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When Felix looks at Sylvain all he sees are promises, spun from silk, made and broken easily. That he won’t see anyone else, that he’ll take training seriously, that he means it this time — whatever it is. Whether he’s whispering in a girl’s ear or chuckling in Felix’s face it all feels the same, like a blade that will shatter the moment it splits skin.
He feels the fragility of Sylvain’s oaths each time he puts his life on the line in battle, insisting on protecting the group, always the first to take a hit and the last to the medic tent. Second only to Felix leaving the field, because Felix doesn’t make his promises lightly.
“Can you at least pretend to take this seriously?” They’re squatting in some brush in the forest, Felix trying his best not to burn it down as he throws Thunder after Thunder through the trees with one hand, putting pressure on Sylvain’s arm with the other. The bleeding looks like it’s slowing as Sylvain tries to tear the sleeve from his shirt where it’s exposed beyond his gauntlet.
“Hey, I’ll always take it seriously. That’s why that bandit didn’t pulverize your skull with his axe, duh.” His tone is too light, always, as if his face isn’t pale and drawn against the stark red of his hair, as if Felix isn’t spattered in his blood. Ashe yells behind them and an arrow flies over their heads, landing with a sick wet thud and a groan of pain and the thump of a body on the ground. The rest of the Lions are to the east of the trees, where they’d split to tackle the adversaries in the open, and the sounds of their fighting are faint enough in the sudden stillness that Felix can turn his eyes fully to Sylvain’s arm.
Ashe drops down beside them, panting. “That looks bad.” He moves Felix’s hand away, gently, placing his own against the cut and sending a pulse of healing magic between them.
Sylvain grins, he fucking grins, and he flexes his hand experimentally. “See? I knew Ashe would fix me up just fine. No harm done. And I didn’t even have to ruin my shirt — worse, anyway.”
“Sylvain.” Ashe’s tone is reproachful. “You’re lucky it’s not worse than it is. There could be nerve damage, I’m no Mercedes.”
“Shame, you’d be quite the sight for sore eyes if you were.” Sylvain winks, then rises, and Felix has to admit his eyes sweep the area with surprising attention. “Let’s find the others, they might need help.”
Someone will always need Sylvain’s help, and Felix has to resign himself to the fact that it will never be him. He will always be behind, cleaning up, keeping their promise. Ashe gives him a look as they follow through the trees that says more than Felix ever could.
Another gauzy promise slips easily from his lips to Felix’s ears the night of the ball, high above the revelers where they sit together on the dormitory roof. “Of course I left, Felix. Come on, I’ll never leave my best friend alone. Even if he insists on never having fun. Like ever.”
“Shut up.” He’s scowling, more irritated than he should be, not least of all because Sylvain somehow knew exactly where to find him. His best friend. His childhood vow. “I prefer being left alone if it means I don’t have to see your stupid face.”
“Come on, it’s dark enough that you can’t see me anyway, right?”
Felix turns fully to face him, lit of course as he knows he must be by the moon overhead. Sylvain is grinning, like he always is, immune at least on the surface to Felix’s barbs the way he definitely is not to enemy artillery. “You’re an idiot. Of course I can see you.”
“Of course you can.” Something runs down Felix’s spine at the softness in his voice, sounding almost feline, like a purr — and Felix likes cats. Something somewhere, buried in his mind, slots into place and he blinks, jerking his head back to stare again at the moon.
“Really.” He tries to force his voice into its usual sawed off shotgun blast, and mostly succeeds. “Go back to your ridiculous dance. You haven’t shut up about it for the whole of the Ethereal Moon and I’d rather not spend the entirety of the Guardian Moon hearing you not shut up about how you had to miss out on it.”
“I’m not missing out.” There’s a heartbeat’s worth of pause, a heartbeat that Felix feels strongly in his chest and hears loudly in his ears. “I already got a chance to sweep the professor off their feet, what more could a guy ask for?”
“They’re at the ball?”
“Manuela and Hanneman too. Now who’s missing out?” He’s teasing. If Felix turned to look at Sylvain he would surely see him winking and stretching his lithe grin in the moonlight, catch the dimples carving shadows into his cheeks, reach up to trace them with his fingers. He doesn’t turn.
