Work Text:
1.
Sylvain sits on the steps of the training ground watching Felix practice against a training dummy, up until Felix stops, stalking over, and taps him on the head with his wooden training sword. "You don't train enough."
"Yeah, yeah. I'll be fine," Sylvain says. "I managed to kill those bandits okay, didn't I?"
Felix looks down his nose at him. He so rarely has the advantage of height, and seems to be appreciating it now. "You hesitated."
Sylvain smiles crookedly, any derision in his expression directed inward. "I hadn't killed anyone before, Felix."
"Neither had I." Felix breaks his gaze, turning away to pace a few steps on direction then the other, before trotting across the grounds to find a lance and then returning to shove it into Sylvain's space. He bumps it against Sylvain's crossed arms a few times before Sylvain finally takes it. "There. Let's fight."
"I don't think fighting you's going to make killing people any easier." Sylvain remembers how it felt when his lance went through the bandit's shoddy leather armor, and he looks at Felix and can imagine the same - piercing his flesh, ripping through his innards. He can imagine having to pull the lance back out, too. His stomach turns.
"No," Felix agrees, which startles Sylvain enough to make him pay attention. "No, it won't, but you'll be ... If you have it burned into muscle memory it will be easier. If you don't have to think about it."
"How can I not think about it?"
Felix settles back into a fighting stance. Beneath his eyes the skin looks bruised and tired, even more worn than usual. Maybe this sparring session is as much for his own sake as Sylvain's. Sylvain knows better than to suggest such a thing. Felix waits, then nods when Sylvain finally gets up and faces him. "We just have to make sure it's easier than the alternative."
"Those are people. With families. They've got - mothers and fathers. Maybe even pretty older sisters, who would definitely not want to date me if they knew I killed their brothers -"
"Shut up!" Felix's voice is nearly at a yell, but he takes a deep breath. Lowers his voice in a way that's almost more threatening than before. "You don't get it. I'm trying to - just shut up and fight me."
Sylvain shrugs, and does as he's told.
2.
The dog days of summer linger on entirely too long for Sylvain's comfort. The worst part, though, is that he's sick.
He manages to hide it for a few days, but with the week almost over, he finds himself barely able to walk.
"Hurry up," Felix tells him, not looking back. "You're going to be late."
"Yeah, yeah." Sylvain stops to lean against a wall. He tries to make it casual, in case anyone sees. The rest of their floor is already empty; it's just them. It's not like Felix to drag his heels, either.
Felix turns around, eyeing him up and down, then scowls. "You're sick."
Sylvain forces a grin, like maybe he can hide how bad he feels this once. It works on most people, but never Felix. He tries anyway. "Yikes, what did I do to deserve that one?"
"I didn't mean it as a metaphor, for once," Felix says. "Do you need help getting to the infirmary?"
"No, no, I'm fine. I'll just go lie down -"
"You will not," Felix says. "I'll carry you there myself if I have to."
"Aw, Felix, I'd almost think you still cared."
Felix turns his head away sharply, raising his chin in the air in the same motion. "How are you going to take part in the weekend training exercises if you're sick?"
"I can miss one lousy bandit stomp."
"Maybe," Felix says. "But you shouldn't fall too far behind. You're - almost useful, sometimes."
Sylvain's a bit cloudy-eyed and fuzzy-headed with fever, but that sounded closer to a compliment than he's gotten from Felix in a while. "Huh."
"Come on."
"You're gonna be late too. Go on ahead. It's not far, I can make it."
"I'm not going to class anyway. I'm going to the training grounds. If you're still sick this weekend, I'll need to be strong enough for both of us."
"You'd do that for me? You're getting soft in your old age."
"I just don't want you dying at school. You care more about duty than I ever have; you need to live if you're going to fulfill it."
"I don't give a shit about duty, Felix," Sylvain says. "But I don't want to die. I'll - I'd protect you too, if it came to it. Ha. Promise."
Felix doesn't answer.
Sylvain tries to make it, he really does, but the world is wobbling beneath him like he's on a boat in a high storm and he keeps having to stop, and finally Felix has enough of it and just - picks him up. Even though Sylvain's taller.
