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It began very simply, back when he was a child. In the wake of Glenn's death, he lost his appetite a little. It was hard to bring himself to do all these things that were so linked to being alive when his brother was dead.
That wasn't the problem, though. The problem was when a local lord visited just before the funeral. He took one look at Felix, smiled, and said: "It's good to see young Felix growing up a little, losing some of that baby fat."
Felix shouted something at him, though he couldn't remember what it was now. The words the lord spoke, however, remained.
Years down the line, he wasn't able to pinpoint exactly the path his thoughts travelled. There was shame mixed with pride, a desire to shave away every second he spent at a dinner table so more time could be afforded for training. There were also hours spent in front of a mirror, poking and prodding at "baby fat", whatever that meant.
It was a habit, repeated so many times over until it became natural. A razor-sharp focus on when the next meal was and how much of it he could avoid. Strategy after strategy, his mind ever-occupied through a haze of exhaustion, making sure that he could get away from any gathering before someone noticed.
Without a brother, he was a lonely child. His friends drifted into grief or other pursuits, hidden always from his view. His father was present, but only half as bright as before. He was content to leave Felix to his own devices, and Felix was glad for it. It gave him more space to do exactly what he wanted to himself.
It was an obsession he carried to the Academy. With all the regulation, food was harder to avoid, but that just allowed him to plan everything down to the last mouthful. All the while, he shivered against a cold that wasn't there, battled exhaustion on a full night of sleep, and fought everything his mind told him he should.
He didn't know if anyone else cared; after all, he was Felix Hugo Fraldarius. He fought everything that found itself in front of him. His life was a war, and he would fight it to the bitter end.
"Felix," the Professor said one day. "Have tea with me?"
Felix tried not to tense up. He knew how the Professor did tea - it wasn't just about the drink, but the biscuits they brought too. The thought of sugar made his stomach cramp around nothing, and a spike of anxiety shot through him. "Must I?" he asked.
They looked him up and down. "Yes," they replied plainly. "I've done it with everyone else, but you always avoid me on our free days. I assure you it's nothing to be afraid of."
"I'm not afraid of tea," Felix snapped. With those words, they left him no choice; he had to go.
When he arrived, there was a stack of cakes and two cups of tea. Shoulders set, he slid into the seat and stared down at the cup. He wouldn't look at them. Maybe they'd send him away quickly if he was unpleasant enough to be around, and then they could both ignore this farce.
"Are you hungry?" they asked.
Yes. "No," he replied, taking a sip of his tea. Too hot.
"I see," they said. "I didn't see you at lunch today, so I thought you might be." In all likelihood, they hadn't seen him at lunch all year - he certainly hadn't been.
"I wouldn't eat any of this anyway," he said, turning his nose up at the cakes and clamping down on the ache in his stomach. "I don't like sweets."
"Oh, that's interesting!" they replied, leaning forwards. Their stare was so bright, so piercing. They could probably see right through him. "Most people with Crests enjoy sweets. I know I do."
"Well I don't," Felix replied. He used to eat plenty of sweets, back when he was a child. That was a long time ago now. "So I won't be eating any."
"That's alright," they said. "So long as you eat something else today." They were definitely onto him, but Felix wouldn't yield. Couldn't yield. He hummed, hoping that would be considered assent. "Will you?"
"If I'm hungry," he lied, because he always was, and it hadn't forced him to eat much just yet. He'd already eaten something today. Not much, but enough to keep him going.
"I see," they said again, and they didn't seem in any way surprised by his answer. "With the amount of time you spend training, you should eat regularly. It'll help you build muscle mass."
As if Felix didn't know that. As if he hadn't struggled to contain his shivering through every winter, as if he didn't fight against the weakness in his limbs at every moment. He was strong and fast, but it could never be enough. Did they think he wanted to be this way?
"I know," he said. He tipped back the rest of his tea; something prickled in his chest, his throat, and he knew he needed to get away. Talking about eating, about food, always did this to him.
He stood without another word, leaving them to their concerns and their stack of cakes. He didn't need that. He didn't need their pity, didn't need anyone.
He managed to force something down in the evening, his mind plagued by their words and fears of his own weakness, but he felt all the worse for it. He knew he shouldn't have bothered.