“They just don’t seem like the kind of person to spend their time so frivolously.”
“You mean the professor who spent hours at the pond to win the fishing tournament right before the Battle of the Eagle and Lion? Sure.” He’s right, actually gets a smile out of Felix at just the memory.
“You have me there.”
“You should know I’d never be off the mark on who wastes their time. I’m a professional, I need to know the competition.”
The smile fades, quickly and easily, sliding off like rain from the roof. “You do love to throw your life away.” He doesn’t have to try for sharpness this time.
“There’s just more to life for me than training and drudgery. Is that so wrong?”
“It is if you insist on continuing to be so… reckless. Let the people who actually know what they’re doing in a battle take the risks.”
“Why do you care so much?” His voice is casual, almost the way it usually is but not quite. Something too serious is lodged in his throat. “It’s my life, if I want to throw it away it’s my choice.”
“But it’s not.” The words chip out before he can bite them back, too humiliating. Maybe Sylvain doesn’t remember, or thinks of their childhood promise as another gossamer string to snap at any time instead of the shackles that Felix can’t help but feel bind them together. Bind him, anyway. The moon’s light suddenly seems blinding, he blinks a few times to cover the sudden hot feeling in his eyes.
“My life is the one thing I have. The one thing I can control. It’s mine.” Sylvain’s voice is dark now, and Felix’s heart cracks in two. Without another word he rises and returns to his room, where in lieu of a trip to the training grounds where he risks running into someone he spends who knows how long shadowboxing whatever he can find.
After that Sylvain doesn’t make any promises to Felix for a while. The currency of his vows is spent in alleyways and taverns, storefronts and classrooms, women and men and whomever will take the time to listen, strings spun and the next morning snapped. Felix spends more energy than he likes to admit trying to tamp down the growing jealousy he feels every time Sylvain’s voice passes his door mingled with that of a stranger.
Then he gets word from the Kingdom — the heir to the Fraldarius dukedom is required, called back like a dog to drive off bandits. If his father gives a shit about what Felix may or may not have going on that could make it inconvenient for him to drop everything and travel to northern Faerghus, he doesn’t give any indication. Felix is used to it but it’s embarrassing that others have to see. He rolls his eyes asking the professor for help, playing it off like another excuse to see them fight (and maybe it sort of is), but he catches Sylvain looking at him too thoughtfully as they ride, convoy-style, side by side in one of the pairs the professor has assigned.
He expects to hate the trip, plagued by Sylvain’s incessant prattling, but their ride is largely quiet, most of the morning spent eavesdropping on Ashe and Caspar, along for the ride as this month’s mission assistant. Not that he needs the excuse. The one thing Felix knows about the noisy Adrestian is that he’s always spoiling for a fight, one of the few students in the training grounds almost as often as he is. Almost.
It’s late afternoon, still an encampment away from their destination, when Sylvain finally speaks. “I want to say something.”
“So say it.”
“I don’t want you to snap at me.” He doesn’t, not yet. “Next time, don’t do what he says. Don’t go back, don’t fight a fight that doesn’t mean anything to you.”
“The village needs my help,” he says, stubborn, trying hard not to sound snappy.
“The village needs help, yeah, but did it have to be yours? Do you use your best silverware to eat Flayn’s cooking?”
Felix shoots him a glance. Sylvain is looking ahead, his face surprisingly serious for the content of his words. “I don’t know what that means. Just say what you want to say, I’m not some maiden to trip up with your flowery language.”
“Ugh, that was definitely snapping at me,” he groans, and his voice washes over with Sylvain’s distancing light-heartedness again. Felix clenches his hands into fists around the reins. “You always do that.”
“And you always do this!” He’s not shouting, not even close knowing how risky it could be to draw attention to them, but somehow it feels loud. “You put your mask on as if I’m someone else, not me, not the only person in Fodlan still willing to see through your bullshit. Don’t bother, Sylvain.”
“Geez,” he says after a moment of silence, a moment that feels good and painful and real and is shattered with one lazy syllable. If there’s more he wants to say he doesn’t say it. Felix is perfectly capable of silence and so that’s how they travel, riding the rest of the day with nothing but Ashe and Caspar and their private anger to fill the void.
