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I bet you enjoy going out with them, but you hate women themselves. Don’t you think?
Now, with a little distance between himself and Dorothea’s pretty face and cold eyes that saw right through him, Sylvain had a million and one answers to that question that were all far better than the one that had come out of his mouth.
“Me? Hate women? Ha. Ha,” he repeated aloud in a mocking tone, sharply grating out the last syllables and running a frustrated hand through his hair. At least in the solitude of his own room he could let the mask slip a bit, but there was no relief to be had in it. The dormitory felt claustrophobically small, a reminder that this tiny room was the only space he truly had to be himself; but if he stepped outside, he would have to once again be Sylvain Jose Gautier, Heir of House Gautier, Bearer of the Gautier Crest (a minor crest, as Miklan had been fond of spitting at him and his father had said ‘would have to suffice’).
Slumping down on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees and his head left hanging, Sylvain took a few deep breaths and tried to pull himself back together. His delivery could have been more convincing, but he didn’t actually hate women: he just hated the expectations that were placed on him by them and every-bloody-one else around him. It wasn’t their fault that they’d been raised to value his name and his money and his crest above anything else.
He often wondered if he would feel the same even if he was attracted to women, if perhaps it wouldn’t matter that someone was only after his crest if he could at least enjoy himself with her.
But his lot in life had already been decided, and there was nothing he could do but run with it. Pretending to date women all over the place had been the only thing that had kept his father from already arranging a marriage for him, although he didn’t doubt that it would be coming any day soon. And then he’d what, exactly? Charm her, hope to get a crest child on the first try, and then come up with a lifetime of excuses to never touch her again?
Maybe he’d get to have a torrid homosexual love affair on the side if he was lucky, perhaps with a footman or a visiting lord...or a neighbouring duke.
Sylvain scoffed out loud and threw himself back on his bed, dragging both hands down his face. The only thing more unlikely than Felix actually accepting his inheritance would be the chance of them ever developing anything beyond the politically expedient friendship that had been foisted upon them since birth.
It had only been after Felix had left to become a squire that Sylvain had realised exactly what the other boy meant to him, and he’d nearly choked to death on his own spit when he’d arrived at Garreg Mach to see Felix for the first time in two years. He’d become colder, sure, but also lean with muscle and painfully handsome, his tied-up hair leaving Sylvain itching to pull it loose and run his hands through it.
There was no one in the monastery who could hold a candle to Felix, despite how many women Sylvain had told were the prettiest he’d ever seen.
But no matter how many guilty, terrifying, exciting dreams Sylvain had experienced over the years, Felix had never expressed interest in anything beyond sword fighting and being left alone ever since his brother’s death. It was as if he’d cried his lifetime’s share of tears that day, and then put all of his emotions in a box to never be opened again. He was an untouchable puzzle that Sylvain had never been allowed to solve, and so he distracted himself day after day with pretending to be the cocksure ladies’ man that everyone thought he was.
It had apparently worked even better than he’d ever expected: if the gossip was to be believed, there were already a great number of little redheaded bastards running around the entirety of Fódlan and possibly beyond. The fact that he might actually be a gay virgin had never crossed anyone’s mind, he didn’t think.
But of all the people he’d ever met, Dorothea had come closest to figuring him out. She hadn’t even hesitated in tearing down the image he’d built for himself, leaving him raw and exposed and vulnerable in a way he absolutely hated. Would she expose him to the world? Leave him a laughingstock? Let the news of his pathetic state get back to his father so that an engagement would be arranged at once?
He couldn’t let that happen, but he didn’t know what else he could do. He couldn’t risk talking to anyone, didn’t want to put a voice to his most private, shameful thoughts and risk them spreading, but it was a problem he didn’t know how to fix on his own.
Sleep didn’t come easily for Sylvain that night, leaving him staring at the ceiling in the dark and wondering what Felix was doing only two rooms over. He was glad that Dimitri roomed between them, though, or else he knew he would end up tempted to press himself against the wall and listen closely to hear what Felix got up to when he was alone.
Goddess, he was pathetic.
The next day, Sylvain was sitting alone in the courtyard outside the classrooms when Dorothea gracefully sat on the bench beside him. Her short skirt rose up to expose more of her thighs than usual and he looked out of habit, bitterly wondering if this would finally be the time that a woman’s body stirred anything other than tired resignation out of him.
It wasn’t.