Real war, a war that moved beyond Felix's mind, was... well, it wasn't fine. War could never be fine. But the constant, gruelling activity of marching with an army, eating alongside soldiers, and always preparing for the next battle meant that he couldn't skip eating.
He tried, once or twice. He shut himself up in his tent and said he wasn't feeling well, or made the food disappear into the fire, but he couldn't shake the feeling that people noticed. So he went to the meals and tried to eat something.
It didn't always work - at the beginning, his body couldn't take it. His stomach cramped all through the night, and more often than not he had to empty it. He was left sick and shaky, shivering in the forest in the middle of the night. But eventually, finally, he settled a little. He could force food down his throat. After a little while longer, he could eat without thinking of the time he avoided it as much as he could.
He was... happier. He knew—had known all along—that he was meant to eat. The only thing he could do for his past self was look back on him with equal parts revulsion and pity and swear that it wouldn't happen again. There was no reason for it to, not with a war that stretched out before him and body strength he had to maintain.
He stuck to it. Some days were more difficult than others, sure, and sometimes he remembered in the late afternoon that he'd forgotten to eat lunch. But that was, as far as he could tell, normal, and it always passed. He didn't try to stay away from food in the way he once had.
Even when the war ended, Felix was fine. The battle closed with a victory feast unlike any other, and Felix didn't think twice before eating everything the banquet table had to offer. Meat piled high on platters, freshly baked bread... even the smallest piece of cake, when Sylvain pressed it to his half-frowning lips. It was fine. Easy.
It continued. The end of the war brought new battles, and most of them weren't physical. He fought paperwork, the ever-present echoes of Dimitri's ghosts, and nobles who were far better at a negotiation table than on the battlefield. He kept up his drills, but not in the same way. There was none of the urgency that came before.
Each day opened with a hearty breakfast, continued with something to keep them going in the late morning, followed by a large lunch, afternoon tea, and then a large evening meal to close the day off. Sometimes, if there was enough to do, the cooks would throw something together later too.
Between all of that, it was no wonder that something changed.
For the first few turbulent moons, Felix was fine with it. Maybe he thought, once or twice, that it was a lot of food - but working at a desk made him hungrier than he expected, and there was no sense in letting his energy flag. It was fine.
It wasn't fine. Several moons past the end of the war, Felix caught a glance of himself in the mirror as he got dressed, and something close to a monster stared back at him.
It wasn't a monster, of course. But Felix blinked, stared. Looked at the way the broad slope of his shoulders no longer tapered off at the waist. Looked at the way his stomach was visible through his shirt, just a little.
He ignored the feeling that rose in his chest at the sight of himself and went down to breakfast. But as he ate, everything tasted like ash in his mouth. He ate less than normal, and when he returned to his office he found himself doubled over in the bathroom, stomach heaving. He didn't go to lunch.
He knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that it was the worst of his old habits from his school days. Six long years had passed since he'd watched food with fear, skirted around the edge of the dining hall in the hope that no one would ask him to go in. Six years and this hadn't bothered him at all, but now-
He tried at dinner, if only because his stomach had twisted itself in knots and he felt a little weak. He tried to find something as inoffensive as possible, avoiding the largest portions or the richest cut of meat. It helped a little; he managed to keep the food down.
That night, once he'd finished the drills he always left for the evening, he stripped and sat down on the bed. He stared down at himself, down at the layer of fat that softened the muscles at his stomach, around his arms. He poked his stomach.
Barely aware of what happened next, Felix bent over and threw up into the chamber pot. When he laid down, he couldn't stop feeling it. His body felt so wrong, so alien. This wasn't him. This was someone else's body, and he had to get rid of it.
With shaking limbs, he stood again. He needed to get back to training.
It turned out that it was easy. It took a war to break a habit, but so little time at all to slip straight back into it.
He told the cooks to send his meals up to his office - morning, midday, and evening. When they arrived, he looked at them. Maybe he'd pick an item or two off the plate. He avoided cream, fat, salt. Tried to drink plenty of bitter tea to soothe his stomach and the nerves in his chest. And then he'd send the meal away again.