When they make camp, Felix sets up early for first watch against a tree a ways from the fire. Because there’s so many of them, he’s only looking at a couple hours, paired up with goddess knows who will join him. He eats the stew Dedue somehow managed to make delicious, as always, trying not to think about the battle ahead and worse, the person they’re fighting for. Maybe he’ll be killed. Maybe his father will finally have the son he yearns for.
When Sylvain is the one to plop down at the foot of the same tree, hand rubbing his stomach in a gesture of satisfaction, he’s not surprised and he’s not angry anymore.
“Listen, Felix, I’m sorry about earlier,” he says after they spend some time singing Dedue’s praises. His voice actually sounds earnest. “I’m gonna try not to… try to be myself around you more. Promise.”
He scoffs, can’t help it. “Nothing is more like you than making a promise you can’t keep.”
He shrugs, unfazed, and for a moment Felix wonders who truly is putting up with whom between them. “Take it or leave it.” The fire crackles, someone is making Mercedes laugh, life is going on around them. “In the interest of that goal, I mean it. Fuck your father. My father too. Fuck old Faerghus. Doesn’t this all just… make you want to remake everything? Do it differently?”
“Yes,” he says, and it’s quick and sure.
“Then we will.” And he reaches out, takes Felix’s hand in the dark and the comfortable distance from their friends, and something inside him finds a name. “We are gonna recreate this continent, make it somewhere worth living. Together — Dimitri, the professor, all the Lions, you and me.”
“Big plans for someone who can barely keep to a training schedule.” And Sylvain laughs and drops his hand, resting both of his behind his head and leaving what feels like a physical burn in his wake.
“Guess you’ll just need to stick around to keep me on track. Like we promised.” And oh, a vise clamps around Felix’s heart at that because Sylvain does remember after all.
Five years later the sun is rising over a different Fodlan, but not in the way Felix wanted. For one thing, he still finds his thoughts turning to Sylvain and their promises by day and by night, throwing himself into battle after battle in a futile attempt to clear his mind, center himself. Rufus is assassinated. Dimitri is executed in Fhirdiad. The Sreng invade the Gautier territory over and over as Enbarr sweeps upwards in a crushing conquest and daily Felix expects to wake up to the worst news he can imagine.
But he doesn’t. Instead one day he wakes up to the dawn of the Ethereal Moon and a letter from Ashe, who’s been nothing but a sweet and loyal correspondent for the past five years, writing from the echoes of House Gaspard he’s trying to rebuild against the waves of the Empire.
This missive is shorter, his usual greeting and thoughtful inquiry into the state of Fraldarius affairs, and then: You won’t believe where I am right now — Itha! I thought since I’m close by, and the Millennium is coming up fast, we could travel to Garreg Mach together.
His lips compress. Another oath that he’s ashamed to admit he never dreamed of breaking. The thought of seeing his friends, knowing they’re alive, fighting in the service of something greater than his stupid family name… it’s warmed him at times on cold nights in the Faerghus wilds, nothing to look forward to in the morning but lives to take, more of the same the next day and the next into eternity. The millennium has been the light at the end of the tunnel.
And who better to remind him of it than Ashe, safely in Itha, securely in Fraldarius territory where he doesn’t have a chance of running into Sylvain. He writes his answer immediately, then decides instead he’ll just leave with it in the morning. So he does, packing light and riding quickly, never the type to prolong a journey even if it’s a little out of his way to get there.
Ashe, however, is.
The warm tightness in his chest, almost like relief, that blooms when he catches the glint of silver hair and green eyes in an Itha tavern fades quickly as they get started on the long road to Garreg Mach. Ashe doesn’t push his horse, doesn’t stay quiet to avoid bandits or soldiers, instead rides close to Felix and talks to him, asking questions, telling stories, even laughing sometimes. Felix can’t even remember the last time he laughed. But he does answer Ashe, begrudging at first but with increasing calmness, unable to completely shut himself away like he has for five years, alone and untouched by anyone that didn’t want to kill him.