Still, he plastered a charming look on his face and tilted his body towards her, the movements nearly automatic after years of watching and copying what other men did around beautiful women. Normal men. Ones who actually looked forward to attempting to further their wretched bloodlines.
“You’ll never fool anyone with your eyes shooting daggers like that,” Dorothea said, her voice easy and calm but thankfully quiet enough to get lost in the general noise of the area. Sylvain blinked, imperceptibly shaking himself out of his sudden mood and trying again as he looked her in the face this time.
He didn’t risk trying to meet her eyes, though. They saw too much. “Don’t have the slightest idea what you mean, Dorothea. But I do have to warn you: if you’re here to beg me to take you to dinner, you should know that you wouldn’t be the only woman in my heart.”
A consummate leading lady, Dorothea’s smile- far more natural-looking than Sylvain’s own, he thought- didn’t waver for a second, although he wasn’t willing to risk actually touching her when he slung a casual arm over the back of the bench. Beauty alone wasn’t enough to get someone into the Black Eagles, and he figured he would have been lucky to leave with only his arm damaged.
“I’m going to choose to ignore that,” Dorothea said lightly. “I came to apologise for being unnecessarily rude yesterday, but I may be rethinking my decision.”
“Well, far be it from me to tell a lovely lady that she was wrong,” Sylvain said, adding a wink for good measure. Dorothea was, unfortunately, nowhere near as rewarding to rile up as Felix was: while he would practically steam from the ears the moment Sylvain hit one of his particularly exaggerated grooves, there was no hint of what Dorothea was actually thinking on her face. She seemed to ooze flirtation naturally the way Sylvain had painstakingly trained himself to do, but their energies clashed instead of melding together.
Of course, if the whispers of passing students and the not-so-furtive looks being thrown their way were any indication, no one else had any idea that they were witnessing a challenge. They only saw what they expected from Sylvain, the incorrigible flirt who had allegedly bedded more women than he thought would be physically possible, and Dorothea, the Mystical Songstress and keeper of men’s hearts everywhere. Nobody would bother looking beyond their reputations to see the truth.
“I don’t think you actually hate women. I do think your interest lies elsewhere,” Dorothea said. The ease with which she voiced the secret that Sylvain had never said himself out loud, had barely even dared to let linger in his mind in case some particularly clever mage had discovered mind reading magic, immediately set him on an edge that he barely covered by falling deeper into his flirtatious mode.
“If you’re saying that my interest is not in women, but rather in one woman, then you’d be correct,” he sighed, pressing a hand over his heart. “It’s you, Dorothea, my love: you’ve captivated me like no other, and-”
He trailed off when he noticed that she wasn’t looking at him, but rather at something- or someone- over his shoulder. Please be Felix, he thought, forcing his aching cheeks into a kind and reassuring smile. Please be Felix, please be Felix, please be…
“Darling!” He exclaimed, stomach sinking when it was not his best friend but rather his girlfriend of the past week and a half; although judging by the look on her face, ex-girlfriend was probably the more fitting descriptor.
He hadn’t even done anything this time.
At the very least, he was glad to be spared from the shouting when Caroline merely threw the wrapped package she was holding at him and stomped off, the weight of it feeling like a book when it clipped his chin painfully. A book. She hadn’t known him at all, had she? Although that couldn’t have been her fault when he’d never let her actually see him for who he was.
“Well then,” Sylvain finally said once the throbbing in his face had lessened and the gawkers had mostly moved on. “How would you like to get dinner with Garreg Mach’s most eligible bachelor?”
“I’d love to, but I believe Seteth is busy this evening so I suppose I’ll settle for dinner with you instead,” Dorothea said. The harshness of it surprised a laugh out of Sylvain, which then made him wince and have to rub the renewed pain in his jaw. “It’s absolutely a pity date, though.”
“Ah, but you admit it is a date?”
Dorothea smiled, somehow angelic and predatory all at once, and leaned in close to Sylvain’s ear in a move he’d used himself hundreds of times. “Sylvain, keep up. I’m just as gay as you are.”
Leaving him speechless, Dorothea gave him a friendly tap on the back that would have knocked the air out of him if he hadn’t been so used to Dimitri and stood up. “Well? Are you coming?”
Looking down at the abandoned gift sitting rumpled on the ground, Sylvain picked it up and hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should return it and try to apologise. But he already had one freshly blossoming bruise on his face and he didn’t particularly want another, so he simply sat it on the bench and stood up to follow Dorothea to the dining hall. Whispers followed them as they went, other students gossiping about the scene in the courtyard, but Sylvain was used to it- and he supposed Dorothea was as well.