For the first few days, he was tense. He was sure that someone would miss him at meals, or check on him. He knew now that the issues he had at the Academy were no secret - but maybe they'd forgotten, or they thought he was better than this.
Felix couldn't bring himself to blame them. He thought he was better than this, and yet here he was. Picking apart a bread roll and eating the crumbs one by one, in the hope that the pain in his stomach would be staved off just a little more.
No one checked on him. No one questioned his absence at dinner, or asked why he'd doubled his past training schedule. They were no longer at war, so he didn't need it, but Felix had always felt better with a sword in his hand, knowing he was working away anything he managed to build up. He needed to feel better about something these days.
"Why do you have an extra appointment with the tailor?" Felix asked, glancing down once more at Dimitri's itinerary for the next week. Dimitri always had the tailor come at the beginning of the moon, to prepare anything that was needed for the end. The break in schedule didn't mess anything up, exactly, but he still needed to know why.
"Oh." Dimitri chuckled, a slightly embarrassed smile rising on his face. "Well... my trousers are getting a little tight.”
“Alright.” He tried to keep the tightness out of his voice. He was fairly certain he failed.
Dimitri just laughed. “Since Annette’s spell helped return my sense of taste, and Dedue's cooking is just so good... you get the picture. It's more of a surprise that I didn't need this before now, I think!"
He seemed so- so fine with it. All of it. He smiled, even, laughed as if Felix could understand exactly what he meant. The only thing Felix understood was that he'd taken a knife to his favourite belt to add an extra hole that morning, because the ones there couldn't keep his trousers up. "I see," he said. "Well, it shouldn't interfere with the rest of your schedule too much."
He didn't tell Dimitri to eat less. How could he? It was probably good that he was putting a little weight on. Good that he could enjoy food now.
Felix was tired.
"Come, Felix, surely you'll eat this," Dimitri said. His gaze was insistent, and Felix just wanted to throw up. He should never have agreed to accompany Dimitri to this village. He should have known that, once they lent their aid, the villagers wouldn’t let them go without thanking them with food.
He should have known that he wouldn't be able to refuse. He stared down at the stew - stew that was probably good, with freshly caught meat and vegetables he'd dug out of the ground himself - and he just wanted to sink into the floor.
"I'll pass," he ground out. There was just a little fat swimming on the surface, and the richness of the smell turned his stomach. The thought of it passing through his lips was... he shuddered. He hoped it wasn't too visible to the expectant eyes all around him.
"I must apologise for Duke Fraldarius' manners," Dimitri said, attempting to shrug it all off with a laugh. It sounded far too loud in Felix’s ears, yet so far away. "He never used to be picky, but perhaps six years of war have changed things!" He sounded so jovial that Felix just wanted to scream. He'd been "picky" for a long, long time.
"It's nothing to do with the food," he said, pushing up from the table. There was something tight coiled in his chest, and he needed to get away before he said something worse. "I'm not hungry. Please, enjoy it in my absence."
He dipped into a short, swift bow and swept out of the room, ignoring Dimitri's half-strangled call. He didn't care how rude he looked; he needed to get out of there.
His feet moved without him thinking about it, and eventually he found himself at the edge of the village. The light bled out of the sky, and it was... cold. Felix was used to the feeling.
He stood out there for a while, watching the horizon. He couldn't go back, not after all that, but he also couldn't leave entirely. If he left Dimitri on his own it would only make him worry more, and open Felix up to accusations about whether he could keep his king safe.
So instead he waited, and eventually Dimitri came to join him. He came to lean on the other side of the tree Felix had propped himself up against, his face shrouded in shadow. "Are you feeling alright?" he asked. "You left rather- suddenly."
Rudely, more like. "I'm fine."
"You don't seem it," Dimitri replied. His voice was so gentle. Felix didn't know what he'd done to deserve that, but he didn't like it. He wanted Dimitri to shout, to tell him he was a callous fool with no good reason for doing anything. He wanted Dimitri to send him away to his estate, make his entire existence useless so he could just-
"I'm fine," he repeated, sharper this time.
Dimitri sighed. "I suppose I cannot force you to tell me what plagues you."
"You can't, because there's nothing."
"Then why does it trouble you so? Why are you out here, instead of in the warm with everyone else? With how long you've been here, you'll catch cold." Now there was a motivator. If he caught something, it would take far too long to shake it off.