They camp near Charon for the night, past Galatea without seeing Ingrid. Ashe hunts down a rabbit, somehow had the foresight to bring cooking supplies with him, and soon they’re eating roast meat that tastes far better than it has any right to be this far from civilization. Something in Felix’s brain draws a connection and he’s thinking suddenly of Dedue’s stew from all those years ago, the night Sylvain swore to remake Fodlan. He sighs.
“I was thinking of that too.” Felix snaps his head around to look at Ashe, finds him already meeting his gaze in the light of their small fire. “The night we were traveling to Fraldarius, right?”
“How the hell did you know that?”
Ashe shrugs. “It’s much easier to hold on to those old memories now. I’ve thought about you a lot in the last five years.” The tips of his ears color pink. “And the others.”
He looks at him curiously. “Have you heard from them? Is everyone returning to the monastery?”
“I haven’t heard from… everyone.” Deeper pink. “Annette and Mercedes are.”
“Have you been writing to everyone like you’ve written to me?”
“I’ve tried.” His eyes are earnest and Felix hates meeting them so he looks away. “Not everyone is like you though, Felix.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning… not everyone cares to write back.” Shockingly vivid and surprisingly wounding, the image of Ashe sealing a letter doomed to go unanswered rises in his mind. “You always answered, though. Your letters have been such a comfort to me.”
“I… haven’t hated yours either.” It’s the farthest he’ll go but it’s far enough. The fire is warm and they’ve both been getting closer to it, okay with sleeping at the same time knowing they’ll wake quickly should trouble appear. Their shoulders bump and it’s the first friendly contact Felix can remember in five years. The shoulder not quite pulled from his is too low, too close to the same height (exactly the same height, in fact, not shorter like at school), and if it were the one he wants it would be pushing harder, unashamed, unafraid.
But it’s what he has and so Felix leans in, pressing against Ashe. He’s warm, from the glow of the fire maybe or from something else and he doesn’t have to steel himself or clench his fists or grit his teeth as Ashe slowly rests his head on his shoulder. He doesn’t feel much of anything. After a minute, he even lets his own head tilt until their hair is mingling, until their foreheads blur together.
“I missed you, Felix.” His voice is small but the same full-hearted Ashe he remembers.
“Like the squire?”
“A lot like the squire.” When Ashe’s fingers thread, shyly, deftly, between his he doesn’t stop him, doesn’t waste the energy which he suddenly needs to stamp out the thoughts of a larger hand. They fall asleep like that, only regrettable in the face of the terrible crick in Felix’s neck that jars with every bounce in the saddle as they make their way to Garreg Mach, Ashe still indefatigably cheerful.
They arrive to the sounds of battle — their professor is there. Dimitri is there. And despite the two ghosts returned from the dead, despite Mercedes and Annette beaming at him, despite the weighty absence of Dedue, it is Sylvain that leaves Felix breathless, grinning as he lances a bandit, having the gall to wave, and it’s like a cord is tied around his gauntleted wrist, other end tight around Felix’s heart, all those strings from all those years combining to a cable that jerks with terrible strength.
Felix unsheathes his sword, centering himself, strangely balanced as he goes back to back with Ashe and his bow to take lives. Day in, day out, five years, as easy and as difficult as breathing. And when the fight is over, Sylvain is at his side, dismounting from his horse, and his face is serious for the second Felix sees it through the hair streaming over his eyes before he’s clutching him in his arms, crushing him.
“Let me go, you fool.” His voice is less threatening where it lands in Sylvain’s shoulder, the space between collar and breast bone, the sharpness blunted by the hands Felix can’t help but clutch at him in return.
“Never.” It’s firm and a full sentence and it has a weight that none of their broken oaths have ever held, a weight that’s enough to keep Felix pressed and promised against him for just a moment longer.
The day that ends up being one of the most important in Felix’s life is just another one in the Horsebow Moon. He’s nine, making Sylvain eleven, and he’s crying again. Who knows what exactly brought it on — Dimitri having to go back to Fhirdiad, his father’s irritated reproach at his son’s tearful reaction to their farewell, Ingrid suddenly wanting to be cool like Glenn and not having time for his little brother before following him to the training grounds for their millionth spar. At least, Felix thinks to himself as he sniffles where he’s squatting in a bush, Ingrid will definitely lose to Glenn, as many times as they fight.
