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“Sylvain… hey, Sylvain! Stay with me.”
Groggy, winded, he lifted his head. Or tried: motion brought pain, bright and blinding, searing along his spine to the base of his skull. Sylvain whimpered, letting his head fall back against warm, solid weight.
“Hey—stay with me. If you die—”
“M’not gonna… die.” Sure felt like it, though. There was a ringing in his ears that drowned out most other sounds—or maybe that was his heartbeat. Maybe both. Everything was a dull roar, his body heavy and useless and in oh so much pain.
He opened his eyes, forced them to focus on his surroundings. There was smoke everywhere, shadowed figures wading through it like murky water. He couldn’t make out faces, couldn’t tell friend from foe. He could barely remember where they were.
“S’goin’ on?”
“Doesn’t matter. Just… stay awake… get you to…” There must be something wrong with his ears, too; he was having trouble making out the words. Sylvain tried to sit up again, slowly; the pain was white-hot but bearable. He had to… something. Do something.
The battle. They were fighting. He couldn’t remember who or what for, but if they caught him napping—
“What are you doing?” The arms beneath him shifted his weight with a grunt. “Be still!”
“S’not that bad,” Sylvain told them, “I can still—”
“If you finish that sentence, I’m leaving you here.”
“My friends.” Images, faces floated to the surface of his mind, slowly, rising from the murk of confusion. A green-haired demon, wielding a sword of bone. Two smaller figures, a tiny redhead and freckled archer—Ashe? His name was Ashe, Sylvain was sure of it. The girl was… A… Anne… “Need me.”
“Your friends need you to get off the field so they can get back to fighting.” His rescuer scoffed. “You can’t even stand.”
Of course he could stand. He wiggled his toes, waved his arm—tried, found it wouldn’t respond, failed—and murmured, “Just gimme a few minutes—”
“You’re such a fool!” The one carrying him grunted, shifting Sylvain again. The new position gave him a better look at his rescuer: sharp cheekbones, deep blue-black hair falling loose from its queue, dark amber eyes staring into the distance. “Ugh,” he grumbled, eyes on something in the distance instead of the useless cavalier in his arms, “when did you get so damned heavy…?”
Sylvain knew him—knew that he knew, but he couldn’t recall how. Yet he was sure they had done this before. Pieces of a memory flitted before his eyes: strong arms around him, making sure he was cared for, carrying him to safety, sharp eyes sorrowful and furious all at once.
“Glenn?”
No, that wasn’t right. Glenn was… was…
The man stiffened, his lips pressed to a thin line. “We’re almost there,” he said. “You’re gonna be fine.”
“Yeah…” Sylvain closed his eyes again, relaxing in the man’s grip. “Yeah, I know…”
Sylvain woke in the medical tent, the sound of humming pulling him from his dream. Already, he could only remember pieces of it, but the dark fragments that remained were enough. Better that he forget.
Huh. He hadn’t dreamt of that in a long, long while. Not since—
“Oh, Sylvain. Good morning.”
The humming stopped, replaced by the gentle intonations of one Mercedes von Martritz. She sat on the cot, careful not to jostle him, and placed her hand against his forehead. “You look much better than last night,” she said. She must have been satisfied with what she found and smiled, pulling her hand back and resting it atop his own. “How are you feeling?”
“I feel…” Sylvain took stock of his body. Everything moved when he tried, wiggling his fingers, then his toes, then shifting slightly beneath the sheets. Nothing was broken, at least. “My head feels a bit heavy, I guess. I don’t remember… I think I remember the battle. But not how I got here.” And what he did remember was an impossibility.
Mercedes hummed, checked his eyes and his pulse and his breathing. “I’m not surprised,” she said. “You had quite a head wound when Felix brought you in, not to mention that gash in your leg. I was too far away to see, but the Professor said…”
Sylvain was no longer listening. Felix. “Ah, shit.”
“What is it?” Concerned, she leaned over him, assessing. “Are you in pain?”
