look up at him with a glare, though it was mild, and Sylvain gave him a charming smile in return. “You never allow me a moment of sentiment.”

Sylvain laughed quietly again, but Felix maintained his displeased expression, mostly so that Sylvain would move to stand in front of him and block their path, wrap his arms around his shoulders properly. “I’ll allow you as much sentiment as you’d like, darling.”

“I only need a bit,” Felix muttered, letting his eyes scan over Sylvain’s pretty face. His fading summer freckles, the old scar running through his eyebrow, the shadow of a beard on his jaw, the peony pink of his lips.

You’re good for me, that’s what he told Sylvain the day he asked to marry him. He remembered the flush in his cheeks when he did, Sylvain’s big brown eyes looking at him so sweetly. He was feeling certain of that fact again, all paths of his introspection leading him there.

But that didn’t need to be said. They were both good for each other, and they knew that already. Instead, Felix said, “A kiss will do.”

Sylvain’s smile was smaller now, more genuine. “You’re very cute, Felix.”

“And is that what I asked for?” Felix replied, entirely unimpressed. He pulled back at Sylvain’s arms like he was going to back away, but in a quick motion Sylvain reached up and cupped his face, leaned down and pressed a kiss to his lips. Then another to the tip of his nose. “Thank you,” he said primly.

“You’re welcome,” Sylvain replied, looking pleased.

“You can let me go now.”

“I could, but I so very enjoy looking at you.”

Felix gave a long-suffering sigh, but stood still and let Sylvain hold his cheeks, squeezing them slightly before he let go. When they split apart, moved back to walking side by side, their hands found each other between their bodies and clasped together on muscle memory.

He thought briefly of a conversation he had with his mother, when she said, “It reminds me of your father, the way you dote on him. The groundskeepers see you walk together and they tell me you look just like your father and I. I’m glad you’re the same gentle sort of man he was.” There were many comparisons to his father he resisted, many qualities they shared that he resented, but that one he could take. After many years spent a jagged edge, it was a relief to be gentle.

He left Glenn in the training grounds, and outside of them it was easier to carry his weight. He would have tea with his husband. He would sit in front of a fire and read a book while he listened to the scratching of Sylvain’s constant letter-writing at the desk by the window. He would have lunch with his mother and write to Ingrid and Dorothea and love the parts of his life that loved him back.

There was something about the haziness of waking up on a winter morning that made Felix enjoy pressing himself into Sylvain’s skin more than usual.

It was easy, this close to sleep, to give Sylvain the same tactile affection that he so often doled out. There was a warm safety to any bed they shared that let him reach out and pull Sylvain close to his chest, run a hand up and down his torso and listen to the soft half-awake sounds he made in response.

In front of him, his back pressed to Felix’s chest, Sylvain stretched and yawned, leaning back into Felix’s warmth. “Morning,” he mumbled, reaching down to grab Felix’s hand away from its path and press a kiss to it.

“Morning,” Felix muttered in return, kissing the nape of his neck, and Sylvain made a pleased sound.

They lay together for a few quiet moments, then Sylvain shifted, turned around so that he could tuck his face into Felix’s neck instead. Felix offered a quiet laugh at him, at his open desire to press close, and held a hand in his hair.

They weren’t in Sylvain’s cozy four-poster bed, or his own. They were in a bedroom in Blaiddyd that had come to be theirs, traces of them left in it even when they weren’t staying here. A handful of Felix’s hair ties collected in a pile on the vanity, the sort of fur throw that Sylvain preferred hanging on the back of a chair near the small fireplace. They’d come for the two months between Dimitri and Felix’s birthdays for the last two years in a row, and it was becoming a familiar tradition.

Sylvain pressed warm kisses to the column of Felix’s throat, gentle and chaste enough, and Felix hummed, stroking his hand through Sylvain’s hair and then down the bare skin of his back, across a familiar scar on the back of his shoulder blade. After two years of frequent study, they were both well-versed in the topography of each other’s bodies. There was a comfort in the familiarity; this man and his scars, the warm freckles spread across his skin, the birthmark on his ribcage, were things that his hands had long learned how to touch, how to hold.

In return, of course, Sylvain knew how to touch him back. He pressed a longer, wetter kiss to the pulse point at Felix’s neck, one of his hands moving down Felix’s side until it landed on his hip. His thumb stroked along Felix’s hipbone, and Felix let out a soft sigh.

“We shouldn’t,” he muttered in spite of the way it made him go warm.

“Why not?” Sylvain asked in a sleep-rough voice, buzzing against the thin skin of Felix’s throat.

“It’s Ingrid’s birthday,” Felix said, but he didn’t move out of Sylvain’s grasp.

