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“Your Majesty. I mean this with all the love in my heart, but you absolutely can’t give ‘em a dagger.”
No matter how many carpets they unroll across the floor or tapestries they hang on the walls, the stone halls of the Royal Castle tend to carry voices far from their sources. Normally, Felix appreciates the feature; it’s very useful for keeping a close eye on the comings-and-goings of the castle, but of course, it’s a pain in the ass whenever Sylvain is involved.
Felix can tell from Sylvain’s tone alone that he’s waylaid Dimitri with some trivial matter again. And judging by his words, is currently feeding him some utter nonsense. Again.
He picks up his pace and can just barely make the voices out as he rounds one hallway. Sylvain, Dimitri, and Lorenz should be inside the conference room, preparing for the next meeting and making small talk with the provincial nobles so that Felix doesn’t have to. Instead they’re conducting what seems to be a highly sensitive conversation out in public.
“No one wants a dagger. Nuh- nuh- no, I know what you’re going to say and I can say with full conviction that nobody with a speck of romance in them wants a dagger. Don’t you remember what happened with the last one?”
“Yes, but that wasn’t—”
“No. It ended badly the last time, it’ll end badly this time. Are you going to listen to me, or are you going to get stabbed again? Felix would kill me.”
“The thing is, Sylvain—”
“I know you think they’re an exception, but they’re definitely not. Lorenz. You and I don’t always see eye-to-eye, but you gotta back me up on this one.”
“I do agree, Your Majesty. Though Margrave Gautier’s romantic reputation may leave much to be desired, he possesses vastly more experience than you do on this front. I believe his judgment in this case is correct.”
Felix, begrudgingly, also has to agree. He may be the only person in the world who would be happy to receive a dagger, but that’s neither here nor there.
Dimitri is romantically interested in someone. This is something Felix has prepared for all of his conscious life, ever since Glenn and Sylvain pulled him aside to break it to him that he could marry anyone he wanted except for the Prince and Felix had decided right then and there to become a celibate knight. It’s no surprise that Dimitri’s in love or that he’s going to start acting on it; they’ve spent the last year steadfastly rebuilding the country and Fódlan is finally on its way to stability. It’s the perfect time for him to find a consort. What’s upsetting is that Dimitri decided to consult someone else about it.
“Very well,” Dimitri says. “You’ve convinced me. What do you recommend I do, then?”
“Ah, Your Majesty! You have come to the most capable men in the Kingdom! Excluding our dear Duke Aegir, of course.”
“Yes, much appreciated, Lorenz. What do you suggest?”
“I am honored to be of service.” Lorenz says, “Your Majesty should begin by considering the air about you.”
“The… air,” Dimitri parrots uncertainly. Felix can almost see Dimitri’s confused expression.
“Your atmosphere, Your Majesty. Your magnetism, if you will. The very aura of nobility you imbue into your surroundings.”
“My… air.” Dimitri says. “I believe I understand now. You have my gratitude, Lorenz.”
“My pleasure. After all, it is a noble’s calling to assist his liege.”
Felix stomps forward. This is ridiculous. They’re talking about Dimitri’s seduction plans in the open, where it will surely spread to all of Fhirdiad and beyond. Come tomorrow there’ll be a line of women outside the gates with all manner of schemes to trap themselves a royal husband.
He’s long come to terms with the fact that Dimitri will someday marry a beautiful blond noblewoman and live in Goddess-blessed happiness with his beautiful blond children. He’s satisfied with being the King’s Right Hand — it’s more than he would have dreamed of five years ago, when Dimitri was only a ghost he saw in fleeting glimpses of golden-haired strangers, or even two years ago, when he believed their relationship to be irreversibly mangled. Against all odds, Felix is truly happy for the first time in ten years. He’s worked tirelessly to repair his strained relationship with Dimitri and he can truly say he’s earned his place by the King’s side. No one can take that from him, not even a Queen.
He turns the corner just in time to see Dimitri whirl around with an expression of panic.