“No,” said Sylvain quickly, “no, I’m fine.” Goddess, how could he be so stupid? “Have you seen Felix? I should let him know I’m okay.”
Mercedes frowned, then sighed and shook her head. “You really should rest—”
“Please, Mercedes?” He flashed her his most winning smile, knowing full well she was one of the few who could resist. “I really do feel fine. C’mon, you do great work! See?” Sylvain hoisted himself upright, only spoiling it by wobbling a little. “Good as new. And I’ll take it easy—promise! As much as I love coming to see you, I’d rather it be when I’m conscious.”
That did it. Mercedes was laughing at him now, hiding ineffectually behind her hand. “I bet you say that to all the girls,” she teased. “Alright, you can go. But you better stick to your promise.”
“Always do!” he assured her. “Thanks, Mercedes.”
“Sure, sure.” She stood, crossing to the other side of the tent to fish through one of the supply chests. “Oh! You should also know we found your horse. That’s how Felix knew to go looking for you, actually, when Arawn came back without you. He probably got spooked when the fire spread so quickly.” Mercedes paused. “I think Marianne was tending him if you wanted to stop by and say thank you.”
His horse. Goddess, how had he forgotten? “I will. Thanks.” Sylvain slung his legs over the side of the bed and threw back the sheets, only to snatch them back again and tuck them around his hips. He cleared his throat. “Uh, Mercedes? Where are my pants?”
“Did I not mention the leg wound?” Chuckling, Mercedes reemerged from the chest, a pair of rough-spun linen trousers in her hands. “You’ll have a nice scar, but I didn’t think you’d mind. It will make a dashing, heroic story to tell all of your lady friends.”
“Mercedes, I’m flattered,” said Sylvain, “but if you wanted to take my pants off you only had to ask.”
That was when the trousers hit him in the face.
Knowing his horse was safe made things easier. Marianne would do a better job tending him than Sylvain would, anyway. It wasn’t that he was bad at horses; on the contrary, he’d been practically born atop one, had been riding since he was old enough to walk. But Marianne had a way with animals that he had never seen in another person. If she was caring for him, Arawn was in good hands.
And that meant Sylvain was free to hunt down Felix.
It wasn’t much of a hunt. Their encampment had a designated training area, more for testing weapons before battle than for actual practice. That didn’t stop Felix. The man was as predictable as he was prickly, which was to say very, so it was with little surprise that Sylvain found him beating a dummy senseless with a wooden sword.
Wooden, not steel. So he wasn’t that angry.
That was a good sign.
“Hey, Fe—”
Thok. The sound of wood on wood drowned out the rest of his greeting. Even from here, Sylvain could see the dummy tremble under the force of Felix’s blow.
“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” Felix wiped his brow with his sleeve, never breaking his concentration. He was dressed down today, his cape and overcoat discarded and draped over one of the weapons racks. Sometimes Sylvain wondered how he could fight in all that, here in the south with summer approaching. He was sure he’d boil alive in his own armor, one of these days.
“Why yes, Felix, I am feeling better, thank you for asking.” He sat on a nearby log and stretched his long legs ahead of him, rubbing his hands along his thighs to ease some of the stiffness. “I didn’t sneak off, if that’s what you’re worried about. I got Mercie’s permission and everything.”
Felix hummed and struck again. Age and experience had smoothed some of his rougher edges, had given him an element of grace that Sylvain had never been able to emulate, but Felix was still a ruthless fighter. He was lethal on even his worst days and would do whatever it took to win. So far, that strategy was working.
“So,” Sylvain said, far too casual, “can we talk?”
Thok. “No.”
“C’mon, you don’t even know what I’m gonna—”
“You’re going to apologize. I don’t want to hear it.”
Sylvain flinched. Okay, maybe he was that angry. “Can’t I—”
“No.” Felix lifted his sword for another strike, then let it fall. “Look, I…” He sighed. “You don’t have to. I know you didn’t mean it.”
Oh.
“Oh,” said Sylvain.