“Hey, Felix, what’s the matter buddy?”
Sylvain. He’s always around when Felix needs him, somehow always knows. Or maybe Felix is just starting to learn that he’s the only person it’s safe to be upset around. Seeing him looking down, eyes kind instead of hard or disappointed, makes Felix start bawling over again and he doesn’t even have the self-consciousness to be ashamed as Sylvain plops down next to him in the bush and pats his head. He’s definitely not embarrassed as he throws himself against Sylvain, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt in his hands, rubbing tears carelessly against the fabric. Sylvain chuckles a little, not meanly, and wraps an arm around his shoulders.
“Come on, tell me what’s up.”
“Dimitri always has to leave me!” he sobs, trying not to hiccup. “Dimitri leaves and Ingrid only wants to be friends with Glenn and Glenn is going to be a real knight soon and then there will be nobody left.”
“Aww, what about me?” Sylvain’s voice is cheerful, comforting, and where Felix’s face is still crammed against him he misses the juvenile tightness in Sylvain’s eyes — maybe wouldn’t have noticed it anyway. “I’m still going to be around.”
“You’ll leave too! Just like everybody.” He knows somewhere that he’s not being rational but his heart feels like it’s being wrung every time he has to go back to his older brother everyone admires already and his father who Felix loves too much for what he gets in return. “Or you’ll die and then I’ll really be alone.”
“No way. Who’s gonna hang around and make you feel better when you’re upset?” Sylvain tugs a little on his hair, gentle, guiding Felix to look at him. “I have an idea. Let’s make each other a promise.”
Felix wipes his nose on the back of his hand, uncaring of grossness. “What kind of promise?”
“Let’s promise we’ll always stick together. And,” he adds in a stroke of genius, “then when we’re ready to die, we’ll die at the same time. So we never have to be apart.”
“Do you mean it?” Felix is serious. No one has offered him anything like this before, not Glenn looking after him, not Dimitri clutching his hand too tightly on their runs through Fraldarius or Blaiddyd territory, not even Ingrid whose promises come often enough but are usually threats of retribution for childish irresponsibility.
“I definitely mean it.” And as ridiculous as it is, as impossible to keep as it is, Sylvain does mean it. He holds out a hand to Felix, solemn, adult, and he takes it. They shake.
“Are we gonna have to get engaged like Glenn and Ingrid?” Felix asks, nose wrinkling.
“Gross!” Sylvain laughs, and Felix doesn’t cry for the rest of the day, and then one day after Glenn is gone Felix doesn’t cry for the rest of his life.
The night before Enbarr they’re holed up together in a tent. The looming finality, one way or the other, of the day ahead of them had made Felix less inclined to be prickly than usual when Sylvain had come to him, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly, asking to share since his gear had been burnt up in the rogue mage attack they’d weathered earlier in that day’s march, someone who’d survived them once at Merceus but not a second time.
So in the tent they sit, not quite ready for what might happen to them if they both lie down at the same time, in the same place, like they haven’t done since they were children. It’s warmer this far south, unbearably so for two people so used to the unforgiving cold of the Holy Kingdom, even stripped down to the lightest layer they can manage without showing too much, without crossing a line.
Felix hates this, hates the easiness he has to miss with every strangely over-calculated interaction he has with Sylvain now. Part of it is his own mind, the feelings he has to accept are not going away no matter how many ways he tries to control them, dismiss them, but even he has to admit to himself that it feels like there’s some tension from Sylvain’s end too. Lost, often, is the even-keeled cheerfulness that could wash over a situation like soap and water he’d resented when all it represented was a mask for him to shatter. It’s good to see more of the real Sylvain but it doesn’t make things easier. In fact it’s much harder to ignore or abuse him when he’s serious, when he’s unsure, when he’s shy. Felix has never seen Sylvain shy before, not even when they were children, but now once in a while he catches his eyes darting down or away from goddess knows what.
They’re doing that now, while they’re cross-legged across from each other, Felix’s bedroll lying lamely and thin between them. He wants to scream, wants to sleep, wants to blink and wake up in tomorrow, ready and running for Edelgard and her army. He should be thrumming with anticipation but instead his skin is crawling with something else entirely.