Felix is strong, and trains way more often than ever seems reasonable, and he wobbles a bit under the weight but manages to drag Sylvain's sorry ass down one fight of stairs and two hallways to the infirmary all by himself. Sylvain puts his arms around Felix and leans against him more than is probably appropriate, but he really is sick, and Felix doesn't say a word about the excessive affection so he figures he's allowed just this once. Felix smells sharper than he did when they were kids, but still familiar. Still comforting. Sylvain takes deep breaths and tries to pretend to himself that he's not being creepy.
Manuela isn't there, not when class is meant to be in session; it's another monk of the monastery instead, who looks up, tired, and says, "We don't do weddings."
"He's sick," Felix says sharply, dropping Sylvain a little more roughly than necessary on an empty cot. "Do something about it."
3.
Sylvain enters Felix's room without asking. Felix looks up from the book the Professor assigned earlier in the week, then looks away again. "Get out."
"Felix! You wound me. C'mon. I just want to hang out with my best buddy. My pal. My Fraldarifriend."
"I'm studying."
"I can help," Sylvain says. "I mean, I probably won't know what you're working on, but -"
"We're not even in the same class. Why would you be able to help?"
"You know what? I'll join yours," Sylvain says. He paces the room, gesturing broadly. "I'm gonna ask the Professor and join your class. It'll be great. All new girls to talk to, too. Have you seen Petra?"
Felix finally raises his head again. He hasn't been reading since Sylvain entered, but he hoped that not acknowledging him would be enough to make Sylvain take the hint. Then again, Sylvain has never taken the hint, and Felix has been - fine with that, mostly. It's impossible to chase Sylvain away, and part of him is maybe grateful for that, if that's the right word. "You're disgusting."
"She's cute, is all I'm saying," Sylvain says. He sinks down onto Felix's bed, resting his arms on his knees. "But she'd probably think I'm only interested for the status thing, since she's a princess and all."
Felix shakes his head. "You're the one who thinks like that. Leave her alone. Do whatever you want, but leave her alone."
"Ooh, does Felix have a crush?"
"She's fifteen," Felix points out. "In a foreign country as a political token. She doesn't need you charming her then breaking her heart."
Sylvain considers this, and immediately decides to leave Petra alone. It sometimes surprises him how quick Felix is to analyze a situation, though it shouldn't; Felix has always been quick and sharp and good at reading people. Still: "How do you know I'd break her heart?"
"It's what you always do," Felix says, entirely too bitter. "To all of them."
"Yeah, yeah." Sylvain sighs deeply. "No, no, I know, you're right. It's fucked up, but it's like I can't stop, either. I keep thinking maybe one time it'll be different, or maybe I'll - I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing."
"Then figure it out."
"Well, hey!" Sylvain gets up again, crossing the narrow distance between bed and desk to lean down and throw his arms around Felix's shoulders. "At least I'll never break your heart, huh?"
"Fuck off."
"Aw, Felix, you're so nice." Sylvain smacks his lips against Felix's temple, obnoxiously loud, and Felix cuffs him on the forehead. Sylvain cackles, draping his arms around Felix's shoulders and resting his head on top of Felix's. "Always telling me to fuck off and shut up. It's great. This's why you're my best friend."
"Pathetic," Felix says, in lieu of you, too. "Listen. If you want to study with me, get your books and get to work. I don't want to waste time."
4.
Sylvain joins the class right before everything goes haywire. Within two months, the Professor vanishes.
The Black Eagle Strike Force fights on; Sylvain suggests once, haltingly, that they just go home, but Felix stares him down and he sighs and they stay. Turns out Felix was right, anyway, the more Sylvain thinks about it and the better he gets to know his former classmates turned military officers. They all want a world freed from the tyrrany of the Crest system as badly as he does, for their own reasons, so he stays and fights even as the years drag on. It was a last minute choice, but not a bad one.
During one spring campaign, early in the evening after the army's made camp for the night, Felix sits himself down at Sylvain's side and tosses Sylvain a dead rabbit. Sylvain stares at it.
