Chapter Text
Felix Hugo Fraldarius could not fucking believe what his life had come to. After the Seiros Ballet’s primary male dancer, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd suffered a career-ending injury the December before last, Felix knew that he was the next pick to succeed his childhood friend. He was the only other male dancer in the whole company who had the strength, the grace, the dedication to make it to the top. Yet when Byleth, the company’s head choreographer, announced the set for the Spring charity showcase, he was floored.
“Who the hell is Annette Dominic?” he asked as he burst into the studio, his eyes leveled on the choreographer’s.
She turned to him with the poised grace of a former prima , her pink lips turned down in a tight frown. Before she could respond, however, they were both interrupted by the sound of a crash, followed by a squeak, and finally a soft “Who put that plant there?”
The studio door opened, and a petite redhead found her way inside. She put her giant orange water bottle down in the corner, then dusted off a bit of dirt that clung to the soft pink of her leg warmers. The woman looked at Felix, then at Byleth, before all the color drained from her face.
“Am I late?” she asked.
“No,” Byleth smiled. “You’re right on time. Felix, meet Annette. Annette, Felix. She came highly recommended from the Fhirdiad Ballet.”
Fhirdiad Ballet? They were pretty prestigious, so she probably wasn’t completely hopeless, but when there were dancers like Petra and Dorothea or even fucking Hilda in the company, how could Byleth put her with some complete nobody?
Unless, she wasn’t a complete nobody. Her pumpkin-orange hair reminded her vaguely of Sylvain’s, but there was something else that unsettled him. Fhirdiad Ballet, Fhirdiad Ballet… That was when it hit him. There was a viral video that got passed around the circuit for a while last year, one that even he had seen.
“Wait… Were you the one that set the stage on fire during a performance of Le Papillion last summer?” Felix asked.
The deepening scarlet of her face was enough to answer his question.
“It was a freak accident!” she squeaked. “The effects guy ended up getting fired, no one was hurt, and it wasn’t really my fault!”
Felix never thought he’d be forced to dance with a corps de ballet dancer who had managed to fouetté straight into an open flame, but no shitty dubstep remix on Tik Tok could make this any better.
“And you let her into our company?” he spat, still not looking at Annette.
Byleth rolled her eyes. “She’s friends with Mercedes, and her father used to dance for Seiros. Plus, her audition made Seteth tear up.”
Felix bit his tongue to keep back the retort he really wanted to give. “But why put her with me? Stick her with Sylvain, or Dedue. I’ve worked my ass off for this!”
“Should I… go?” Annette asked, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot as she watched the two argue. “I— This feels like a private conversation, and really, if Felix doesn’t want to dance with me I could just… Do something else?”
“No.” Byleth and Felix said the word at the same time, staring daggers at the petite woman.
Byleth and Annette seemed rather taken aback by Felix’s statement. After all, just seconds earlier he had been complaining. The thing about Felix Hugo Fraldarius, however, was that he wasn’t a quitter. He was confident in his skills, and so long as Pippy Longstocking over there didn’t set the stage ablaze again, he would work his ass off to make sure that he looked fantastic.
So, Felix squared up his shoulders and slung a long, lithe leg over the barre to begin warming up. “Are we starting or what?”
—
The theme of this year’s charity showcase was times of day, with five pas de deux to showcase Dawn, Morning, Noon, Dusk, and Night. Byleth had choreographed them for dusk, with music composed by the company’s first violinist, Edelgard.
It was a straightforward, yet difficult piece, one that he would have had no trouble dancing with one of his tried and true partners. He knew how they worked, but Annette? She was a complete mystery.
The piece began with Annette, symbolizing the last bit of daylight, gliding across the stage and falling into a series of pirouettes and fouettés . When on her own, Felix could see why she was chosen for the Seiros Ballet.
She had serious talent and a turnout that could rival Dorothea’s. She was apparently recommended by Mercedes, but the fact that her father used to dance for Seiros was what probably cemented her position in the company.
The problem came when Felix, symbolizing the encroaching night, came on stage. He was supposed to meet her, and through a series of turns and lifts attempt to seduce her towards his kingdom. His steps were flawless, his technique brilliant, but the chemistry between them just wasn’t there.
