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When Felix is thirteen, his brother falls on the battlefield. Dead. Gone.
Almost ten years later, his father suffers the same fate.
He dies for The Boar: a pointless, stupid death. His death mirrors his life perfectly.
Felix can't understand why everyone's so broken up about it. He doesn't understand anything that's going on right now.
The Boar even tries to apologize for it, coming up to Felix in the dining hall like he has the right to, saying, “Felix, I’m-”
“Save your breath,” Felix spits. He knows what Dimitri wants to say, he can read it all across his face. He looks like he’s going to cry, his face all twisted up with the first human emotion he’s felt in five long years. Felix’s throat feels like it’s going to close up if he hears it, as if The Boar’s useless apology will throw him into anaphylactic shock, like his heart will stop from it. He doesn’t know why. “You have no right to speak to me.”
With those words, Felix storms off, fury running through his veins like poison.
He feels lost. His vision tunnels down to almost nothing as his body moves on auto pilot through the monastery.
He blinks, and before he knows it, he finds himself standing out front of a very familiar dorm, his fist raised and poised to knock.
“Oh,” he says quietly to himself.
Maybe this is a stupid idea, but Felix knocks on Sylvain’s door, anyway.
Sylvain opens it, his brow instantly furrowing up as he looks down at Felix where he stands, “Hey, Fe.”
The soft look on Sylvain’s face does nothing but enrage Felix even more. How dare he? He storms past Sylvain and stands in the middle of his bedroom, placing his hands on his hips. Then, he says, “I don’t fucking get it!”
He must have been louder than he thought, because Sylvain flinches and quickly shuts the door. “Get what?”
“I don’t get why everyone is making such a big fucking deal over my father’s death!”
Sylvain cocks his head to the side, but says nothing.
Felix continues, “He is-- he was nothing! A no good brown-noser who died for no reason! His life had no purpose, Sylvain, and yet all of you are walking around here ready to cry at the drop of a hat! It’s pathetic! The Boar tried to apologize to me. He was practically crying,” Felix spits his words, uncaring as Sylvain’s eyes narrow at him. “Even Byleth looked as if she wanted to give me a hug. Why, Sylvain? Why? Why can’t everyone see how absolutely pointless this is!”
“Felix,” Sylvain starts. He looks bewildered, like Felix is some kind of fool and not everyone else. “He was your father, practically Dimitri’s too.”
“But he was nothing, Sylvain!” Felix stomps his foot as he speaks, making his sword rattle in its sheath where it rests against his leg. “Why can’t anyone see that? You’re all fools!”
“Felix,” Sylvain says again. It’s a warning this time, Felix realizes.
He stops talking and takes a breath, trying to calm himself down enough to make Sylvain see what he does. “I hate him so much.” His voice shakes when he speaks and he makes a frustrated sound, turning his eyes to the floor. “He was a terrible father.”
“You know, Felix,” Sylvain’s voice comes out slowly, each word calculated with precision. Sylvain knows how to use his words as a weapon just as well as he knows how to use a lance. Felix wants to put a guard up, become impenetrable. But he can’t, not with Sylvain, not now.
What Sylvain sounds next goes straight through him, pierces his skin and hurts just as badly a wound too. “You are allowed to grieve for him, even if you hate him.”
It’s as if all the air in the room had been sucked out at once. Suddenly, Felix can’t breathe. Suddenly, he’s standing there-- gasping for air like a fish out of water. “No,” he manages, voice weak. “No, you’re wrong.”
Sylvain takes a step closer and puts one of his big hands on Felix’s shoulder. His other hand moves to Felix’s face. Sylvain touches him all the time, but the rare intimacy of this gesture makes Felix’s stomach roll. He can’t pull away, though, feet frozen in place. He’s stuck right here in space and time, only able to let everything wash over him all at once like a tidal wave breaking upon the shore.
“I’m not.” The ghost of a sad smile passes over Sylvain’s face-- just the corner of his mouth lifting with it. “If there’s anyone in this world that knows what it’s like to hate someone you’re grieving for, it’s me.”
“Oh,” Felix says, because he hadn’t even considered it. “But--”
“You’re gonna have to trust me here. I watched Byleth kill my brother, and I was still so broken about it.”
“But Miklan, he--” Felix knows better than almost anyone how horrible Sylvain’s brother was to him, how many times he tried to kill Sylvain or make him suffer.
“Didn’t matter.”
Felix’s breath stutters, getting stuck in his chest for a moment. Sylvain has a callus between his thumb and pointer finger from holding his lance. It rubs against Felix’s cheekbone as they stand there, unmoving.
There’s just one candle lit in the room on Sylvain’s desk; its dim light flickers throughout the entire room. He hadn’t realized until now. Something about the darkness makes Felix’s body remember how to breathe once more. He takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly.
Quietly into the night Felix says, “I’m all alone.” He hadn’t realized that until right now either. His mother, his brother, and now his father.They’re all gone. Dead. They’re all gone and Felix is alone. He’s no child, but he is an orphan. He’s all alone. He’d felt like a lone wolf for as long as he can remember, but now that it’s a reality, it aches. The pain from it is almost unbearable. Wave after wave washes over him and Felix feels seconds away from losing his grip and getting swept out to sea. “I’m all alone, Sylvain.”