Let them talk, he figured. If it kept people from actually seeing him, he wasn’t about to complain.
Getting up at first light to train was a habit that had followed Felix to the academy, and he often wasn’t the only one. It wasn’t unusual for Catherine or Shamir, or even Professor Byleth on occasion, to either beat him to the training grounds or appear halfway through his morning routine.
What was unusual, though, was for him to meet someone else along the hallway of the dormitory’s second floor.
“Good morning,” the opera singer from the Black Eagles- Dorothea, he belatedly remembered- whispered as she came down the hall towards him. He didn’t reply, instead looking past her in the direction she’d come from.
His room was the third one down the hall, and the only flight of stairs up to the second floor was in the direction she had been walking. Considering that she hadn’t been in his room, that only left two possible choices; and he didn’t think that the damn boar prince was one to have women leaving his room in the early morning. That meant she must have spent the night with Sylvain, a realisation that made Felix’s throat feel hot from how irresponsible that idiot always was. Did he not remember that he had a certification exam in a few hours? Felix wasn’t going to listen to him whine if- when- he failed. He could complain to his girlfriend instead.
Oh yes, Felix had heard the gossip.
He didn’t actively seek it out but it was hard to avoid hearing about it when apparently the most interesting thing to happen all year was Sylvain only being seen with one woman for over two consecutive weeks. They had been spotted eating together a few times, shopping together, and sitting on the grass outside the classrooms together.
Sylvain hadn’t said anything about her whenever he’d insisted on inflicting his presence upon Felix, which was somewhat unusual, but Felix had told himself that that could only mean he was even less serious about it than usual. Because the other option, that he actually really meant it this time, was one that made Felix feel vaguely queasy.
“What are you doing up here?” Felix snarled, causing Dorothea’s footsteps to slow to a stop. She looked back over her shoulder, the pleasant smile on her face riling Felix up further.
“I was helping Sylvain study for his exam, but I told him to sleep for a few hours beforehand.”
“Is that what they’re calling it these days?”
Her eyes narrowed and the smile dropped, but then the look on her face became something uncomfortably like pity. No one had looked at Felix like that since Glenn had died, and it raised his hackles in an instant. “He was going to ask you for help but you told him to stop interrupting your training. You’ll lose him if you don’t open up; he won’t chase you forever, you know.”
“Shouldn’t you be going off downstairs to the rest of your people? He’s not going to marry you,” Felix sneered. It was the wrong thing to say and he knew it, but although the whole monastery had heard about the women that apparently came and went from Sylvain’s room, this was the first time Felix had personally witnessed it despite their rooms only being separated by Dimitri’s. It was uncomfortably real to be seeing it in person: the fact that Sylvain would flirt with and date and bed any woman who walked within arm’s length of him, but had never been able to notice the way Felix looked at him.
Had looked at him.
Before he’d realised that he’d never have a chance so long as there was a single woman around.
“My apologies,” Dorothea said, her light tone stabbing into him like sharpened steel. “I’ll return to my place among the common folk at once so I don’t dirty your doorway with my presence any more than I already have.”
Flicking her hair over her shoulder, she continued down the hall with the grace of any noble-born woman, disappearing without a backward glance. Fuming, Felix stormed back into his room and paced until he was sure she would be gone, not looking over at Sylvain’s room when he left again and not wondering which room was hers when he walked along the row of first floor dorms on his way to the training grounds.
Luckily it was a quiet day and the training grounds were quiet and still, no one around to see Felix brutally taking a training sword to the dummies of straw and wood they kept around for solo training. His usual disciplined technique had long gone out the window in favour of releasing his aggression, and it was only when the dummy was a mangled mess and the sword was a broken wreck that Felix noticed how sore his arms had become.
He felt like a puberty-riddled child again, like when he’d first noticed that the way his heart sped up and his palms sweated around Sylvain was more than the childish admiration he’d assumed it was. But Sylvain had already been chasing women long before Felix had discovered his tastes lay elsewhere, and the urge to beat things every time Sylvain came to him chattering about this girl and that girl had slowly lessened until it had mostly disappeared not long before Felix had left to serve as a squire.