"For dinner," Felix explains, impatient. The gold of his eyes reminds Sylvain of a wolf or a wildcat. Some sort of predator that stalks the woods. Sylvain licks his lips, then looks back down at the limp body of the rabbit, its head hanging limp from its snapped neck, the kill bloodless and clean.
Sylvain holds the rabbit at arms length. "I, uh, I'm not the greatest cook."
"Fine, then give it back." Felix grabs it from him without further prompting, and without Sylvain actually offering it. Not that he wanted to keep holding onto it.
Sylvain laughs, though, tired but genuine. "You're terrible at giving gifts."
"It's not a gift. I'm trying to keep you from getting scurvy."
"Rabbits don't stop scurvy."
Felix digs into his pack one-handed, unwrapping a little cloth parcel and holding out a handful of dried fruit. "They do if you eat them with fruit."
"I think that's just the fruit. The rabbit is sort of inconsequential."
Felix lets out a frustrated noise. "You've been eating nothing but dried biscuits for a week. Fuck you. I'm making us dinner."
Sylvain holds up his hands, hoping Felix will take the hint and stop. It's not that Felix is a bad cook or that he doesn't want to eat, but supplies are low this year. "I'm not gonna eat better than my troops -"
Pulling out a knife, Felix starts making quick work of skinning the rabbit, careful to preserve the hide's integrity. No use being wasteful. Felix is all about efficiency, and sometimes Sylvain wonders if he learned it from Ingrid. He hasn't seen Ingrid in years, and he's about to get lost in his own thoughts when Felix's curt voice snaps him back out of it. "They eat better than you."
Sylvain shrugs. "Supplies are tight. It'll be better when the harvest comes in."
"You still have to survive until then." Felix starts dressing the carcass, preparing it for roasting over the campfire. "You'll be useless if you're too weak or sick to fight properly, and I don't want to have to look after you all the time."
"Hey, now, I can manage fine," Sylvain says. Still, he fusses with the fire, then gets up to find some sticks to fashion a crude spit out of so they can roast the thing. He may as well be useful if he's going to be forced to eat well tonight. He'd try harder to turn down the gesture, but - it's Felix. Making food for him. "Say, Felix."
Felix only grunts in response, focused as he is on roasting the rabbit, spearing it on the spit Sylvain made.
"I, uh - thanks," Sylvain finally says. "For making dinner, I mean. If you're still willing to look out for me, that means I can't be entirely worthless."
Felix actually smirks at him. "Only mostly."
"Once the war's over I'll buy you dinner or something to make up for it. Or like - whenever. Before that. I don't know. I'll get you dinner, is the point. Just you and me; I won't even hit on the waitress." Sylvain is already mentally beating himself up for saying anything; he knows all too well how greedy and profane he is and how he's no good for anyone - not the girls he's dated, not Felix, not himself.
He hopes Felix doesn't get the wrong idea about the offer - because Sylvain would mean it that way, he wants to, but he also doesn't want to wreck things with Felix like he does everyone else. It's stupid of him to have said anything at all.
Felix glances up at him searchingly, then looks away again. "If you insist."
5.
"Von Vestra wants us to lead the charge when we take Fhirdiad and face the Church's last line of defense. If we agree, we'll be helping Edelgard and the Professor plan the attack ourselves."
"Oh," Sylvain says. "Huh. That's - yeah."
Felix looks down at the table, staring at his plate like it might offer up some wisdom or insight. "I told him to let me talk to you first. Before we got the official order."
Sylvain bites the inside of his cheek, not bothering to plaster on a smile like he might for anyone else. Or like he might for Felix, given a different situation, one that didn't involve an assault on a city they both visited regularly while growing up. "Why'd he tell you?"
Felix shrugs. "I've been working with him on other projects."
"Oh, secret stuff," Sylvain says. He stabs at his dinner with a little too much gusto. It's some spicy meat dish that Felix enjoys and that, at some point, Sylvain started liking too, because they shared it enough times. He's used to knowing everything about Felix and what he does with his time. "What kind of dirt does he have on you that you're actually working with that creep?"