But back in the warm with everyone else was where the stew waited, silently accusing him of everything he couldn't do. "Are we done here?" he asked.
Dimitri paused. "I suppose we are," he said, sighing once more. "Would you like to ride back? It's a little dark, but..."
"We'll be fine," Felix said. "The roads will be safe." Safer than honey-sweet words and smiles dripping with threats, anyway. Felix would take a little danger over that any day.
If there was one reason that Felix feared the wedding, it was the ensuing feast. It had been moons since he last ate a meal in the company of others, but there was no escaping the marriage celebrations of his King.
To make it better, he planned an escape route, a way to eat as little as possible, and cleared a little of his schedule immediately afterwards. He’d work around it.
It didn't make him feel good, but he knew that was no longer an option. There was no logic to his solution, either, but by now he'd long since recognised that the crawling feeling that shook his body and mind had nothing to do with logic. It was a compulsion, an obsession, and it made him sick.
The thought of doing something that would actually help made him feel even sicker.
The day rolled around, the happy day, the best day of his best friend's life, and Felix didn't eat breakfast. He skirted around lunch, too, busying himself with every preparation under the sun. No one would notice, but they never had. He was starving, but he always was.
He watched the ceremony barely able to enjoy it. He was happy, of course, because Dimitri was happy and marrying a person who cared for him deeply, but at the same time...
Every second brought him closer to the wedding feast. Each moment moved into the next, and soon he wouldn't be able to escape.
He tried not to pile his plate too high as the feast began. Just a few stray pieces of meat and a single vegetable. He ate as slowly as he could and very carefully watched his drink; with so little food in his body, his tolerance would be low. He couldn't risk showing how low.
For a while, it seemed that no one noticed. But as the meal drew on, each mouthful like sand grinding between his teeth, he felt eyes on him. Someone must have seen. Someone must know.
Felix froze. Everything was so cold and so very far away, but everyone was too warm and close. There was too much.
He managed to finish his plate, but he knew he wouldn't be able to force anything else down. He'd reached his limit long ago, and anything else would push him to something he'd truly regret.
He closed his eyes when the cake arrived. Dimitri proudly announced that Dedue had baked the whole thing, while the kitchen staff iced it, and he couldn't wait to eat some. Felix could wait a thousand years if it meant that those wide, expectant eyes wouldn't fall on him.
He could have sworn he heard his breath rattling in his chest when the knife sunk into the cake. He couldn't do this. He wasn't going to be able to hold himself together.
A slice of cake on a flower-patterned plate appeared in front of him. Felix couldn't even bring himself to pick up his fork. When he looked up, every eye in the room was on him. His stomach, both too full and twisting in mostly empty agony, turned over once more. Felix clamped his mouth firmly shut and swallowed down bile.
"Felix, are you..." Dimitri couldn't even speak the words. He didn't want to ask, because he feared what the answer would be and what he'd have to say in reply.
Felix looked into that single, pathetic eye, brimming with hurt and a lifetime of friendship, and fought back against everything that screamed no inside him. He picked up his fork and shovelled one mouthful of cake inside. Another, another. Crumbs spilled into the lap of his hastily re-tailored formal wear.
The legs of his chair screeched against the dining room's floor. Felix wasn't even thinking about it, not even as shouts followed his exit; he bolted to the door, through a corridor, and out into Dimitri and Dedue's private gardens. His stomach emptied itself into the nearest flowerbed, over and over and over again.
When he was done, he shivered. The night air was cold, and his formal wear couldn’t keep him warm. Nothing could.
There was no one around. He'd ruined Dimitri and Dedue's wedding night, and they were all content to go on without him. As they should be.
Felix returned to his chambers with shaking limbs. No one came to check on him that night - he hadn't expected them to, but at least it proved his darkest fears right.
The morning was a different story. Dimitri came up to his office in the early hours of daylight. "Felix, enough is enough." No greeting, no preamble. He'd made a decision, and—given the early hour—cut his joyous wedding night short to see it through.
"What's enough?" he asked. They both knew. "I have work to do, so keep it quick."