Until, apparently, it had decided to return with a vengeance because Sylvain had apparently spent the night with a woman who was beautiful and talented and skilled on a battlefield, from what Felix remembered of her performance at the Battle of the Eagle and Lion. Regardless of her upbringing and her heritage, she would be the perfect wife for someone like Sylvain, unlike the usual run of servant women and villagers that Sylvain tended to flippantly court.
She could stand tall by his side and they would have a group of mischievous children and Sylvain would inherit the title he’d been entitled to since birth. Not like Felix, the fuckup who was never meant to be the heir. He supposed the only reason Glenn’s engagement hadn’t fallen to him as well was because of Ingrid’s family’s struggles, and the sense of relief that gave him at her expense made him hate himself even more.
Felix gave a frustrated yell and threw the broken sword at the wall, clattering loudly as it fell to the ground. He’d thought himself above his stupid, childish feelings for Sylvain; but apparently he was still weak.
If he had to train day and night until he passed out, so be it. He wouldn’t let such a frivolous weakness be his undoing.
Felix ignored the door of the training room when it slammed open, assuming it was just an overenthusiastic idiot with a lack of proper respect. He was proven right, he supposed, when Sylvain entered his line of sight and went to shove his shoulder, Felix moving with the action and robbing it of any strength. He vaguely wondered how Sylvain’s certification exam had gone; from the look on his face, it wouldn’t be a good time to ask.
“Fight me,” Sylvain said in a low and serious voice.
“I’m training. Bother someone else.”
“Fight me,” Sylvain repeated, more insistently. He already had a sword in his hand, and Felix scoffed at the idea of Sylvain trying to meet him on his usual ground. He had the potential to be great, but a lack of practice meant that he would never rise above good.
“Why should I? You’re hardly a challenge.”
“Fight me, and if I win you have to apologise to Dorothea.”
Scoffing, Felix turned away only to find sharp metal touching the base of his throat. Sylvain would never, they both knew it, and yet the cool steel against his sweat-soaked skin sent shivers down his spine. “You’ve always been a fool, Sylvain. I have nothing to apologise for.”
Of course he was there to fight about his precious girlfriend. Sylvain had never batted an eyelid when someone spoke badly about him, had never so much as wavered in his amused tone when he retold the so-called ‘funny’ stories about the times his brother had tried to kill him. But whenever someone had called Felix a crybaby, or told Ingrid she wasn’t ladylike enough, or dared to be less than complimentary about the prince, Sylvain had been the first one to get in their face and tell them off.
Apparently now, though, Felix ranked below a woman that Sylvain had known for a fortnight.
Smacking Sylvain’s sword away from his throat with the one in his own hand, Felix turned and settled into a fighting stance. It would hardly be worth his time to fight Sylvain, especially when swords weren’t his strongest weapon, but perhaps a little humiliation would serve him well. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that she ran off to tattle to you.”
Sylvain’s handsome face darkened in a way that Felix had rarely seen, except perhaps when he’d rammed a lance through what had become of his brother. “She didn’t want to tell me, but you know I don’t like seeing my friends hurting. If you think a woman needs to tattle for me to realise she’s upset, then your opinion of me is even lower than I’d thought it was.”
The first few clashes of their swords were obviously testing blows, each trying to assess where the other was at. Felix had better technique and strength that Sylvain, of course, but he’d also spent most of the day hacking away at training dummies and wasn’t moving at his full potential. His flustered mental state didn’t help either, particularly when Sylvain tended to rely on verbally throwing his opponent off whenever possible.
“You know,” Sylvain said with a grunt, using his sword to block Felix’s own and shoving him back a few steps, “some of the nobles here only care about status, so it wasn’t hard to guess what someone had said to her.”
Felix didn’t reply, but he snarled and took a jab towards Sylvain, who easily avoided it due to Felix’s slower, tired state.
“I’d expect that type of elitism from that snotty Gloucester guy, or the social climbers who think they’re better than anyone else. But you, Felix? Since when do you go around throwing your title in people’s faces? You don’t even care about it!”
Sylvain’s technique was unpolished, but that made him unpredictable; and although he was full of openings, most of them were lethal ones that Felix would never actually want to take against him. The next swing of his sword went wide, but it left a cut in Felix’s sleeve and he staggered back again. Sylvain rushed in close, their swords meeting between them with a clash of metal.
“She’s using you,” Felix finally exploded, trying and failing to get enough leverage to force Sylvain off. “Just like all the others.”