Sylvain pulled his head back enough to look at Felix. “What, am I not allowed to have sex on her birthday?”

“We have to go to breakfast soon,” Felix answered with a roll of his eyes. “Though honestly, I do think that she would know somehow, cosmically, and be insulted by it.”

“She could have been having sex on her birthday too, it wasn’t me who stopped her from bringing Dorothea.”

“I’m sure it was Dorothea who stopped her from bringing Dorothea. Isn’t she busy with work? Anyway, two months huddled away in the King’s castle is a bit much, isn’t it? They’ve only been together for a few months.” Felix said. He was still aware of Sylvain’s large hand spanning his hip, their bare skin pressed together.

“I wish she had come, I haven’t seen them together at all. I bet she tortures Ingrid,” Sylvain said, sounding fond.

“Oh, leave them alone,” Felix said mildly. Sylvain was right, Dorothea had always been prone to teasing Ingrid. It was one reason he was so endeared when Ingrid shared that they had reconnected, pink-cheeked over it until Sylvain finally made her admit they were romantically involved. Ingrid wouldn’t give him the pleasure of getting to watch them courting, Felix was sure, and Sylvain deserved that.

“I didn’t even bring up Ingrid,” Sylvain said, leaning back into kiss his jaw. “I’d love to drop the topic.”

“Breakfast,” Felix repeated.

“We could be quick,” Sylvain argued.

“We never are,” Felix said. “You always get carried away.”

“Sorry for being so sublimely in love with you,” Sylvain replied, kissing his adam’s apple.

Felix’s eyes fluttered closed at the feeling. “No offense meant to your romanticism, but I think the connection between your love for me and the percentage of your life you’d happily spend sucking cock is tenuous at best, Sylvain.”

Sylvain pulled his head back again, and he was looking at Felix with a deeply insulted expression. “That’s one of the meanest things you’ve ever said to me.”

“Want me to think of something meaner?” Felix asked.

“Now who’s getting carried away?” Sylvain retorted. “I’ll have you know they’re directly related.”

“How sweet,” Felix replied, not swayed. “We need to get up, you know.”

Sylvain sighed. His hand skated down the side of Felix’s leg, wrapped around the back of his thigh. “But you look so beautiful in the morning.”

For all of Felix’s ability to rebuff Sylvain’s flattery, sometimes it hit him just right to charm him. It helped that he could tell when Sylvain was full of shit and when he wasn’t. Sometimes sweet things came out of his mouth like he hadn’t meant them to, or maybe like he didn’t realize he was being sweet in the first place. Felix had a feeling his comment was supposed to have an edge of flirtation to it, the smooth and easy kind he could usually conjure without effort. Maybe it was being so close to sleep that made it come out earnest instead.

Felix felt a familiar torn resignation in his chest — it was a shame to give up his argument, especially since he was right, but giving in would feel good in more ways than one.

“We have to be quick, then,” Felix muttered finally, letting himself press into Sylvain’s touch.

Sylvain gave a soft chuckle. “A change of heart.” His fingertips pressed into the back of Felix’s thigh, gripping lightly at the flesh there.

“Are you the only one so terribly in love? Am I not allowed to get carried away?” Felix asked, his huffy tone undermined by his breath going a little shaky as Sylvain’s fingertips trailed across his skin, thumb brushing over the inside of his inner thigh.

“I encourage it, actually,” Sylvain muttered, leaning in to press a sweet kiss to his lips, and Felix made peace, as he often had to, with the fact that sometimes he enjoyed when Sylvain won.

The five of them sat in the den they inhabited most frequently as a group; as a result of their occupancy for the last month, it looked more lived-in than many other rooms in this castle. There were blankets spread across the sofas, uneven stacks of books on the tables, and a fire started in the fireplace, Dedue crouched in front of it as he poked at a log.

Ingrid never had many requests for her birthday, though really, none of them ever did besides Sylvain. Actually, on the scale between the five of them (ranging from Dimitri’s near-tearful surprise whenever the four of them arranged any recognition of his birthday at all, to Sylvain’s tendency to plan large parties), Ingrid landed somewhere between Felix, who hated anything besides well wishes and a few gifts, and Dedue, whose birthday traditions usually brought them to Ducur to celebrate in some kind aunt’s guesthouse with a home-cooked meal, Ashe Ubert almost always joining them.

Their routine was mostly the same as it had been in childhood; they ate a large breakfast spread, then lazed around in the warmest spots they could find all day until it was time to eat a large dinner spread. Dimitri and Sylvain always joked that the kitchen staff doted on Ingrid the most.