Felix stares at him until Sylvain meets his gaze. "It's nothing I don't want to do."
"What?"
"I'm - I want to win this war, and sometimes that requires you do things you can't talk about until it's over," Felix says. "Is it that strange?"
"I guess not," Sylvain says. He shakes his head and repeats himself. "No. I guess not."
Felix keeps staring him down. "Look. Sylvain. If you're going to lose your fighting spirit the second we see the gates of Fhirdiad, you don't have to go. There's plenty of room for slackers at the rearguard, and someone should remain at Garreg Mach. That could be you."
"Fuck, no," Sylvain says. "Just because I'm a good-for-nothing doesn't mean I'm not good for anything."
"I think that's the meaning of the phrase, actually." There's an irritated twitch at the corner of Felix's mouth, like he can't decide whether to smirk or scowl. Sylvain's very attentive to these little nuances of expression, and is entirely too familiar with Felix's face - the curve of his jaw, the line of his nose, the subtle curve of his too-long eyelashes. Even though he's never been much of an artist, he could probably draw Felix from memory.
"Shh, shh. Listen, I'm not going to slack off or - or get too sad to fight, or whatever. I'll be there. Right by your side." Sylvain puts on a grin, giving Felix a wink. "How else'm I supposed to know if you get killed or not? What if I didn't get the news for days? That'd be fucked up; I'd be breaking our promise without even realizing it."
"Shut up." Felix always sounds sharp, but there's an extra edge and roughness to his voice just then. Sylvain's upset him more than usual. "Shut up."
"Okay, okay, sorry."
Felix balls his hands into fists, cheeks red. "I just don't want you to - if you're going to turn tail and run, or if you don't think you'll be able to fight as well as usual, you shouldn't bother coming."
"Wow, how sweet." Sylvain shakes his head. He drops any pretenses this time, answering more seriously. "Listen. I've fought enough former classmates already. I can handle Fhirdiad. Why are you so worried, anyway? Edelgard had to trust me if she made me a general. If she trusts me enough to do this, so can you."
"Okay." Felix takes a deep breath, then exhales. "Okay. Fine. Fighting side by side again it is."
"On the Tailtean plains, in Fhirdiad. Wherever the winds of war take us," Sylvain says with a mock salute.
"Just don't die," Felix says.
+ 1
"So what now?"
Felix leans over the balcony, watching the parade below. There are archers and mages all along the route, just in case. Neither he nor Sylvain are pure specialists in magic, but they know enough that they can target any threats they spot in the crowd.
They were invited to parade along the streets of Enbarr with everyone else, but Felix didn't want the attention. That doesn't explain why Sylvain is up here. "Why aren't you down there?"
Sylvain shrugs. "I don't know. it would have been fun, but knowing you'd be here instead ..."
"I see."
"I don't need the adulation or anything," Sylvain says. "I mean, it's nice, it's real nice, but." But: he'd rather spend the time with Felix. It's not that he doesn't have other friends here, other people he values and trusts, but something about the end of the war has him nostalgic and has him wanting to spend time with someone who's made the same life choices as him. For the rest of the Black Eagles, this was probably inevitable - join Edelgard, fight for her ideals - but he was supposed to do something different. Felix decided to defy fate and not do what he was supposed to, threw off centuries of fated family ties to stay when the war began, and Sylvain's choice may not have been quite so grand but - he's here because he hates Crests and because he can't bear to be apart from Felix longer than he has to. It's pathetic.
Felix's voice is wry. "I suppose you'll still have women throwing themselves at you either way. Hard not to recognize you, with that hair."
"I'm so glad Ferdinand grew his out," Sylvain laughs. "When I was first rising in the ranks, people who didn't know better kept thinking I was him. It was actually sort of funny - still getting courted because of nobility, but from a totally different country with a whole other Crest. Stupid."
"You're nothing alike, either," Felix says. He's relaxed a little, in the weeks since the fall of Fhirdiad and the death of Rhea. "You may have been obnoxious at the Academy, but back then, he was worse."
"Listen, though." Sylvain pauses, staring out at the sky instead of the crowds below. "I don't ... Even if they throw themselves at me, I'm not going to ..."