There was a pause and then Sylvain burst into hysterical laughter, his grip on his sword loosening. If Felix had wanted to win at any cost, there would be no better time to put the point of his sword to Sylvain’s chest and declare victory.
But he didn’t, and he let his hands drop until his sword was hanging loosely by his side.
“Sylvain, I don’t know why this time is different. But you’re going to get hurt, and you’ll laugh it off like you always do and pretend nothing is wrong and it will irritate the everloving fuck out of me.”
Sylvain let his sword fall too, his face red from exertion and unstable laughter and his shoulders still trembling. “I’m going to get hurt anyway, but it won’t be Dorothea’s fault. She actually understands me.”
“Bullshit,” Felix said with a roll of his eyes. “I always knew you were an idealistic romantic, but you don’t even know her. There’s no way she could understand you.”
“And you do?”
“I-” I’ve watched you for years, you fool. I remember all the times you poured your heart out to me when we shared a room and you thought I was asleep. I know what you like and you hate and what would make you happy. “More than someone who’s out for your name and your crest.”
“You’re an asshole, you know that? Why do you suddenly care who’s in my life? You always tell me to shut up and stop bothering you with what I’m doing, and yet I can’t stop myself from coming back to you like a useless moth to a grumpy flame.”
Staring at the ground, Felix didn’t reply. There was nothing he could say that wouldn’t completely embarrass him, and Sylvain had always been able to tell when he was lying. It was why he had never before actually taken Felix seriously when he’d told Sylvain that he didn’t want to hear about it or that he didn’t care. The tense, brutal silence stretched out between them, until Sylvain suddenly took a step forward and bent his head slightly to try and better see Felix’s face.
“Felix...are you jealous?”
“No,” Felix spat, not meeting Sylvain’s eyes. It wasn’t convincing and he knew it; apparently Sylvain did too. He laughed bitterly, gesturing emphatically with the hand that wasn’t still holding his sword.
“You can’t do that, Felix! You can’t tell me I’m annoying and to leave you alone, then lash out when I spend time with another friend instead! Either figure out what the fuck you want or leave me and my actual friends alone.” Throwing his sword to the ground, Sylvain turned on his heel and walked away, a strange complement to the way Dorothea had disappeared from his sight that morning.
If he’d been a stronger man, perhaps Felix could have considered that the end and taken the chance to dissolve the friendship that had given him more grief than any other. To finally let Sylvain go off and marry and produce a little crest heir.
But when it came to Sylvain, he’d always been weak. He was a useless moth to a beautiful flame, to mangle a borrowed phrase.
So he’d fucking apologise if it meant that Sylvain would smile at him again.
Sylvain and Dorothea were sharing a meal with Professor Byleth when Felix finally worked up the nerve to go and find them the following day. He could face down wild demonic beasts without a single finger trembling, but the very idea of doing something emotional had him swallowing hard and repeatedly pacing the short distance across his room.
If he tried to announce himself he thought he would end up stammering and stalking off, and so Felix simply sat next to the professor with his hands folded together so that he wouldn’t try to reach for the reassuring grip of the sword he’d actually taken off for the occasion. Sylvain frowned at him while Dorothea watched him warily, and the professor’s eyebrows rose as she shifted in her seat and placed an elbow on the table, propping her chin on her hand and watching the three of them curiously as if they were an entertaining sideshow of some sort.
Felix probably would have preferred to do this without her watching, but there was a chance that her oddly soothing presence would keep him from doing or saying something that he would really regret.
“So what are you doing tomorrow night, Dorothea?” Sylvain asked loudly, obviously showing off just how hard he was going to ignore Felix. Dorothea, at least, continued to stare him down and Felix met her eyes with an unwavering confidence that he didn’t really feel. He could admit that he’d gone too far the day before, but that didn’t make it easy to walk it back.
Whatever she’d seen in his face, she seemed to approve as she touched Sylvain’s forearm and shook her head. “Sylvain.”
“Ugh, fine. What do you want?”
It was only the guilt of genuinely hurting his best friend that kept Felix from snapping back like he usually would, plus the fact that he would rather not have his teacher see him acting like a child. She’d never take him seriously as an opponent otherwise. “I came to apologise.”
“I didn’t win the fight, you don’t have to force yourself.”
“I want to,” Felix snapped before he reeled himself back in. “Dorothea, I’m sorry that I threw our status in your face, it was out of line. Sylvain’s judgement is bad but I should let him make his own mistakes.”