At the moment, Ingrid was beating Dimitri at chess, Dedue was taking a break from sitting in an armchair and reading a book, and Felix was sitting on the floor in front of Sylvain on the sofa. He was sat between Sylvain’s knees, legs pulled up to his chest, waiting for Sylvain to be finished with his painstaking braiding.

“You take forever,” he commented.

“You’re ungrateful,” Sylvain replied easily, tugging at his hair a little. Felix rolled his eyes but didn’t argue again.

Dedue moved to sit back down, caught Felix’s eye as he did and offered him a small smile. Felix felt only slightly bashful at his amusement.

Dimitri sighed at the chess board again. “It’s just not the game for you, Mitya,” Sylvain called to him from behind Felix. “You should either come to terms with that, or…I don’t know. Pursue lessons.”

“I’m too embarrassed to ask,” Dimitri admitted sadly. “It feels like an admission of a poor mind for strategy.”

“Real knights and bishops don’t move in predetermined set patterns, Dimitri,” Dedue said without looking up from his book. It sounded like a well-practiced reply.

“Stop complaining, you’re making me feel bad for beating you,” Ingrid said with a familiar frustrated whine in her voice.

“Just switch to cards, at least then you can win some money off of him,” Felix said. Sylvain had gently pressed his head forward to finish the tail of his braid, so he aimed it at the floor.

Sylvain finished his braid, tying it off with a ribbon, and then he said, “Now turn around.” So Felix did, scooting himself around on the floor to look up at Sylvain, who reached out and plucked the shorter strands of hair around Felix’s face free, a focused look on his face. “There,” he said when he was done, giving Felix a small smile. “Now you’ll be the prettiest girl at the ball.”

“Second prettiest,” Ingrid corrected. “It’s my birthday.”

“I suppose I’ll have to settle,” Felix said dryly. He stood from the floor and planted himself onto the sofa with Sylvain, lying back against the opposite end and tucking his socked toes under Sylvain’s thigh.

There was the confident thunk of a chess piece being placed, then Ingrid said, “Dorothea told me that you said you were really going to make good on your threat this year and hold a ball at Gautier.”

“I think I will,” Sylvain said. “Sometime this summer, maybe. You’ll have a very enviable date on your arm.”

“That’s months from now,” Ingrid said, sounding embarrassed, which Felix was sure was Sylvain’s aim. “Don’t count eggs before they’ve hatched.”

“Chickens,” Dedue corrected. “I think the eggs can be counted any time.”

“I feel very confident in my predictions,” Sylvain said, undeterred. “Maybe you’ll even be betrothed.”

“Of all people to gossip about betrothal,” Ingrid muttered, sounding displeased with the conversation. Another thunk of a chess piece, and then she said, “Dimitri, if you play that move I can checkmate.”

“Oh,” Dimitri intoned. “Wait, how?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Felix aimed at her, his eyes closed as he lounged against the sofa.

“My rook, here,” Ingrid said to Dimitri, then, “Your mother is anxious for you to marry.”

“Stop gossipping with my mother,” Felix groused. “Especially about my likelihood to marry.”

“I’d truly like to get the most out of the current scandal of our relationship first,” Sylvain said. “The longer people can believe that we’re power-greedy deviants, the better.”

“Power-greedy,” Felix repeated with scorn, scoffing at the concept. “They’re idiots. If they’re so concerned with noble heads allying for power, no one’s stopping them from coupling up.”

“Besides their own cowardice,” Sylvain agreed.

“Anyway, don’t speak as if you’re guaranteed my hand,” Felix said. “My mother shouldn’t either. There’s plenty of time for us to finally piss each other off enough that I throw you out.”

“Yes, your mother of all people should know how much you enjoy delaying your own happiness,” Dimitri commented, and it earned a surprised laugh from Felix.

“That was good,” Felix allowed him.

“Checkmate,” Ingrid said, and Dimitri groaned. Dedue gave a soft laugh, and Felix opened his eyes to look over at him. He was looking up from his book over at Dimitri, a fond expression on his face.

“If you switch to cards, I’ll play,” Dedue offered.

“I’d join,” Sylvain said. “I hate chess anyway.”

“Only because you lack the ability to sit still for that long,” Felix said with a snort.

“Will you play, Felix?” Ingrid asked, the sound of her resetting the chess board with quiet thunks of the pieces filtering over to Felix.

“I’m enjoying myself here,” he said with only a hint of complaint in his voice. It was warm in front of the fire, and he was still sleepy from their breakfast.

“Like a house cat,” Sylvain said quietly as he stood, walking in front of Felix before leaning down to press a soft kiss to his forehead. It made Felix blush, just slightly.