“Felix! Did you, er, happen to hear our conversation?”
Felix raises an eyebrow. The King’s face is flushed and the skin around his eye twitches with what can only be anxiety. No wonder — information about the King's courtship is highly sensitive, and Dimitri was probably too polite to ask Sylvain and Lorenz to take the conversation elsewhere.
“You look ill,” he says in lieu of a real answer. “Do we need to postpone the meeting?”
“No, not at all. It’s just a little hot here.”
It’s not. It’s two days after the end of a false spring in the middle of Pegasus Moon, which means that yesterday’s wave of fresh snow felt even more torturously cold than usual. Even the ambassador from Sreng has taken to arriving in meetings bundled in an extra layer of fur.
“Did you hear our conversation?” asks Dimitri as he fidgets with a loose plate on his gauntlet.
“No. And I don’t particularly care, either.” From his position behind Dimitri, Sylvain shoots him an unreadable look that quickly turns sly. Felix doesn’t like it one bit.
“What are you milling around out here for? You have a meeting to run,” he continues.
“You’re right, as always.” Dimitri says. He pulls the door to the conference room open. “After you.”
✾
Dimitri arrives at their next briefing smelling faintly of spices. It’s intoxicating, but Felix will impale himself on his own sword before he says anything about it.
✾
The next day, the intensity of the spices wafting about Dimitri’s person have increased twofold. Felix sits very still in his seat at the King’s right side and tries not to breathe him in too obviously.
✾
The day after, the nobles begin to leave a noticeable berth around His Majesty. Felix wouldn’t mind — it makes his life easier when he isn't simultaneously trying to scan for threats and corral the meeting participants — but the previously pleasant scent is beginning to give him a headache.
✾
Felix couldn’t imagine it getting worse, but it does. On the fourth day of Dimitri’s new addition to his regular ablutions, his musk is so overpowering that Mercedes tactfully suggests holding the meeting outside to “enjoy the unseasonal sunny weather” and “draw inspiration from the beauty of the royal gardens”.
There isn’t much beauty to draw inspiration from; the statues, all covered in at least a foot of snow, loom like bleak gatekeepers above them. The hedges cast their chilly shadows across the stone benches and any enterprising green shoots have long died in the cold.
The entire council huddles miserably on their feet, as no one dares to sit on the ice-cold benches. Even the most uppity of nobles has silently decided to break decorum and stand far closer to their compatriots than would generally be considered mannerly.
The day is unseasonably sunny for Pegasus Moon, a side effect of the false spring, but the meager sunlight does nothing to counteract the biting cold air. Not even ornery Lord Aetos, Enbarr’s finickiest representative, raises a single protest, though his formidable moustache is beginning to frost over with tiny flakes of ice.
Dimitri sweeps the piled snow off a bench and sits down, totally unaffected by the way the stone must be leaching all the heat from his buttocks. The council winces as one and moves to take their own seats in the courtyard.
“Felix,” Dimitri says, patting the empty spot next to him. “Will you sit down with me?”
“It’s cold,” Felix says, glaring at the bench. “I should stay standing to guard you.”
It’s a baldfaced lie, as Ashe is right there, fixing him with a look of distress.
“Ah. Forgive me. I did not consider that.” Dimitri stands.
The entire council heaves a sigh of relief to follow him, then watches in horror as the King of Faerghus removes his royal cloak and folds it into a tidy little square. He puts Faerghus’s bundled symbol of sovereignty on the bench like a cushion, furred side up, then sits down on the bare stone and gestures at Felix.
“That should be better. I would be very uncomfortable if you continued to stand. Everyone, please, sit.”
Felix sits. He’s not sure which is warmer: his face or his ass.
During a scheduled break in between meetings, Ashe carefully pulls Felix aside, drawing him far away from Dimitri, who’s engaged in a passionate conversation with Lorenz, so far the only one immune to his stench.