“She’s not a mistake,” Sylvain interjected. Felix ignored him, keeping his focus on the woman across from him.
“If you’re the one he chooses to marry, I daresay there would be worse choices he could make.”
There was a pause- and then to Felix’s utter surprise both Sylvain and Dorothea started laughing, Sylvain practically flopping out of his chair to lean heavily into Dorothea. “He thinks... he thinks…”
“You! And me!” She giggled, wiping daintily at her eyes. “Oh, Sylvain, imagine that.”
“I fail to see how this is funny,” Felix said, shoving his chair back from the table. Only the professor’s firm grip closing around his forearm had him staying seated, Byleth shaking her head at him until he stopped trying to leave.
“There’s nothing like that between us,” Sylvain eventually managed to say when the pair of them calmed down, hauling himself back into his seat and taking a drink.
“But everyone is saying-”
“And it’s that hilarious every time,” Dorothea nodded.
“Oh, I guess you did kind of mention something about me being a romantic yesterday, huh.” Sylvain said, scratching his chin. “I was too pissed off about everything else to bring it up.”
“So you’re not dating,” Felix said flatly, hoping that the embarrassed heat in his cheeks wasn’t visible to anyone else. Could he have made a bigger fool out of himself? “But I saw you leaving his room too early in the morning to be innocent.”
“I told you, we were studying for his exam. He’s not my type,” Dorothea shrugged.
“Hey, I’m everyone’s type,” Sylvain interjected flirtatiously, earning himself a pair of eyerolls.
“Not mine,” Dorothea said. Felix could have said the same but Sylvain really did know when he was lying and he wasn’t willing to risk it, so he kept his mouth shut.
“What is your type, then?” Professor Byleth suddenly asked, and the sudden blush on Dorothea’s cheeks made Felix realise exactly how off the mark he’d been, thinking that Sylvain and Dorothea were dating.
“Well, I…” Dorothea said, sounding slightly alarmed. Sylvain snorted and shook his head, earning himself a slap on the arm, but then Dorothea leaned in and whispered something to him that had his cheeks going red.
“I don’t want to, Dorothea!”
“I’m not going through this again.”
“But-”
“Oh, just go,” she said, picking up his plate and shifting his half-finished meal to her own. He sadly watched the food go, then took a deep breath and visibly steeled himself as Felix watched on curiously.
“Felix, I need to talk to you.”
Felix blinked, tilting his head a little. “Is that not what we’ve been doing?”
“Not here,” Sylvain groaned. “In private.”
Felix raised an eyebrow but nodded, rising from the table when Sylvain did and silently following him from the table.
“Hey,” Felix heard Professor Byleth say to Dorothea as they walked away, “you should consider moving to my class.”
“I...I’ll think about it.” Dorothea sounded like she wanted nothing more, and Felix wondered how soon they would be getting a new addition to the Blue Lions.
He considered making a comment about it to Sylvain, but he didn’t want to be the one to break the silence. That had never been his job, after all: he usually only managed to create an even more awkward silence.
Of course, it wasn’t as if the tension improved once they were alone in Sylvain’s room.
Closing the door behind them, Sylvain gestured for Felix to sit on the bed and was promptly ignored, Felix choosing to turn the chair around from Sylvain’s desk and settle there instead.
“Typical,” Sylvain sighed, although he sounded far less unhappy with Felix than he had at the table and in the training grounds. He flopped back on his bed and grinned, Felix clearing his throat and pointedly not remembering any and all dreams he’d ever had about Sylvain in that position over the years. “So.”
“So,” Felix repeated dryly. It earned him a smile, though, and that was what mattered in the end.
“I think I should...explain a few things about my friendship with Dorothea.” Lacing his hands behind his head, Sylvain bent one leg up and rested his ankle on the opposite knee, staring at the ceiling. “She’s...we got close, really quick. Not like people think I always do with women, but actually genuinely close.”
“Is she your best friend now?” Felix asked for some stupid reason. He probably should have gotten more sleep the night before instead of worrying all night about whether he’d irreparably destroyed one of his oldest friendships.
“No, that title still belongs to my favourite crotchety bastard of a swordsman,” Sylvain said with a little laugh. It felt normal to be talking to him like this, and a sense of relief flooded through Felix. His poisonous jealousy hadn’t ruined everything after all. “She’s...like I told you yesterday, she understands me.”