“Okay,” Byleth clapped. “That’s enough for today. You can tell Hilda and Claude they can come in.”
“Well that was… something?” Annette wiped a sheen of sweat from her brow, then downed what seemed like the entirety of her giant water bottle. She chewed on the corner of her bottom lip, trying her hardest to avoid eye contact with Felix. It wasn’t that she was scared of him, no. He just constantly looked like he’d rather be anywhere than near her. To be fair, it was the same look her father gave her whenever she was so unfortunate as to be stuck in a room with him.
“This isn’t going to work,” Felix said. Annette opened her mouth to protest, but he immediately cut her off. “I’ll get the music from Byleth. Meet me here tomorrow at six so we can work on this shit.”
“Six. Okay. Hand me your phone?” Annette said, holding out her hand in wait. She pinned her water bottle between her thighs, and pulled her own from the side pocket of her dance bag.
Felix looked down at her iPhone, which was covered in a white phone case with a corgi butt emblazoned with the word “thicc” in large letters on the back. He tried his hardest to hold back a smile, but it was so stupid that he couldn’t help but chuckle.
“What? I got it on Wish. Look, if were going to meet up outside of official rehearsal, I need your number.” She held out her hand once more.
“What? Right.” Felix slipped his plain-black-Otterbox covered Android into her hand, their fingers brushing ever so slightly.
They both looked up at each other for the briefest moment, as if they hadn’t just spent three hours doing lifts and turns and touching each other’s sweat-covered bodies. He was struck by just how blue her eyes were. While they were dancing, he hadn’t paid much attention. He thought maybe they were gray, but up in the light of the hallway they looked almost like a stormy sea.
Stormy sea. That sounded like something Sylvain would say while trying to pick up corps dancers. It made Felix want to gag.
He punched his number into Annette’s phone anyway, trying to push back that stupid thought, then got his back from her. She had entered herself as “Annette sunglasses emoji Dominic” which was both sickeningly adorable and absolutely ridiculous.
“I guess I’ll see you at six, then,” Annette said. She gave him a small wave, and before Felix knew it, she was already halfway to the women’s dressing room.
—
“Hey Mercie?” Annette asked as she plopped down on her friend’s overstuffed couch, a similarly overstuffed bowl of popcorn in her arms. Kernels went flying left and right, but neither woman seemed to care too much. After all, Mercedes was one of the few people that knew how to put up with Annette “Dumpster Fire” Dominic.
“Yeah, Annie?” Mercedes, ignoring the stray popcorn, yanked a plush blanket over both of their laps. “Is something wrong?”
Annette looked down into the bowl, her eyes sweeping over the microwave popcorn that she somehow managed not to burn for once. “Does Felix like, hate everyone? Or is it just me?”
“What did he do?” Mercedes asked. She grabbed the bowl of popcorn from Annette’s lap and placed it gently on the coffee table, before pulling her friend into a vanilla-scented hug.
“He just—” Annette shrugged. “He was really rude to me. He kept complaining to Byleth about how he didn’t want to work with me, and he said I can’t glissade for shit and—”
“Well, that’s where he’s wrong. I know for a fact that you can in fact glissade for shit.” Mercie smiled.
Annette cracked a small smile. “Thanks. I just, I don’t know. We have no chemistry. I bet Byleth is regretting even letting me into the company.
“Annie! That’s not true. You’re a beautiful dancer! You work harder than anyone I know. In fact, that’s why I think you and Felix could get along if you got to know each other.” Mercedes freed Annette from the hug and grabbed her hands. Their eyes met, and for a moment, Annette felt all her worries fall away. “Felix is a hard worker too. Just show him that you’re serious about this.”
“Why do you always have to be right?”
Mercedes grinned. “Because I am. Now, Tangled time!”
—
Felix ran his fingers through his shampoo-slicked hair, poking and prodding at his scalp until he was confident that it was clean enough after a long day of dancing. He reached for the bottle of conditioner, but his hand stopped just short.
Normally he didn’t feel like this during the lead up to the Spring charity showcase. No, this was easy, the baby steps before auditions for the Summer show. They would be performing L'histoire de Manon this year, and he was so close to landing the part of des Grieux that he could taste it. That was what should have been stressing him out, not this.