“Ugh,” Sylvain says finally, “let’s just get it over with.” And he stretches himself out, half on and half off the cold comfort of the pad. He wriggles a little, wincing at a rock or stick on the ground under him, then has the gall to grin up at Felix and pat the crescent strip of open space invitingly.
“You are an idiot.” But he does lie down, holding himself stiffly, trying hard and fruitlessly to ignore how much warmth is radiating off Sylvain, like the Adrestian sun is somewhere inside him glowing like an incubator.
“Yes I am. We both are.” Felix hears Syvlain’s head rasping on fabric as he turns toward him but he doesn’t reciprocate. “We’re trying to take on the leader of the most powerful army in Fodlan, under the command of a guy who snapped back to reality less than six months ago.”
“You really think that’s who’s leading us?” he asks.
“Okay, okay, we do have the professor. Thank the goddess.” There’s a long pause, a strange stretch of time where Felix can almost feel something tangible in the air changing. “I think you’re right, though. I am definitely the bigger idiot.”
“I don’t disagree.” Carefully noncommittal. “What’s made you see the light?”
Sylvain laughs. “In a way, I have her imperial majesty to thank. I’m lying here, very possibly looking down the barrel to my own death, but I can’t help but feel nervous.”
“First of all, you’re not dying out there. I’ll kill you myself if you even think about it.” Another chuckle, dry and mirthless. “Second of all, that’s natural. I almost always feel wound up before a fight.”
Sylvain hums. “Interesting, filing that away for later. But for now… what I mean is, I’m not nervous for the fight, or even about losing. I’m way past nervous if I’m thinking about that option. Mostly what makes me anxious is… what happens after we win. And that makes me an idiot. Because obviously it’s worse if we lose, or you die, or Dimitri snaps again. And yet.”
His blood feels warm and present under his skin, not soothing or reassuring but distinctly uncomfortable. “Sylvain…”
“Hey, Felix, could you look at me for a minute? Or just kinda turn your head, I know you hate eye contact.” And Felix is a little sick to his stomach just for a moment at how known he is in Sylvain’s presence, but he does turn. Their faces are close enough that it’s hard to look anywhere but into his warm gaze. It burns. “This is probably stupid, and I don’t like that I’m saying this now but I don’t know if I’m going to have another time. So,” he continues, cutting off Felix’s repetitive protests. Then he pauses. His eyes jerk away again, the way they never did in school when they were confident and sure. “I uh. Huh. I guess I’ll just say it.” Exhale from his lips, cheeks puffed out for a moment and Felix thinks for some reason of clapping his hands against them. “I love you.”
He doesn’t even know what to say, for a moment doesn’t even remember that the concept of speech exists. He just looks, and looks, wave after wave crashing over him of Sylvain’s voice in his ears, earnest for once under that new and strange and inviting layer of shyness. He blinks a couple times, then he doesn’t anymore, because that means losing sight of his face. Sylvain looks back at him, brow more and more tense. Felix should say something, so he opens his mouth but gapes like a fish. “W… what?”
“Uh, maybe this was a worse idea than I thought.” Sylvain has one of his hands pinned under his cheek, but he slides it back to bury in his hair. His face actually flushes. “Yeah, okay, sorry Felix. Just like… forget I said anything. And uh, don’t die in Enbarr tomorrow because thinking about being anywhere you’re not… I swear—”
“No.” He doesn’t stammer, barely, and Sylvain shuts up. “No more bullshit promising and vowing. We will be fine. We are going to survive. I am not going to let you die and I know you won’t let me. Annoying ass.” His heart is spilling over, flooding, and it suffuses his words with a warmth he doesn’t recognize. And slowly the tension is draining from Sylvain’s face, reading between the lines, interpreting Felix the way he always has, always can. “And after we live, after we defeat the Empire and remake Fodlan…” He must steel himself. “…then we’ll see what happens after.”
Sylvain’s eyes are soft, painfully, paradoxically. “Can I kiss you, Felix? Just like one time. I’m losing it here.”
Felix’s turn to flush, heating up even besides the warmth from Sylvain next to him. He dips his head. “As many times as you like.” And Sylvain does, each brush of their lips a new and unspoken tie to bind them together.