“Felix,” Ashe says desperately in between a fit of rapid-fire sneezes, “I’m sorry to ask this of you but can you please ask His Majesty to stop applying... whatever salve he’s recently taken to? It’s getting impossible to guard him when he’s triggering my allergies so strongly. And I’m sure the entire governing body will fall ill if we continue meeting outside like this.”
Felix is of half a mind to ask Dimitri to pile the cologne on even more thickly, even if it results in permanent damage to his own lungs or a castle-wide epidemic of buttock frostbite. It would be worth it: any assassin within a six-foot radius would be incapacitated by the pungency of Dimitri’s aura before they could do any real damage. He agrees anyway, because he selfishly wants to continue standing next to Dimitri without passing out, assassins be damned.
✾
The next morning, the entire council breathes a collective sigh of relief when His Royal Majesty enters the meeting room devoid of a personal olfactory herald.
✾✾✾
Apparently, whatever advice Dimitri solicited from Lorenz was less than effective, because a week later Felix passes through a courtyard on his way to the training grounds and hears the voice of Ferdinand von Aegir floating through an open window on the second floor.
“The von Aegir method of courtship is absolutely infallible. We’ve made matches this way for generations.”
“You have my gratitude,” says Dimitri’s unmistakable kingly voice.
It was a miracle that his first conversation with Sylvain and Lorenz went unheard by people other than Felix, but now the news will surely spread. Ferdinand von Aegir is physically incapable of moderating his volume. Half of the continent will know Dimitri is courting by midafternoon.
“First, always treat her with courtesy and respect. Pay her some compliments, but they must be genuine.”
“That sounds sensible.”
“Have you already begun to make your acquaintance with this lucky person?”
“Ah, yes. In a way.”
Felix begins sorting through the list of eligible women aged 15 to 40 in his head. Is Catherine 40? He's afraid to ask.
“Wonderful. If you have already developed some mutual good will, you could plan an activity to enjoy. A light ride in the royal forest, or perhaps tea in the gardens. Any activity, really, that allows you to share the same space and partake in entertainment or conversation together.”
“Like sparring?” Dimitri asks hopefully.
“Goddess, no. Not sparring, unless you plan on courting Shamir or Catherine. And only Shamir or Catherine. There are many warriors among the women in our ranks, but even female warriors have hobbies outside of fighting.”
“Ah,” Dimitri says. “Duly noted.”
He’s not courting Shamir or Catherine, is he? Though... they do rank higher than most on Felix’s list. Having one of them as Queen wouldn’t be the end of the world.
“Light to moderate exercise at the very most,” Ferdinand says. “And I cannot stress that moderate exercise is only an option when your partner is most hardy. Even if I never witnessed your might on the battlefield, I have heard tell of the famous Blaiddyd strength. Assume that any person you might take on an excursion has the physical fortitude of…”
Ferdinand pauses for a moment. “Of Hilda!”
“Hilda once carried Dedue back to the barracks during the war,” Dimitri says hopefully.
“Oh dear,” says Ferdinand, in the tone of a governess encountering a dead rat on the roadside. “Singlehandedly? I suppose I must congratulate her on her strength. Well, let’s use Lindhardt as a benchmark instead. If Lindhardt would complain about the activity, it’s likely not very romantic.”
“Thank you very much for your advice,” Dimitri says. “I will consider it carefully.”
“Happy to be of service, Your Majesty.”
“von Aegir,” Felix barks. Two heads pop out of the window to look down at him. Dimitri’s face is again flushed an unseasonal shade of pink. Perhaps he’d been burned by the sunlight reflecting off the snow — Dimitri’s skin has always been sensitive. If Felix weren’t so annoyed about Ferdinand’s obnoxious voice, he’d probably be distracted by how cute it is.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about and I don’t care but keep it down over there. Not everyone wants to hear your gossiping.”
“G-gossiping!” Ferdinand exclaims. “Duke Fraldarius, I must correct this assumption—”
“Don’t care,” Felix repeats, and books it.