But it was obvious that their dance didn’t work, and he was almost certain that it was his fault. He trusted Byleth and her judgement, so why couldn’t he make the pas de deux look good? It ate him up inside, pulling at every little insecurity locked in his chest. If he couldn’t do well at a stupid charity showcase, how would he get the lead in Manon ? How would he beat Dimitri, or ever be as good as—
Felix slid to the floor of the bath and put his head in his hands as the water beat down on his sinewed back. It had been over a year since the accident, yet just thinking about Glenn still made all the air rush from Felix’s lungs. He had always wanted to show that he could beat Glenn, could do better than Dimitri, but this wasn’t the way that he ever wanted to do it. He was supposed to pass them on his own merit and hard work, not because a drunk killed one and nearly crippled another.
He grabbed at the conditioner again, though he still felt like he might throw up, and ran a dollop through his deep blue locks. Sylvain always made fun of him for using conditioner, but dammit. He wasn’t going to let his hair be a dry, frizzy mess. Nor was he going to let himself have a panic attack in the tub.
The towel was halfway wrapped around his body when his phone started buzzing, Sylvain’s name flashing on the screen.
“Speak of the devil…” Felix grumbled before flipping the phone onto speaker. “What do you want?”
“Hey, Fe. A couple of us were heading out to Zanado’s. You wanna meet us?” Sylvain asked. “I’ll buy you a beer.”
Even if Felix hadn’t felt like he was going to implode, he would rather gargle nails than get dragged to Zanado’s to be Sylvain’s wingman, again.
“Sorry,” he sighed. “I’m meeting Annette at six to work on our piece. I need sleep.”
“At eight at night?”
“Sylvain.”
“ Fiiine ,” Sylvain conceded. “But you’re coming next time we go out. Promise?”
“Bye, Sylvain.” Felix hung up his phone, plugged it in, then flopped face first and naked onto his bed.
He closed his eyes for the briefest moment, but cracked them back open when his phone started buzzing again. Anticipating Sylvain bitching at him for hanging up, he prepared to ignore the call. Instead, he found a string of texts from Annette sunglasses emoji .
Annette: Just checking, we’re still on for six tomorrow?
Annette: Like, 6 AM? I just want to make sure you didn’t mean 6 PM and then I show up in the morning like a dodo.
Annette: I’m probably overthinking this, but I just really want us not to suck!
Annette: Not that we suck. Or that you suck. You’re a really good dancer!!
Felix scrolled through the texts, the tension in his chest easing into half-laughter instead. Despite their crap time in the studio, it seemed like she actually wanted to work on this, which eased some of the anxiety. Maybe they could make it work.
Felix: Yeah, 6 AM.
Before he knew it, his fingers were moving on their own, typing out another text.
Felix: For what it’s worth, you don’t suck either.
He hit send, then stared at his phone for longer than he was comfortable admitting, watching as the triple dots waited at the bottom of the screen. A moment later, it was flooded by a bunch of thumbs up emojis, followed by another text.
Annette: Thanks! Can’t wait to see you tomorrow!
Felix didn’t respond, instead flopping his head face first into the pillows. He knew he should sleep, but instead he found himself getting ready to practice again.
—
Annette stood in front of the studio door, trying to figure out how she was going get it open with two drinks and a bag of bagels in her hands. She knew she should have said yes when they asked her if she wanted a drink holder, but she had stupidly thought that it would be fine, because it was two drinks and she had two hands, so nothing would go wrong.
Now that she was there, however, things were already starting to go very wrong. She tried to adjust the strawberry creme frappuccino in her hand in order to grab the handle, but it nearly slipped, and when she tried to correct herself, it made some of the cold brew she got for Felix spill onto her hand.
“At least it’s not hot coffee…” she mumbled to herself. “Hot coffee, hot and fresh~”
“Good morning.”
The sudden voice made her jump, nearly spilling both drinks all over herself. Felix stood behind her, his hair pulled back and his eyes rimmed with dark circles. She felt kind of bad for him, like her incompetence was the reason that he was missing out on delicious morning sleep.
“I brought coffee? And bagels?” she said as she stepped inside, holding them up for emphasis. “I wasn’t sure what you would want, but you didn’t really seem like a latte guy? I got you a cold brew? Without milk or sugar. I didn’t want to get you milk if you were lactose intolerant or—”
“Annette,” he cut her off. “Cold brew is fine. I don’t really like sweets.”
