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Telegenic, picture of calm, family-friendly Felix Fraldarius. That guy’s nowhere to be seen around the 15 minute time call, when the sugar spire for Felix’s castle shatters in his hands. The producers have already had a word with him about cursing, and glowering, and his general pall. There’s only so much editing they can do.
“Cheese and fucking rice,” he says, quietly, half-turned away from the nearest camera, and realizes belatedly that he hadn’t done that one right, exactly. Annette’s coaching stuck, but he’s gone and gotten the Felix pall all over her curse word substitutes.
Thing is, the castle’s his centerpiece. Right now, sans spire, it’s looking like an especially opulent serf’s shack, or a homely church. Jesus Christ isn’t even a curse, he’s thinking, madly. Is it?
“Jesus Christ,” he says, when he cracks the portcullis in his shaking hands.
Since when were they shaking?
When they air this part, he knows they’ll be playing the Bake-Off desperation music. The will-they-make-it, down-to-the-wire soundtrack. He’s definitely not watching this season. He refuses to relive this mounting distress, or to watch himself tear through his workstation looking for something to fix his mistake and finding nothing.
Watching the next part might be even more intolerable. Annette’s gonna have a field day.
Sylvain. The self-taught baker with only a year’s experience under his belt. Known for big, comforting flavors. Known to Felix for his emulsion-capable forearms. He’s at Felix’s workstation, suddenly, looking concerned.
“Can I help? What can I do?”
The low way he’s speaking, trying to get Felix to calm, to center—that’s how Felix knows he’s absolutely verging meltdown. Their first meeting, Sylvain called him a tough read.
Not so. Not now. Now, all of Fódlan’s gonna know how Felix has been brought to the edge of an anxiety attack over sugar sculpture.
The worst part? The big joke? Is it’s his speciality. This should have been his week.
“Nothing,” Felix says. He’s piping, fast as his hands can go, over the places where his cake’s icing was marred by his falling-apart castle. As if Dedue and Mercedes won’t notice the rush job. “It’s fu— It’s fragile. I broke it. Nothing to do about it now. Thanks, though.”
“I’m about to pour my last mold. Take the rest of my sugar while it’s hot and glue the hell out of this thing, okay?” Sylvain smiles. The other thing he’s known for. Fan favorite in the making. “It’s too cool to leave in pieces.”
It’s a better solution than any Felix has, which is none. The clock’s ticking down.
Felix nods. Not the picture of gratitude that’ll score points with the viewers. But he doesn’t let slip any more tv no-no words, even when he burns himself on the sugar. And by the end of it, the castle might yet be called a castle.
When they’re sat back and waiting to be judged, Sylvain catches his eye and gives him a thumbs up.
//
Felix finds Sylvain on a balcony, watching the tail end of the sunset with a glass of wine in hand.
At the end of the week, there’s a modest gathering for the contestants in the lounge at the hotel. Some wine, some cheese. Usually Felix doesn’t bother going, but Lysithea has a glare pretty much as intractable as his own. And sharp elbows, literally and proverbially. Don’t act like you’re not grateful to be here after all that.
Then, still a little ornery, a few minutes later—I’m glad you’re here still. Don’t even think of packing yet.
So, with whatever gratitude he does have—and it is there, in containment—Felix walks up to Sylvain and says, “Cool dragon,” as he would have with or without ingesting two point five glasses of wine.
Sylvain turns from the purpling sky and quirks a smile.
“Thanks,” he says, all ease and friendliness. “We should have done a joint display. My dragon tearing down your castle.” He waves a hand grandly. “How’s that for narrative cohesion.”
“Mm.”
Felix doesn’t even want to think about the failure of the day.
Fairytales. He’s always hated open-ended themes. Sculpting sugar and molding chocolate, dark, if he can get it—it’s got a precision he likes. Something satisfying about it becoming the shape he gives it, an unexpected material taking on edges.
“You didn’t need my busted-down castle.” Felix swirls the wine in his glass, watches it wash red down the inside walls. “Star baker.”
“I liked your castle,” Sylvain says, sidestepping the jab in Felix’s tone. “You pulled it together in the end. Pressure really brings something out in you, huh?”
When Felix scoffs, he chokes a little on his wine.
“Are you joking? I could have crushed the whole thing in my hands by the end. On purpose. You were the last line of defense.”
“Oh, I see. I’m the moat.”
“That’s first-line defense, actually.”
Sylvain grins. This is a guy who knows what and where a moat is. Felix frowns. He’s being teased. His face feels hot. Surely just wine hot. He drums his fingers on the balcony’s railing.
There’s a reason Felix hasn’t made nice with Sylvain so far, and that smile’s part of it. There’s the sheer incompatibility—Sylvain’s laid back, he puts people at ease. His workstation is immaculate, always; his organizational system never falters, not even in the middle of a show stopper. He’s humble, and talented, and composed. And none of these are his biggest sin.
Felix drains his glass and says, “It’s always irritated me, on other seasons, whenever bakers were too conventionally attractive. Felt like they were picked for how good they look on television. Like—go model, or something. But. You really saved me today. So. Thank you, for that.”
Silence. To his credit, when what Felix has said makes it back to his brain, he doesn’t drop his glass, or throw himself over the balcony for a quick escape.
“Shit—“ No cameras on now. “That’s. I didn’t mean—“
“No, it’s fair,” Sylvain says. He’s got an unreadable expression on, when Felix dares himself to look. “I always thought Dedue might have a thing for me. Mercedes, too. Maybe they’re looking for a third, and thought star baker would uh. Butter me up.”
Felix splutters.
“Plus,” Sylvain says, with an overdone sigh, his eyes twinkling, “if I don’t win, I guess I could always go back to modeling.”
“Stop,” Felix says. “Stop talking. I should have shut up, before, but you really need to now.”
“Oh? What was it you didn’t mean?” Sylvain turns and puts his back to the sky, plants his elbows on the railing. It broadens his chest, which doesn’t need the help. “Are you saying I’m not hotter than I am talented?”
“Fuck off,” Felix says. His face, still very warm. “Sugar sculpted sleeping dragon in a sugar dome egg? That has nothing to do with you looking good. Star baker was earned. You’re skilled. Don’t make me say it again.”
The sky’s dark now, and the moon’s not out yet. Sylvain’s lit softly from the hotel’s interior. With so little to see by, Felix could swear he looks bashful.
There’s not much else to say, and Felix’s mouth is still sore from having stuck his foot in it, proverbially not literally. He counts down in his head for the appropriate duration, and doesn’t think about where he and Sylvain’s elbows nearly touch on the railing, nor the barely perceptible heat of his body.
He turns to leave. Must make a leaving sound before that because Sylvain straightens and leads the way through a short, amiable goodbye.
But then, with Felix on the threshold between inside and out, Sylvain calls for him.
“Hey, Felix. That thing about ‘conventionally attractive bakers’.” Sylvain tilts his head, smirks with his terribly soft looking lips. “So like. What’s your excuse?”
Felix doesn’t have fuck all in his brain to answer that. Barely comprehends it. While he’s stuck there, short circuiting, Sylvain brushes past him, a wave of perfectly understated cologne in his wake.
“You want star baker, come and get it,” he says lowly. Then, at a normal volume, “See you in the tent, Felix.”
He’s a few steps gone when Felix snaps back to himself.
“Watch the fucking throne, Gautier,” he calls, overloud. People are looking. “You saw what I do to castles.”
Felix: known for his prickliness and his competitive streak. For his sculptural elements, and for his unconventional use of spice and bitterness to balance sweetness.
As it turns out, Sylvain’s laugh falls on just this side of sugar he can handle.