✾
Dimitri’s office has been transformed the next time Felix enters for their weekly meeting. Their usual desk is nowhere in sight, and there are three more couches than he remembers, all of them strewn with pillows and blankets. Dimitri himself is reclined, bootless, on a chaise lounge. He’s relaxed and comfortable, which is a very nice look on him but deeply confusing in this context.
“Felix! You look very healthy today!”
Maybe he’s too comfortable if he’s spouting nonsense like this. Felix never looks healthy. None of them do. They all replaced the stress and grief of war with the pressure of revitalizing a failing country. Sylvain bemoans the wrinkles seeping across his forehead every chance he gets.
“What is this,” Felix grunts. “Where’s the desk. I brought the reports.”
“I thought we might try something different today. Would you like to sit down with me?” Dimitri pats the space on the couch next to him. The way he always insists on sharing a seat is entirely unbecoming, and Felix would scold anyone else for it, but he’s always been a hypocrite.
“You’ve finally gone mad. We have work to do.”
Dimitri pouts, which means that both Felix’s ass and feet stage a coordinated mutiny. He finds himself perching gingerly on the edge of the couch, staring at Dimitri’s socks. Dimitri’s big toe has prevailed in its battle against the wool and Felix can just make out the pink pad of his toe, plus a tiny sliver of white toenail.
It should be gross, but it’s not, which means Dimitri can’t find a wife fast enough. The sooner he’s married, the sooner Felix’s mind can return to fully focusing on international diplomacy and not on the bizarre fact that Dimitri’s toes are cute.
“I took the liberty of delegating our tasks to some friends. You have not had a chance to relax in months, have you not?”
“You can’t just relax when you’re running a country.”
“I seem to recall you telling me to take time off to rest just last week. Regardless, I have already arranged for others to handle our work today. You are always kindly reminding me to delegate, after all.”
It’s infuriating how Dimitri has always been able to manipulate him. He can’t refuse now, or Dimitri will just take it as a tacit endorsement to go ahead and bury himself in paperwork until he dies of stress-induced gastritis.
“I’ve prepared your favorite tea?” Dimitri swings his feet off the couch and sits up, reaching over to the low table to lift the tea tray hopefully.
Felix sighs. “This won’t be a regular thing.”
“Of course not. I take my duties very seriously.”
Dimitri is so earnest the only way for Felix to suppress his desire to kiss him might be to punch him. He does neither and instead focuses all his efforts on furiously swallowing his tea, which fights him the whole way down.
“This is… nice,” Felix says, once he manages to trap the cough burning in his throat.
“I’m pleased to hear that. You are so very important to me, Felix.”
This time, Felix does choke, hacking a few droplets of tea out of his nose inelegantly. He wipes his face off on his sleeve. Dimitri can’t just say things like that, when Felix has trained his heart to love him from the sidelines.
“Are you alright?”
“Yes. Yes. Of course. I’m fine.”
“Good. It would be terrible if you took sick.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Felix says.
They drink their tea in silence.
Dimitri fidgets with his hands. He’s been doing that more often of late — Felix files the detail away in his mind for later. He should talk to Dedue about finding Dimitri a hobby.
“Well… I appreciate all the effort you put into our work. You’ve done an excellent job, just as I’ve always known you would.”
“It’s just my duty,” Felix says as gruffly as he can, even as his face heats up from the tea.
Silence, punctuated by the sound of Dimitri’s teeth snapping what must be a rock in half. Felix glances over out of the corner of his eye to see Dimitri chewing on a biscuit, crumbs of the pastry flecking his mouth. His jaw works doggedly.
Felix picks up a biscuit and bends it experimentally. It refuses to yield to pressure until his crest takes the hint and activates, cracking the disc into fragments. He stares at the pieces in disbelief. Who searched through the pantry and decided this was fit for the King? The field rations he had during the war would have been better accompaniments to tea than these slabs of stone. The maid who prepared this spread should be banished from the Kingdom. Another thing to add to his growing checklist.
Dimitri swallows his biscuit and washes it down with more tea.
“Do you have any plans for the future, Felix? Perhaps in… say, five years, when things are less busy? Do you think you’ll spend more time in Fraldarius then?”