Felix took the cup from her hand, then pulled open the door. He motioned for her to go through, then followed her inside. From the size of the bag in her hands, it seemed like she nearly got one of every type of bagel, again probably because she was worried she’d offend him. It was kind of cute, in a crazy kind of way.
“Oh, good. I um. I figured that whatever bagels we didn’t want, we could leave in the kitchenette for people to pick at?” She shrugged. “I tend to go for pumpernickel, but if that’s the one you want then I’m fine with whatever,” she said.
“Did you get any blueberry?” Felix asked, peering over her shoulder as she set the bag down on the counter.
Annette sucked in a breath, trying to keep super still so that she wouldn’t accidentally brush into Felix and knock them both over. Her heart and thoughts were racing, even though she knew that she shouldn’t be scared of him. After all, Mercie was right! She could in fact glissade for shit. She could glissade and pirouette and do fouettés until she was blue in the face.
Don’t be scared of him, don’t be scared of him . The mantra repeated over and over in her head as she turned to face him, now trapped between him and the counter, their bodies so close that she could feel his heat through his athletic t-shirt.
“W-who do you take me for?” she stammered. “Of course I got blueberry!”
He leaned over her to reach in the bag, and she was overwhelmed by the soft, pine-woodsy scent of his cologne. Don’t be scared, don’t be scared.
Annette watched as Felix buttered his bagel, taking his time to avoid getting crumbs in the container. Despite his gruff exterior, if he could do that one thing, maybe he wasn’t all bad?
“So, um. About the pas de deux ?” She stared down at her pumpernickel bagel, the cream cheese oozing out of the seams in a way that made her mouth just water.
“What about it?” Felix asked. He grabbed his coffee again and took another long sip—only to find that what he had taken was not in fact his drink. The cloying taste of too-sweet fake strawberry crap filled his mouth, making him nearly retch. “Fuck, how do you drink that shit?”
“Drink wh—” Annette turned around to see Felix, her strawberry creme frapp in hand, wincing like he had just licked the inside of a trash can. She stared at him for a long moment, then burst into deep, chest-aching laughter. “You aren’t sick, are you?”
“No?”
“Good.” Annette took the frappucino back from Felix’s hand. “Next time I’ll get you your own.”
“Please don’t.”
“A trenta, even!”
“What in the fuck is a trenta?” Felix’s face curled up in confusion and disgust, trying and failing to figure out what that pink nightmare would even look like.
“Thirty-one ounces of strawberry creme goodness, Felix. All for you.” She smiled, and Felix felt his heart burst in his chest.
Fuck.
“I’ll pass. Thanks for the coffee, though.” Felix looked away, staring down his barely touched bagel. He couldn’t look at her, not right now. How had he not noticed how cute her smile was the day before?
He ran his palm down his face. This was stupid. He was just tired. After all, he was up half the damn night after his near-panic attack trying to perfect his steps before that morning’s practice. His muscles still vaguely ached, and if Sylvain or Ingrid saw him like this they would scold the shit out of him. After all, he had come this far. Why risk it all with a stupid, preventable injury?
“Felix?” Annette tapped him on the shoulder. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Fine. You ready?”
Annette smiled. “As I’ll ever be.”
—
Warmups were already tense, but the moment that Felix started the music for their piece, Annette thought she was going to throw up. While breakfast made her way more comfortable with him than she had been the day before, there was still a seed of anxiety brewing in her belly, the little voice that told her that she wasn’t good enough, that she’d never been good enough.
As much as she wanted to be here in Garreg Mach, dancing in the legendary Serios Ballet, she wasn’t wholly there to dance and she knew it. When Mercie told her that they were holding auditions, and that she’d put in a good word for her, Annette’s heart didn’t leap because this would further her dancing career. She wasn’t excited because she’d get to live with her best friend. No, she wanted this chance for a different reason entirely, and now that distraction was costing her.
“Annette!” Felix snapped as he wiped a stubborn sweat-slicked lock of hair off of his forehead. “What the fuck was that?”