“Oh, go lose at cards,” Felix replied, but he couldn’t fight the hint of a smile on his face as he looked up at him, haloed by firelight.

“Are we playing for coins or are we stripping?” Sylvain asked the group at large, looking away from Felix with a smirk. Felix grabbed a pillow and threw it up at him, laughing to himself when it connected.

The four of them shuffled around, arranging chairs and dealing cards, and Felix listened to the din he associated with winter at Castle Blaiddyd. Dedue’s deep voice under Ingrid’s higher-pitched as the four of them talked, the earnest cadence of Dimitri’s speaking, and the familiar sound of Sylvain’s laughter.

He was comfortable, laid out in front of the fire, eyes closed. He was very, very comfortable here.

No part of Felix was built for warm sea winds. He was gifted with the coloring and the temperament of an evening snowstorm, and there had been plenty of times he had been sure that he would melt in the sun.

Sylvain, conversely, had the tendency to bloom. After only two days roaming the seaside, his shoulders and the tip of his nose were pink-tinted and freckled, like a spotted lily. His smile fit in here, the way it always looked like summer.

They had traveled south to former Adrestia unadorned, with no sign of their family crests anywhere and only a basic sword each at their sides. They wore plain leather bags and simple clothes, playacting as commoners as they rode from town to town, inn to inn until they got here. A small town set on top of sheer cliffs, scattered sandy beaches below if you knew the path to get down to them, and Sylvain made sure that they did. There were no inns, but they had found a room to let for a week, in exchange for some gold and the promise to keep the space clean.

Though Felix may have been out of his element here, lying on linen spread over warm sand with the sound of the tide gently echoing toward him, at least he was sun-warmed. The little strip of beach they had stumbled on was empty apart from them, and Sylvain was wandering along the shore in only a short pair of trousers, his hair windswept and blowing into his face every time he looked back at Felix on the sand. It was long again these days, touching the tops of his shoulders. He looked pretty, but that wasn’t anything new.

Felix watched him scamper up and down the water’s edge, like a dog let off a leash, amused from his spot in the shade. When Sylvain finally walked back up the beach, illuminated by sunlight behind his figure, he started turning out his pockets, hands full of shells.

“Look,” Sylvain said, spreading them across the blanket. He was never content with travel until he found little baubles to bring home. “They’re pretty.”

“They are,” Felix agreed, leaning forward to run his finger across an iridescent shell, trying to bite back his amusement at Sylvain’s enthusiasm. He laid back down while Sylvain selected his favorites and transferred them to a small pouch, closing his eyes. The air smelled like salt, and it had been long enough that the memory of the smell of blood on Rhodos Coast finally didn’t follow it. Maybe after this little voyage, the sea wouldn’t make him think of battle at all; maybe he could replace the memory with the image of Sylvain chasing after seashells.

Before too much longer, Sylvain laid down next to him, his skin hot from the sun as he pressed himself against Felix. “Come swimming with me,” he said, throwing an arm around Felix, the warmth of him seeping easily through Felix’s light clothes. He could smell the sweat and sunshine on him, a very Sylvain sort of smell.

“You have to wash the salt out of my hair later, then,” Felix replied without opening his eyes.

“Gladly,” Sylvain said, pressing a kiss to his cheek, and Felix smiled.

“Stay for a minute, though,” Felix said, bringing a hand up to hold Sylvain’s arm in place.

Sylvain kissed his cheek again, settled himself in place. “As long as you’d like,” he said. The ocean crashed into and fell away from the shore in its rhythmic pace, and Sylvain stayed by his side; two natural forces at work.

They were far from Fraldarius or Gautier, far from their titles. Here, at the sea shore, they were only a married couple with well-lined pockets and perhaps a lack of propriety. (They kept spending their days kissing on the beach, after all.)

“Is it like you imagined?” Felix asked quietly, kissing Sylvain’s forehead as he did.

At his side, Sylvain laughed, the low vibration of it a familiar buzz through his bones. “It’s much better.”

Felix let out his own laugh in return, not sure what was funny besides maybe fate. The will of the Goddess, the stubbornness of their own natures, the persistent red string tying the two of them together inexorably — whatever you wanted to attribute it to. They had earned this, hadn’t they? This unique feeling of peace? Every grim battle and swallowed confession of love, every argument and prayer for each other’s lives, had stacked on top of each other like so many bricks to build this structure around them. They didn’t need another lifetime, another reality. They found a way to build it in this one. A cottage by the sea, where no one knew their names.

At sunset, they made to leave the beach, and Felix turned to see Sylvain lit by the setting sun against the waves. In a week or so, they would head home, their indulgent vacation come to an end. But Felix would still have his husband, incandescently sun-bright, steadfast and easy to love.