“You left half your blood on that field. Couldn’t have spelled your own name. So just drop it, okay? I—I know you know the difference.” The bitterness in that statement was not directed at him, though, and Sylvain let it go.
“Well,” he said, “okay. If you’re sure.”
“I am.”
Strange: Felix was letting him off easy. “You positive?”
Thok. “YES.”
“…Okay.”
They fell to silence again, only the sound of wood striking wood and the bustled of camp behind them to fill the void Sylvain found himself trapped in. His fingers tapped a nervous rhythm on the log beside him. He couldn’t be satisfied with that—no apology, no explanation. Something inside him was begging to be said, begging to be let out, and he had half a mind to let it.
Maybe Felix didn’t want to talk about it, but he did.
“You know, Glenn stood up for me, once. With my brother.”
Felix stopped, his back to his friend; Sylvain could only imagine the look on his face. “I thought I told you—”
“I know, I know. I just…” Regret had a hand to his throat, fear rising from within to meet it. He took a deep breath. “I just thought you might want to know why.”
Except that Felix didn’t want to know why and Sylvain knew it; this was a stupid idea, and no one—especially Felix—wanted to hear about how bullshit Sylvain’s childhood had been and how he’d envied his best friend’s dead brother so much that he’d almost been glad he’d died, because that was only a thing that terrible friends did to each other and Sylvain was a horrible, useless piece of shit—
Felix sat next to him, his training abandoned, and sighed. “Fine,” he said, wiping his brow on his sleeve and looking only a little exasperated. “Explain, if that will make you feel better.”
At this point, Sylvain was no longer sure that it would. He never talked about Glenn, mostly because Felix never talked about Glenn. He hardly had a right to; Glenn wasn’t his dead fiancé, dead brother, dead son. But he had been Sylvain’s friend, and he owed it to both Glenn and Felix to remember him.
He owed it to himself.
“You know how our brothers never got along?” Felix shrugged; it was fairly common knowledge. “Well, he knew. About Miklan, and me.”
Felix looked unimpressed. “Yeah, Sylvain. We all knew.”
“No, I mean—” Damn it, he wasn’t telling it right. “I mean he was there. When it… happened.”
“When what happened?”
A memory surfaced, and instead of drowning it Sylvain lifted it into the light with trembling hands.
“Your father was visiting, brought Glenn along. I remember being disappointed because you couldn’t come—home sick, I think, that summer we all had the pox? Anyway, I have no idea what they were there for, something to do with the Annex. Doesn’t matter.” He was babbling, he knew he was babbling. Felix was staring at him, and for once it was Sylvain who couldn’t meet his eyes.
“Anyway, Miklan and his buddies ganged up on me. The usual stuff, you know, pushing me around, taking my stuff. One thing led to another and we wound up in the yard. He shoved me in the toolshed and barred the door. I don’t know how long I begged them to let me out.” He said it so casually now, as if he didn’t remember how the walls had threatened to crush him, how the tools glinted in the light from under the door, the way minutes became hours in his young, panicked mind.
All a precursor for what was to come, but he hadn’t known that then.
“Anyway, that’s when Glenn came along. I didn’t see the fight, but I sure heard it. You know he took them all on himself? And then the door was open and Glenn was there, looking like a hero out of a storybook even though he was just a kid, too, and—”
Stupid, admitting that. Stupid and embarrassing. Sylvain cleared his throat.
“And everything was okay. Glenn carried me into the house and that was that. Pretty sure he broke Mik’s arm—think he got in trouble for that, too, but he never seemed too bothered by it. It’s funny, you know: Miklan had a foot on him and was twice his weight, but he wouldn’t fight Glenn if he didn’t have to. Usually that meant waiting around ‘til he went home, but… well. When Glenn was around, I knew I was safe. Just for a bit.”
Felix was staring at his hands. “He never told me that story.”
“I asked him to keep it,” Sylvain explained. “I convinced him it was a one-time thing and asked him not to tell you. Didn’t want to upset his baby brother, after all.” Felix elbowed him. Sylvain decided he deserved it.