His heartbeat accelerates alarmingly inside his chest. I’ll be by your side forever, you fool.
“Don’t delude yourself, boar,” says Felix. Whenever his heart and his brain are at war, his mouth spews insults. “Things will always be busy. Knowing our luck, I’ll probably only return to Fraldarius when I’m on my deathbed.”
“Ah,” Dimitri says, pleased. He was probably worried about finding a replacement for Felix. “That’s wonderful— well, not wonderful in any strict sense of the word. The scenario you envision seems quite sad, actually. But I am selfishly happy to hear you will remain by my side.”
“I get it. No need to flatter me.”
“Of course.”
More slurping. Dimitri eats another biscuit. The muffled noise emanating from his mouth sounds remarkably like the screech of a dull blade across a grindstone.
“There’s a new castle kitten,” Dimitri says. “I believe one of the maids brought it in to hunt kitchen rats.”
Felix perks up and Dimitri brightens considerably.
“It is still quite small, so it has yet to successfully best any rodents. But I saw it bring down a weevil!”
Halfway through Dimitri’s impassioned retelling of the kitten’s weevil conquest, Felix’s eyelids begin to droop. He wants to hear the end of this story, and then he wants to hear the assorted cat trivia that Dimitri is sure to have on hand. He knows from experience that Dimitri’s already prepared a detailed kitten report in anticipation of their meeting; he’s been regaling Felix with local cat intelligence ever since they were children.
But Felix is just so comfortable. The tea was perfect, granite biscuits notwithstanding. The couch they share is soft and Dimitri radiates the perfect amount of heat. And most importantly, Dimitri’s gentle voice, listing out the kitten’s favorite foods and castle staff, tugs Felix closer and closer toward sleep. He’ll just… close his eyes for a few minutes.
The last thing he feels is a pair of gentle hands catching him mid-sway. They set him gently on his side, and he nuzzles his face into something warm and pleasantly spiced. Somewhere nearby, in the cotton clouds above his head, Dimitri laughs softly.
✾✾✾
Felix is not eavesdropping on Sylvain and Dimitri’s conversation in the baths. He just happens to have gotten there first, sat in the furthest, steamiest corner of the sauna, and found himself trapped.
“Oh, Your Majesty,” Sylvain says. “You must be getting really desperate. All right. Big bro Sylvain will teach you his ways of seduction.”
“Sylvain, I distinctly remember your advice backfiring on me when we were at the academy.” Dimitri pauses. “And please, never call yourself that again.”
Sylvain laughs. “All right, I can take a hint. But what happened at the academy happened because you didn’t want to seduce that girl, right? But now you do. ”
“By the way,” Sylvain says too casually after a long pause, “do I know the person you’re chasing after so desperately?”
“Ah,” Dimitri stammers. “That, that is. Yes. You are familiar with them.”
“Hmmmm.” Sylvain’s tone is sly.
Is it Mercedes? It must be Mercedes.
“I guess you won’t actually tell me who it is. Okay, can you at least tell me if you think they might reciprocate your interest?”
“I… believe so. Lately we’ve become closer in ways that I had believed were lost to me forever. At the very least, I have faith that they won’t view me differently even if they don’t feel the same way.”
Of course Dimitri’s love is requited. The foolish boar is just blind to his own charm. Who would be so stupid as to not already be in love with the King of Faerghus? Who would be so stupid as to deny the King of Faerghus anything? Dimitri may believe things lost to him forever, but if their rekindled friendship is any indication, he will always be able to find them again.
If the person is so foolish as to reject Dimitri, Felix will find them and exile them himself. If he doesn’t die of dehydration first.
✾
“Oh, hello, Felix,” Dimitri says, as if Felix has walked in on a normal policy meeting and not whatever debauchery this is at nine at night in His Royal Majesty’s chambers with the nearly naked Royal Majesty and his gloriously heaving bosom.
This is surely all Sylvain’s fault.