Felix shrugs. He looks resigned, eyes sharp and focused on the crowd below even as Sylvain turns to look at him. "You'll throw them aside, as always."
"Felix." Sylvain sighs, shifting his weight so they're ever-so-slightly closer. "What are your plans, now that the war's over?"
Felix finally looks at him, though only briefly. "We're still figuring out a title, but I'll be working for the Empire."
"So you're staying here." Sylvain nods to himself. He can work with that. There must be something for him to do; he'll figure it out. Up until five years ago, he knew exactly where his life was headed: fuck around for a while, get pushed into a marriage, get used as a stud to churn out more Crest babies, protect Gautier and eventually die, hopefully in battle rather than of old age because he hates thinking about getting old. Ever since he decided to fight for the Empire, though - the option to go back is still there, probably. He could slip right back into the fate planned out for him way back when Gautier was established as a house. He doesn't want to. Not if Felix isn't going to be managing the Fraldarius household nearby.
"I'll be traveling," Felix says after a long pause. "Putting my sword to use."
"That sounds nice," Sylvain says, which makes Felix scoff. "Can I come with?"
Felix hesitates. "I'd have to ask."
"Oh, more secret stuff." Sylvain nudges him in the side. "Look at you, all trusted by the emperor and everything. Good work."
"It's - I've earned my place," Felix says. "This isn't what I was born to, or what someone else's death forced on me. I made my own path."
"Yeah." Sylvain can't tear his eyes away from Felix's profile. He looks so pleased with himself, however muted and subtle the expression is. Felix looks content and calm and closer to at peace than Sylvain's seen him in years. Sylvain, ever the worthless and greedy fool, wants to kiss him. "And I've been walking it with you."
Felix finally turns to face him again, and this time does not seem intent on quickly looking away. His whole body is angled toward Sylvain, away from their task. Most of the parade and procession has passed by now, the emperor herself blocks away, and there are other lookouts; they can spare a moment's distraction. "Sylvain."
"Yeah?"
Felix speaks quickly, as if there's something urgent about what he's saying, or as if he's forcing himself to say it without backing down. "If they don't trust you enough - we can find other work. I thought I'd end up a mercenary anyway. We can do that if we have to."
Sylvain feels like he's been kicked by a horse, if it were possible for that to be a good thing, stunned and breathless. "You'd do that for me, huh?"
Felix looks askance for a moment, but he takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders. He looks Sylvain in the eye. "I would."
Sylvain goes on autopilot, stooping down a little and pulling Felix into a hug. Felix is surprisingly quick to return the gesture, given how rarely he doles out affection, but there he is, clinging to Sylvain as tightly as Sylvain is to him. "You've done a lot for me, huh. Over the years."
"If you say so."
"Felix." Sylvain presses his face against the side of Felix's head, breathing in deep. They used to hug a lot, when they were kids. He's missed it. It's been on his mind constantly ever since a few months back when he took a blow for Felix. "Ah, fuck, Felix."
"You're right. That's me," Felix says, and then they're cheek to cheek, and then Felix's mouth is pressed, clumsily, hesitantly, against his own. It seems so obvious, somehow, like something they should have done years ago.
Sylvain doesn't hesitate to return the gesture. Even as soft and chaste as it is, he feels like he's drowning in it. He holds onto Felix tight, like he's never going to let go.
Eventually they break for breath, foreheads pressed together. Up so close, Felix is a little blurry, but Sylvain won't close his eyes for fear of missing out. "I'll follow wherever you go. Anywhere."
"That's fine."
"That's fine?" Sylvain asks, laughing.
"It's fine," Felix repeats, a little petulant this time. His expression is startlingly soft as he looks up at Sylvain, vulnerable and embarrassed. "I just meant that I won't stop you, if you do."
"Uh-huh."
Felix scowls, cheeks going red, glancing off to the side but not moving any further from Sylvain, the two of them still pressed close together, arms around one another. "Do I have to spell it out?"
"Nah, I think I get it, finally," Sylvain says. "I think I get it."