Panic, Felix realizes. Panic is what he’s feeling.
“No you’re not,” Sylvain says, and then he’s pulling away. Felix wants to reach for him, and he almost does, but then Sylvain’s undressing him. He takes Felix’s swords from him and places them on the floor next to his desk. Then, he takes Felix’s overcoat and undoes the ties. Felix isn’t sure why he’s letting Sylvain touch him like this. It isn’t something he’s ever done before. He just stares, watches silently. When he’s just in his undershirt and pants, Sylvain goes to sit on his bed, he motions for Felix to come to him and he does, completely unthinking-- like Sylvain has a magical pull. Felix’s head is swimming.
“I’m going to break,” he admits.
Yes, that’s it. Of course Sylvain saw right through his anger and his bitterness and figured out exactly what was wrong with Felix, knew exactly what he needed. Goddess, he’s infuriating.
“If I let myself grieve for him, cry for him like everyone else… I’m going to break.” He takes a shuddering breath when Sylvain’s hands touch him once more-- one on his waist and the other back on his cheek. “And I’m not sure that I’ll ever get put back together again.”
Felix feels like a vase that has splintered and is seconds away from breaking into a thousand pieces of glass. If he lets himself go, he’ll fall apart, he’ll break. He's going to shatter for good. He knows it. There’s no one left to keep him together. There's no one left to pick up the pieces of who he once was.
Sylvain’s thumb passes over his cheekbone again, and that snaps Felix back to reality. It takes him a moment, but he eventually meets Sylvain’s eyes. They look almost golden in the candlelight. “You’re wrong about that too. You’re not going to break.”
“I am, I--”
“No, you’re not.” The way Sylvain says it sounds so solid, so sure. “Because I won’t let you.”
Felix is tumbling with the waves inside of him, and here Sylvain is, offering him a rock to cling to, to be protected by. “Why?” he asks, because he needs to know.
“Felix," Sylvain whispers. He's said Felix's name again and again during this conversation but this one sounds different. It sounds like a prayer, a wish whispered into the dark of the night. Felix is almost afraid to breathe. "You have no idea, do you?" Sylvain's sad smile is back on his face again, and on instinct Felix reaches up to touch it. He presses his thumb to the corner of Sylvain's mouth-- just for a moment.
"What?
"I've loved you for so long, probably since we were kids."
Felix frowns, because that can't be. No, it makes no sense. The women, the men, the everyone but Felix. He searches Sylvain's face intensely, looking for a twitch of a laugh, a wrinkle of a lie.
He finds nothing.
"You love me?" He asks.
"I do. I love you, and I won't let you break. Ever, Felix. I want to be there forever."
Oh.
The words are spilling from Felix before he can stop them. "I've dreamed about you saying that, you know." He has. In his dreams, they've won the war. Sylvain jumps from his horse and sweeps Felix up into his arms. "I love you," Dream Sylvain says. "I want to fight by your side forever."
This isn't quite the same, but it's close.
He doesn't realize he's crying until Sylvain reaches up and brushes a tear from his cheek. He doesn't say it back, doesn't think he can right now, but he holds onto Sylvain, just like he has asked Felix to. He buries his head into Sylvain's shoulders and sobs. He lets go, and trusts that Sylvain will hold him together.
Sylvain's arms come up around him and pull Felix down onto his lap. Felix wraps his arms around Sylvain's shoulders, fingernails digging into the back of his neck. He holds on desperately, and sobs as wave after wave smacks into him.
Sylvain does just as he had promised. Even long after the candle burns out, he holds Felix together. He doesn't let go.
In the morning, Felix is woken up by the sun in his eyes and Sylvain's warm body against his back. His head hurts from crying and he knows he needs water. He can feel how swollen his eyes are when he blinks.
Within a war, there are many battles. Felix was in a battle of his own last night, and with Sylvain's help, he survived.
Sylvain, who loves him. Sylvain, who wants to protect him. Sylvain, who wants to spend the rest of their lives together and doesn't have a single doubt about it.
Felix has a hundred questions. He doesn't need them all answered, not today. He does have an answer of his own to give, however.
He rolls over and shakes Sylvain a little, rasping out his name with his sleepy, morning voice to get him to stir.
He does, and when Sylvain's eyes lock onto his, Felix burns as if he's standing in the sun on a hot summer day. It takes everything within him to not look away. He swallows hard, and then says, "Yes."
"Sorry, what?" Sylvain rubs the sleep from his eyes and then flops back onto his pillow to look at Felix more, continue to burn him up.
"You said you wanted to be there for me forever. Did you not?" Sylvain nods, but he's obviously still confused, so Felix continues speaking. "Well, I want that too. Forever, with you."
When Sylvain leans in to kiss him, a different kind of wave washes over Felix, as he clumsily kisses back. The water doesn't scare him anymore. He knows Sylvain will never let him drown.