For a long moment, the pair of them remembered the night before. Felix opened his mouth to say something, anything, but he cut himself off when Sylvain beat him to it.
“If I don’t say this now, I’m gonna wimp out and I’ll never say it at all. Felix, I’m gay.”
“Um.” What was the appropriate thing to say when your straight friend who you had been in love with for at least ten years suddenly turned around and told you he was gay? Goddess, he’d never been the one who was good at personal things.
“And I’m only telling you this because she said I could, so it doesn’t leave this room. She’s...the same. Like me. And it felt so good to have someone who understood, because I don’t know anyone else who’s like that.”
This time it was Felix’s turn to let a rare laugh escape, although he thought it was more from nerves and surprise than any sort of joy. “But the women…”
“A shitty, awful attempt at pretending that I’m anywhere close to half the man my father wants me to be,” Sylvain said bitterly. “I’ve hurt a lot of people, and she’s helping me be better than that.”
The awkward silence was back, Felix still absolutely not sure of the right thing to say. Sylvain continued to stare up at the ceiling as if it were the most interesting thing he’d ever seen, until he finally groaned and sat up, shifting to sit on the edge of the bed with his knees almost touching Felix’s own. “Please say something, Felix.”
“...Like what?”
“Like...fuck, I don’t know! Like you can learn to live with it, or that I’m gross, or that I should be a good little noble boy and marry a politically appropriate woman anyway because it’s my duty!”
Felix had counted himself as one of the few who knew the real Sylvain, although he was quickly realising that it might not have been the entire truth. Still, with Sylvain sitting before him and risking everything to expose himself to Felix, he knew it was only fair to show him the same respect.
“I...I understand, too. I’m...like that.”
“You’re…” Sylvain said slowly, his eyebrows creeping up. Felix simply nodded, looking at Sylvain’s hands instead of his face. He’d always had nice hands, big and long-fingered and…
“It was fine before...Glenn. He was going to get married and carry on the family name, and I was allowed to believe in some sort of freedom. And then suddenly that was my duty, and I refused, and the fighting didn’t die down until my father sent me away and told me he would introduce my wife when he’d found the right one.”
“...You never told me,” Sylvain said, but it wasn’t an accusation. Felix shrugged, finally looking up to meet Sylvain’s gaze.
“I’m sure you understand why.”
“I do, I really do. Goddess, what a useless pair we are.” Shaking his head and smiling somewhat sadly, Sylvain stretched out his legs absentmindedly but jolted when he made contact with Felix’s own and promptly drew them back to himself. “All this time, we were going through the same things without knowing it…”
Felix almost completely missed that last part, staring at Sylvain’s leg and frowning. He’d never had a problem with them touching before: he was always messing up Felix’s hair and throwing his arms around Felix’s shoulders and trying to hug him, no matter how many times Felix tried to make him stop. It was a mystery and Felix wasn’t particularly fond of mysteries, so he moved his own leg until it was resting against Sylvain’s as an experiment of sorts.
“...What are you doing?” Sylvain asked, and Felix was confused enough to tell him the truth.
“Why did you jump away like I’d burned you?”
“Well, that, I,” Sylvain stammered. Felix stared him down, visibly watching Sylvain’s resolve crumble until he slumped forward to put his head in his hands and groan loudly. “It was so much easier to be close to you when I thought you weren’t into anyone at all.”
Felix didn’t say anything, but he didn’t move his leg away either. He had the feeling that Sylvain wasn’t finished but he’d only know for sure if he managed to wait him out.
“You’re...Felix, you’re really hot, okay? Ridiculously so. And you like men but I’d always told myself that it was fine because you were straight so you wouldn’t think anything of it and now I’ve said it and I’m worried you might cut my hand off or something and please say something before I continue embarrassing myself or try to kiss you or something stupid like that.”
“...Excuse me?”
Sylvain made a loud, frustrated noise and ran both hands through his hair. “You should probably leave so I can melt into a puddle of embarrassment and hopefully never have to remember this day ever again.”
“Oh.” Standing up, Felix looked down at Sylvain, still hanging his head forward with uncomfortably tense-looking shoulders.
“Please close the door behind you,” Sylvain said. He didn’t look up.
“What are you on about?” Felix earned himself a gasp when his sword-callused fingers tilted Sylvain’s chin up, taking a deep breath to steady himself as he bent down and finally met the lips he’d been thinking about for longer than he dared to admit. It was a little awkward and not at a great angle, and after a few seconds Felix awkwardly pulled away and stood up, fingers itching for the reassuring weight of his sword.