“You know, I think that’s the only reason he kept his mouth shut. He loved you more than anything, Fe. I…” Sylvain paused. “I kind of hated you for it. You two were so close, and here was my shit brother, beating me up and wanting me dead. It wasn’t fair.
“Then he was gone. Just like that. That wasn’t fair, either—to any of us. I know he’s your brother and all, but… I loved him, too. And I was so—so angry. He left us. We needed him and he left us.”
He almost missed the swordsman’s sharp intake of breath. “Sylvain—”
“But that’s not fair, either, is it?” It was getting away from him, now, but Sylvain couldn’t stop. That was the problem with being honest: once you started confessing, everything came pouring out at once. “It’s not like he wanted that. And it’s not like I have any right to be angry, or sad, or anything, he wasn’t my brother—”
“Sylvain.”
“Anyway that’s why I called you Glenn and I’m sorry,” because he did not want to talk about this anymore, after all, and if he didn’t stop now the hurt would just keep flowing and he was going to push Felix away too, just like he did with everyone else—
“SYLVAIN.”
He winced. “I should go. I shouldn’t have—”
Felix shoved him back with a growl and Sylvain found himself staring up at his friend from the ground. There was something broken in Felix’s face, something Sylvain hadn’t seen in a long time, and that surprised him more than the use of force. Felix looked furious, but what made Sylvain’s breath catch in his throat was the telltale red around his eyes—the watery waver in his amber gaze.
“Felix,” he said, startled, “are you cr—"
“No!” Felix scrubbed at his face and stood, pacing in front of Sylvain and refusing to meet his eyes. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
More than you have time for, his brain supplied. Sylvain didn’t answer.
“You don’t have the right? How dare you?” Felix leaned over him, his fist trembling at his sides. “He cared about you, too, you idiot! Do you think his memory is somehow marred by your grief? That you’re not good enough to mourn him? Goddess, you’re so—so—”
A single drop splashed on Sylvain’s face, then another, and then Felix was on his knees next to him, his whole body trembling. Sylvain pushed himself upright, already reaching for him.
“Hey,” he said, “Felix.”
“You’re so stupid,” Felix snapped. Fury tempered by tears. “So damned stupid.”
“Yeah.” Like he could argue. “I’m sorry.”
“Well stop being sorry! I don’t want to hear it!” Felix turned on him, face like a summer storm. “If you’re so sorry, do something about it!”
“And what would you have me do?” Sylvain met him blow for blow, now, stone-cold anger in the face of Felix’s lightning strikes. “I can’t change what I am. We’re all messed up, Fe—every one of us. You’re no better.”
“At least I know my own worth!” Felix shoved at him again, but Sylvain caught his hands and held him fast. “You think my brother would have done all that for you if he didn’t care? If he didn’t think you were worth it?”
“Glenn just did that stuff because it was ‘the right thing,’ not because he cared about me—”
“But he did!”
“Felix,” and Sylvain smiled, his heart torn apart in his chest, “my own family doesn’t care about me.”
“I do.” The vehemence of it robbed Sylvain of his breath. “I do,” Felix repeated, staring at their joined hands and very pointedly not at Sylvain. “Glenn did. And Ingrid, and Mercedes, and the Professor, and even that—” He bit his lip, nose scrunched in disgust. “Even Dimitri.”
Sylvain let him go, and Felix scrubbed his eyes again, sniffling into his sleeve. “We all care about you, Sylvain. You’re not just some boy we went to school with, and you’re not just a soldier. You’re our friend. More than,” he added, so soft Sylvain almost missed it. “I… shit.”
Felix cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry we’ve been—that I’ve been—damn it, why am I so bad at this? Look,” and he turned to face Sylvain—still not meeting his eyes, but it was something. “I thought I might lose you yesterday, and hearing you say all this… Knowing you think you’re fucking expendable…”
“Hey.” Sylvain reached for him, and for once Felix didn’t push him away. Instead, he leaned into the touch, let Sylvain pull him into an awkward half-hug, pressed his forehead to Sylvain’s shoulder and sighed deeply. Sylvain thought he might fall to pieces at the touch, a spiderweb of cracks starting at their connection and splintering across his skin. “I’m right here.”