Felix once kicked the statue of St. Cichol in the monastery cathedral’s alcove during their ill-fated year at the academy. He’d dented the bronze of Cichol’s robes in a bout of youthful frustration powered by Crest energy, then panicked and fled. The current situation he’s found himself in must be divine punishment for running away and skipping Seteth’s two-hour lecture to the students of all three houses.
He takes a step back and slams the door, turning to lean against it heavily. His heart pounds like a rabbit in his chest.
Dimitri did ask him to come to his chambers for a conversation. This, clearly, is not the appropriate setup for a conversation, so the only reasonable explanation is that Felix has either come too early or too late, or that Dimitri has forgotten their appointment because his mind has been distracted by other things. Things like… whoever he prepared this display for. Felix takes a shaky breath and considers, for one absurd moment, bursting into tears right at the door.
Then his mind hones in on the one stupid detail that convinces him to force his shaking hand back to the doorknob. Turn. Click. Deep breath.
“You— you boar,” he snaps, stomping over to Dimitri’s bedside and vehemently ignoring the diaphanous blue robe and the vast expanse of gleaming skin and the sparse tuft of curling chest hair and the infuriating urge to touch his King in an egregiously inappropriate way.
“People usually take the thorns off the rose before they start sticking them in orifices,” he continues, then immediately regrets his choice of words. He soldiers on bravely. “Spit it out.”
Dimitri opens his mouth obediently, quietly. The rose falls into Felix’s open hand. There’s a little surface scratch on his lip, though it isn't deep enough to draw blood. Thank god, because it would be fucking embarrassing to announce His Majesty’s death from lockjaw from a rose after being walked in on during an attempt to seduce someone. Someone who isn’t Felix. Dimitri would become a laughingstock of a dead King and Felix would be his equally humiliated advisor.
Felix busies himself with shearing the thorns off one by one with his dagger, stubbornly ignoring the way the romantic candlelight blesses Dimitri’s skin with a bronze glow and the way he can see the tense, chiseled lines of Dimitri’s bare thighs. Or how Dimitri’s still half-reclined against his bed, mouth hanging open and full lips flushed. Felix wants to kiss his stupid face.
“There,” he says, shoving the stem back towards Dimitri’s mouth. A single petal falls off, landing on Dimitri’s bare stomach. Dimitri flares his lips and bares his teeth and takes the rose carefully, tenderly, and entirely unerotically, like a skittish horse reaching for a carrot, and suddenly Felix has lost all sense of embarrassment or arousal.
“Good. Be more careful next time. And stop listening to Sylvain.”
He takes a step back.
“Good night,” he says firmly, then closes the door on his love.
✾
He makes it halfway down the hall, hand clenched tight around his fistful of thorns, before Dimitri comes bursting through the doors behind him.
“Felix! Felix, wait!”
Felix turns. Dimitri’s aforementioned heaving bosom is once again on full display, this time cast dramatically in the flickering light and shadow of the hall lamps. His robe is askew, only its sash protecting Dimitri’s dignity from Felix and the two members of the royal guard, who are doing their best to protect the King from mortal harm while avoiding looking at him at all costs.
“What. Shouldn't you be waiting for... someone.” He can't bring himself to finish the question properly.
“It’s you,” says Dimitri.
“What?”
“It’s you. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“What?”
Dimitri closes the distance between them in three long strides. Up this close, Felix can see the gooseflesh spreading across Dimitri’s chest and the layer of soft, peacetime fat over his stomach.
“Felix, I adore you.”
His mind registers the guards’ awkward shuffling before the meaning of Dimitri’s words, and for a quarter of a second he considers reprimanding them for their distraction. Then, all of a sudden, he’s overwhelmed; his boyhood dreams are all coalescing in this one absurd moment.
“Shut up.”
“If you do not feel the same way, please, just tell me. Do not be cruel to me.”
“I can’t—” Felix starts. Dimitri’s face falls and Felix’s gut roils with instant guilt. “No, not that. I mean I need some time to process this.”
“By all means,” Dimitri says, rallying visibly. “How long do you need?”