“Oh, no you don’t!” Sylvain exclaimed, shooting up off the bed and throwing his arms tight around Felix’s shoulders. “My boy has feelings, actual human feelings and they’re for me and-”
“Oh, shut up,” Felix muttered, mortified and somehow also quietly overjoyed.
“Never!”
Their second kiss was better, Sylvain’s hands clutching the back of his shirt and Felix tentatively placing one on Sylvain’s hip and the other on the back of his neck. Felix let Sylvain press his tongue into his mouth this time, the sensation wet and foreign and somehow so, so exciting.
Perhaps a little too exciting, Felix considered as he shifted awkwardly. But something that felt so good couldn’t possibly be wrong, family lines and noble duty be damned, and so Felix went back in time and time again until they were both flushed and panting and Sylvain had managed to loosen most of his hair from the bun he kept it in.
“You know, you’re not as good at this as I thought you would be,” Felix teased, pushing a loose strand of hair out of his face and wiping the wet spot at the corner of his lips.
“Well, I, I mean…” Sylvain spluttered, red-faced and adorable. “You don’t actually think I was doing anything with those women, do you?”
He pulled a disgusted face and Felix couldn’t help it- he laughed. He couldn’t remember the last time he had actually, genuinely laughed, but there it was and Sylvain was staring at him like something precious, something to be treasured and cared for and-
His train of thought was promptly interrupted when Sylvain kissed him again, quick and with closed lips but only drawing back far enough to whisper, “I’m going to practice until I’m as good as you thought I would be- no, better. So you’d better get ready.”
“You’re welcome to try,” Felix said in a low voice, infinitely glad when Sylvain did just that.
Sylvain and Felix didn’t think anything of it when Professor Byleth invited them to eat lunch with her one day, the pair of them starving after having worn themselves out the night before and only emerging from Sylvain’s room once the sun was already high up in the sky. Their eyes lit up at the plates of super spicy fish dango that their teacher placed in front of them, neither noticing that Byleth was ignoring her own plate in favour of watching them carefully.
“I’m glad you two have been getting along again,” she said eventually, Sylvain looking up at her and nodding with a muffled ‘mmmff’ sound. She was silent for another long moment and the other two went back to their meals, eating with the usual gusto of young men.
“Perhaps remember, though, that noise carries here and my room is directly below yours, Sylvain.”
In Felix’s mortified shock, the spicy heat of his food hit wrong and he began coughing uncontrollably, trying to soothe the burn that had suddenly become unpleasant. Sylvain reacted with a gasp that made him inhale his food wrong, and the pair’s loud coughing and spluttering drew the attention of every person in the dining room. Professor Byleth simply began eating as they sorted themselves out, somehow looking emotionless and pleased with herself all at once.
“Wait,” Sylvain finally managed to say quietly, grabbing Felix’s upper arm. “If she heard, do you think…”
The pair of them looked across the dining room to where Dimitri was sitting with Dedue. The prince was still watching them after the commotion they’d made, but he quickly averted his eyes as soon as he saw them looking back at him.
“He knows,” Felix said flatly, pinching the bridge of his nose. It should have been obvious, but they were young and dumb and full of...energy. “May we never speak of this again.”
Sylvain could have sworn that he heard Professor Byleth snort into her food, but she didn’t look any different than usual and he had no way to prove it.
“We’ll be quieter next time,” he nodded, mostly glad that it had been her who had caught them and not Seteth with his fondness for lectures about the goddess valuing wedlock above all else. Under the table, he let his thigh sit alongside Felix’s, and the rest of the meal passed relatively calmly.
“I’m going fishing,” Professor Byleth suddenly said. “Probably for several hours. Goodbye.”
“...That was weird,” Sylvain said as she walked off, briefly pausing to pick something up off the ground and tuck it into her pocket.
Felix simply stared back at him.
Sylvain had the slightest suspicion that he was missing something, but he wasn’t quite sure what it could be. “What?”
Felix’s judgmental eyebrow rose.
“Oh! Ohhhh .” Sylvain could have smacked himself across the forehead. “If she’s out there, and Dimitri’s in here…”
“He finally gets it,” Felix said, and he smirked for just long enough for Sylvain to see. Sylvain’s answering grin was brighter than the sun shining beautifully in the sky.
Not that they were outside long enough that day to appreciate it.