"Have you eaten this morning?" Damn, he'd understood. Seen past the reluctance to eat Dedue's cake and worked out that the issue had nothing to do with Dedue.
"It's barely past dawn," he answered. "So no, I haven't."
"Would you have something with me now?" Dimitri asked. "There are plenty of people eating in the dining hall right now, though when I asked the cooks last night they said you preferred to take your meals in private."
"I do." He knew he wouldn't be able to dodge the facts, not for much longer, but he could try.
"I can understand the impulse," Dimitri said. "I dislike the feeling of eyes on me as I eat. It is as if someone is waiting for something to happen, yet I cannot know what. It sets me on edge, so I will not begrudge you the decision. But I do not think that is everything."
"Oh?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow at him. He knew he shouldn't dig, shouldn't provoke. He should get out of here, but there was nowhere to run.
"I asked the cooks about your meals after the incident last night," Dimitri answered, "and they said that you send most of it away uneaten. And I asked the man in charge of the training grounds, and he said that no one bar the soldiers trains more than you."
"Am I not allowed to swing a sword around?" he asked. "I know you're not fond of relaxation, but I like to have a hobby."
"Of course you're allowed to have a hobby." Dimitri's voice was altogether too gentle. Felix wanted him to get angry. "But then I went to the tailor's and asked about your fittings. He said you wouldn't let any of his employees take measurements, but you had all of your clothing taken in this moon."
At this, Dimitri reached out. Felix didn't know what he was reaching for, but he knew what the man saw. He saw it too, whenever he dared to take the cloth off the mirror - clothes that hung too loose, obscuring the sharp, angular edges of his body. Eyes no longer bright, skin no longer shining with health.
He couldn't take it. "Do you have a point?"
Dimitri's voice slipped down to barely more than a whisper. "Are you starving yourself, Felix?"
He couldn’t do this. "It's not just your ghosts baying at the door, you know," he snapped. "The rest of us can have problems too."
Dimitri lurched away. "I know that," he said firmly. "I would never deny you that. I would deny you the- satisfaction of hurting yourself like this. Of wasting away when something can be done."
"I know," he growled. "There are no food shortages. I could eat whenever I liked. Not eating my fill, letting food go to waste, is just an ingratitude for the peace your mighty lance brought to Fódlan. I know, Dimitri."
He hadn't meant to say so much. But now he was pushed up against a wall, it spilled out like saying it was the easiest thing. Like he hadn't spent moons taking every precaution to hide it.
"I am not here to chastise you."
"Yes you are," he snapped. "I vomited your husband's wedding cake all over his flowerbeds."
"You did." Dimitri's laugh was weak, breathless. Felix felt pretty similar. "But you said it better yourself - it's not just ghosts baying at my door that haunt this castle. I would not have you join them."
"I'm not-" He was. Logically, he could maintain himself like this. He'd survived five long years without eating a meal in its entirety.
But he was older now. War and work would take its toll, and there were years of his life he could never get back. When Dimitri spoke those words, fear in his eye and a tremor in his voice, Felix knew.
"Please, Felix," Dimitri said. "I will get down on my knees and beg if I must. This has gone on long enough."
His breathing stuttered in his chest. Pain built from his fingertips right to his core. "It's not that easy," he managed. It could never be that easy. It took a war to stop him the first time. It took Dimitri being dead for as long as he'd starved himself.
"Perhaps not," Dimitri said, and this time his hands found what they were looking for: Felix's hands, somehow so small within Dimitri's own. "But you are my oldest friend. It doesn't have to be easy to be worth it."
Dimitri had once described the way that, through rain and darkness, the Professor took his hand in theirs. They were warm, Dimitri said, and it felt like a revelation. Like living again.
This wasn't the same, but Felix was willing to bet it was pretty damn close.
It began very simply, when he was a child. It ended...
It didn't end. Years down the line, Felix occasionally caught himself watching a meal with trepidation. Sometimes, an impulse rose within him and he cancelled an afternoon tea.
So no, it didn't end. But neither did Felix, and with time the battle for survival became less fraught. It petered out into a struggle for dominance, and then the occasional skirmish against cutting thoughts. The dark, gnawing feeling that ate at every moment faded into warmth and light.
Felix could finally be happy.