“Let’s go back inside first,” Felix says, reaching out to tug at the open neckline of the robe. It doesn’t help much; it’s sheer enough that he can make out Dimitri’s nipples through a double layer of the fabric. “You must be freezing. Where did you get this thing anyway?”
“Sylvain had it tailored on my behalf,” Dimitri says as they enter his quarters. The guards give Felix grateful looks and shut the door behind them.
“Like I said, you need to stop listening to Sylvain.”
“I know that now,” Dimitri says.
The dethorned rose and its single fallen petal lay in the middle of the floor, likely abandoned when Dimitri ran after him. Felix picks them up with his free hand and places them on Dimitri’s nightstand, then winces as he unclenches his other hand and pours the bloody thorns out next to them. The pain is grounding — at least now his mind has cleared enough to think.
“Felix, you’re hurt!”
“It’s fine,” Felix says, as though it wouldn’t be fucking embarrassing to die of lockjaw after misunderstanding the King’s seduction attempt.
“No, you were hurt due to my lack of foresight,” Dimitri says. “Give me your hand.”
The only explanation for Felix’s sudden bout of breathless dizziness is early-onset thorn-transmitted tetanus. Dimitri holds his hand gently as he casts a novice healing spell, and surely it’s due to his incompetence at Faith magic that Felix’s throat threatens to turn itself inside out as Dimitri brings his healed hand to his lips and kisses it before moving it to cup his face. The romantic candlelight softens the pox scars on his cheeks. Felix wants to count them and then kiss them.
Dimitri’s skin is smooth and warm. When their eyes meet, all Felix can think is that it’s been so long since he’s seen this particular firelit blue.
“Felix,” Dimitri whispers. “I have loved you for a long time. Is it presumptuous of me to dream you might feel the same way?”
“Uh—” Felix stutters, lost in Dimitri’s stupid, hopeful gaze and in the love he’s nurtured for Dimitri for almost his whole life. His only tether to reality is the feeling of Dimitri’s cheek in his hand.
“Felix?” Dimitri’s face is suddenly too close. “How much time do you need?”
“I—”
Felix closes his eyes and steadies himself.
“Felix?”
He takes the leap and closes the distance.
✾
The King cancels all meetings the next day.
✾✾✾
“I was going to give you a dagger,” Dimitri says, sometime in the following afternoon. “But I didn’t.”
“This is the most enraging thing you’ve said to me all week, including— including the things you said when we were—” Felix blushes furiously. “Why didn’t you?”
“Sylvain and Lorenz convinced me not to.”
At some point in the day, the sheer blue robe, now crumpled and unflattering, migrated from Dimitri’s body to Felix’s. Felix draws it tighter around himself and glares at him, but his fingers still move uninterrupted through Dimitri’s hair.
“I’m going to kill Sylvain. And you know better than to listen to them; you know I like daggers.”
“They were very persuasive, and I wanted to court you the right way.”
Felix stops stroking Dimitri’s hair abruptly, and Dimitri makes a noise of disgruntlement and nudges his head under Felix’s hand like a dog.
“Well, you should get me one now.”
“I will.”
The golden afternoon sun beams through Dimitri’s open window. The royal chambers are nice and his bed is soft and Felix will never leave because the royal guards know he hasn’t stepped foot outside it for almost a full day, which means Dedue and Sylvain and every single busybody who reports to Felix knows, which means that his old man and Glenn have probably also already heard about it from beyond the grave. Either he stays here or he leaves Fódlan forever.
“I need to exile myself,” Felix says suddenly.
“Why?”
“Everyone knows.”
Dimitri laughs and tugs him back against his chest. “Let them. We won a war and unified a continent — in comparison, this is easy. We have finally found each other, my love; are you truly so anxious to leave me this soon?”
He hates the way Dimitri’s mouth put those words together, but in the past twenty four hours Felix has discovered the most effective way to convince him to hold his tongue yet. So he tilts his face up, closes his eyes, and waits for Dimitri to shut up.