Gone was the laughing, strawberry-sucking Felix from breakfast. Now he was back in Serious Dancer Mode and if he yelled at her one more time, she was sure she was going to break down in tears right there and then.
“A grand jeté? ” Annette shrugged.
“There was nothing grand about that jeté.” Felix marched over to the bench, grabbed his water bottle, and chugged until he felt less like ripping his hair out straight from the root.
“Oh, so I’m the problem? Hi, I’m Felix and I can’t look interested to save my life! You’re supposed to be seducing me! You look like you’re being forced to eat Grape Nuts!”
She sauntered over to him and poked him square in the chest, her delicate face curled up with frustration. It surprised her how muscular he felt just under that one jab, not that she was going to think about that when she was angry.
“I don’t exactly go around seducing people.” Felix tried to weasel out of poking range, but when he took a step back, she took a step forward. He opened his mouth to say something else, but the studio door flew open.
“Seducing people? Then you called the right person.”
Annette could only describe the look on Felix’s face as having smelled sour milk .
“Sylvain. We have the room for another fifteen minutes,” Felix snapped.
“You do, which is why I wanted to drop in. After all, you didn’t go to Zanado’s last night. I missed you!” Sylvain chided. Mercedes followed a moment behind him, already ready to work on their piece.
Felix narrowed his eyes on Sylvain, the frustration growing so much that he was sure he was going to explode. “Fifteen. Minutes.”
Mercedes waived to Annette, but took a seat next to Sylvain. She figured that her friend must be dancing with him, which made her vaguely nervous. After all, the redhead’s reputation preceded him.
They were running out of time, but their pas de deux was no better than yesterday. It was still clunky, flat, boring. Hell, she was sure she couldn’t draw people’s interest even if she set the stage on fire again. This had never happened to her before. She didn’t know how to fix it. Yes, that was what Byleth was for during their actual rehearsals, but getting another perspective couldn’t hurt?
“We could run through it one more time?” Annette asked.
“I’d love to see it!” Mercedes pulled her legs up on the bench, her face warmed with an ear-to-ear smile. Just seeing her calmed Annette’s nerves, though it seemed that Sylvain’s presence had the opposite effect on Felix.
Felix groaned. “Fine. Play the music.”
The score started off soft, flittering. It was a blend of violin and flute with pitter-patter drums, to echo Annette’s ode to daylight. She stepped out onto the floor, gliding through each glissade , keeping intense balance through the turns. She felt confident and beautiful and graceful— but that was when the music changed.
Gone were the soft, breezy notes of daytime, now growing lower and darker as the night encroached. That was when Felix sauntered in, his movements strong and bestial. He was supposed to find her, pull her, seduce her. After all, dusk was supposedly the melding of the night and day. But again, there was Felix’s Grape-Nut face, looking at her like he wanted nothing to do with her. He seemed too focused on his steps, on making sure that his performance was technically perfect, that it lost the artistry.
The music rose to a crescendo, and so came the lift. Annette was supposed to extend in his arms, poised like she was enthralled by his touch, but all she could think about was how stiff this was, how fake. He released her from the lift as she spun around in a complicated series of turns and jumps, which then synchronized with his steps. Or, they were supposed to if Felix wasn’t a beat ahead of her.
The dance was supposed to end in a passionate embrace, but how the hell was she supposed to slide down his body? To cup his face, to succumb to his seduction when all she could think about was that he couldn’t give two shits about whether or not she was there?
When the music ended, Annette sunk to the ground, her head in her hands. “Tell me how terrible it was, Mercie.”
“It wasn’t terrible ,” Mercedes shrugged, though the strain in her eyes told them otherwise.
“You two just need to bone.” Everyone turned to Sylvain, who reflexively shot up his arms. “I mean, it’s supposed to be a sexy piece? And both of you look rather unsexy.”
Annette huffed, throwing her arms in the air. “I am plenty sexy, thank you!”
“I’m not boning anyone either.” Felix pinched the bridge of his nose. “There has to be a way to get this shit train back on track.”
Mercedes, who had been especially quiet since she entered, cracked a large grin. “Maybe you just need to spend more time together?”
“Yeah!” Sylvain clapped Mercedes on the back, which made her face fall into something that Annette could only describe as please-dear-Goddess-someone-help-me . “You two should go on a date!”