“I know,” Felix snapped; then, softly, “I know. Ugh… Why are you the one comforting me?”
“I don’t know,” Sylvain chuckled, his throat tight. “Seemed like you need it.”
Felix hummed, wrapping his arms around Sylvain and returning the hug. Sylvain stopped breathing.
“So do you.”
The first chip fell away, and then another; others followed, slowly at first and then all at once as each shard, each fragment, every tiny piece of himself rushed to meet its fellows as they scattered in a cascade at Felix’s feet. With three words, Felix had shattered him completely. He leaned into his friend’s embrace with a great shuddering sigh, the first in a long string of sobs that he could no longer hold back.
It had been so long, so very long since he allowed himself to cry. Crying meant feeling the full weight of the burdens he carried. It meant giving in to weakness, something he had hidden away and disavowed in favor of safety, of strength, of stolen happiness; but none of those were things he possessed, and though he had chased them all his life best he could conjure were their shadows.
And now he was sobbing. Sobbing on Felix, who hadn’t touched him in years except to spar or shove him away. Those shadows were becoming real even as Sylvain fell to pieces. He could see them on the horizon line of his future, creeping closer and becoming more solid with every moment.
How could Felix do this to him? How could he do it to himself?
It wasn’t fair.
“Damn it.” He sniffed into the swordsman’s hair, laughing through his tears. “I thought you were supposed to be the crybaby.”
Felix huffed. “Sylvain—”
“Sorry, sorry.” But he was laughing more than crying now, already falling into old habits. Laugh, deflect, redirect. “It’s just, the last time I…” No, he was not about to start this all over again. Sylvain swallowed hard, furiously blinking back a fresh torrent. “When was the last time we… you know…”
Felix squirmed but did not let go, and when he spoke Sylvain could hear the blush in his voice. “Hugged?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know.”
“Me either. I kind of thought you’d forgotten how. No, wait!” Felix tried to pull away, but Sylvain held him fast. “I’m sorry!” he said, his words falling over each other in their rush to soothe him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. Don’t—” Goddess, was he really going to beg? “Don’t let go—not yet. Please.”
Felix relaxed with a huff. Sylvain could almost feel the roll of his eyes. “Then don’t say stupid things.” But his voice was soft as his arms wrapped around Sylvain again, fingers bunching in the folds of his shirt. “You know we can’t just sit here hugging forever.”
“I know,” said Sylvain. It was foolish to hold on for so long; shame threatened to rise within him, had already stained his face red and tainted his movements with uncertainty. “I know, but—”
“Sylvain?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up and let me hug you.”
“…Yeah.”
They sat like that a few moments more, breathing in time with one another until all the tension in Sylvain’s chest had been soothed away. It felt good to be held; he could admit that, at least. But Felix was getting restless, and he had a point—they couldn’t just sit around hugging. Gradually, reluctantly, he let him go.
Sylvain was not prepared for the sense of loss, nor the uneasy silence that followed. Neither of them could look at the other. He stared at his hands, now lying open in his lap.
“Hey, Felix?” Felix hummed in acknowledgment. “Thanks for coming after me.”
“Somebody has to.” It was as good as you’re welcome, coming from Felix. He stood, offered Sylvain a hand up. “May as well be me.”
“Well, I’m glad it was you.” Sylvain took it gladly and the swordsman pulled him to his feet. “I owe you one.”
Felix shrugged, hot-pink embarrassment dusting his cheeks. “You don’t owe me anything.”
I owe you more than you know. That was what Sylvain wanted to say, anyway, but he sighed through a smile and said instead, “You sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” said Felix. He looked thoughtful, for a moment; then, as if something had just occurred to him, he smiled—a real smile, eye-crinkling and soft, the sort that made a person look like a small sun had been lit within. “I don’t think family is supposed to keep score.”