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“Have you ever considered,” Sylvain’s therapist begins, adjusting her glasses in that way she always does before she delivers a crushing blow to his view of his psyche, “That you have issues allowing yourself intimacy with another person?”
Or not . “I think that is literally one of the only problems I don’t have,” he replies, carding a hand through his hair.
Sylvain has been seeing her for half a year now upon Felix’s recommendation, and he loves her, really. He loves the smell of her office, clean with a hint of an essential oil blend he still can’t place; loves the look of her, blunt from toe to tip, like nothing he could say would be too much for her to handle; and loves her office, where he has bawled and cursed and submerged himself halfway up his forearms in kinetic sand.
Sometimes—and only rarely, he has to admit—she can be wrong, though.
She, however, doesn’t seem to agree.
“I’m not talking about sex, Sylvain,” she continues, pinning him with a gaze so knowing that his skin crawls. “When was the last time you and Felix talked about how you were feeling in a meaningful way?”
He starts to ask if how was your day counts, but she folds her hands together and he thinks better of it, slumping back with a sigh as he fidgets with the hem of the shirt he stole from Felix—it was his first, but he doesn’t count it anymore.
“I guess… Miklan?” Miklan, who had come into the coffee shop where he and Felix work—who hadn’t even known that Sylvain worked there—and with the kindest words Sylvain had ever heard from him, effectively sent his little brother backsliding for a month straight. “We’ve talked about that a bit.”
“Define a bit. ” But Sylvain’s therapist already knows the answer; she’s leveling that measured gaze against him to see if he’ll lie.
These days, he likes to think he’s a little better than that.
“Once when it happened.” The hand at the hem of his shirt starts to fold and tug and rub at the fabric, soothing the creeping feeling that he’s done something wrong. “Once after I told you.”
“Good.” With her words, his hand begins to slow again. “That’s definitely some significant progress.”
He breathes out.
“How would you feel about setting a goal for more?”
Officially, Sylvain goes on break five minutes late. Unofficially, he’s been on break for ten minutes already, lips puffy and abused from Felix’s rare good mood.
Intimacy issues, my ass, he thinks, sending a brief thanks to the heavens that he and Felix are the only ones on shift today. Mercie and Annie are nice and all, but neither of them can keep a secret to save their lives.
He shucks his apron and hops over the counter with his latte; the shop is empty right now, all their regulars gone back to work, slaving over their desktops in a routine Sylvain can’t see himself ever following. Sylvain may pretend at a lot of things, but he’s never been great at subordination.
Felix, though… He gets up at five every morning whether he works or not, waking Sylvain with heavy footfalls and the muffled thump of drawers as he dresses for his daily workout. He eats dinner at eight every night, all but wrestling Sylvain to the table beside him. His showers never go longer than fifteen minutes, and that’s indulgent for him. Sometimes, routine is the only thing that ever seems to get Felix out of bed.
And, for the first time, Sylvain realizes he doesn’t know where Felix will end up when he’s done with college, done with the coffee shop that brought them together once and for all.
You could ask, whispers the voice of his therapist, pointed and knowing.
So he does.
“Hey, Fe?” he calls, leaning back over the counter with hands splayed wide. “Are you busy?”
“ Someone has to wipe down the espresso machine.” Still, Felix pokes his head out from around the corner. His eyes dip below Sylvain’s face for a moment, then skirt back up as he decides Sylvain is worth the effort of walking around the corner. Score one for the partially unbuttoned polo. “What do you want?”
“Just a question.”
Felix doesn’t say that Sylvain’s questions are never just questions; that’s implied, and anyway, it’s rarely helpful. Sylvain has a hard enough time broaching uncomfortable subjects as it is. “Hold on a second. Let me put the rag down.”
He disappears back around the corner, and Sylvain pretends he doesn’t hear a wet squelch as Felix misses the bucket. Now isn’t the time to let his compulsive need for organization overtake the point.
Felix comes back around, apron shucked and face grim. Sylvain tries not to take it personally—even after all this time, Felix’s face rarely mirrors his real feelings unless they come in extremes—but the nerves he already feels are stuffing his throat with cotton.
“Well?” Felix asks, but he makes a concerted effort to school his face into neutrality—which, for Felix, always looks just shy of pained. “Some of us actually try to work, you know.”
Maybe Felix’s temper should cause him to hesitate, but if anything, Sylvain is relieved; he’s just the same man he’s always been, and his curt words are like a tonic to his wandering thoughts.
“What are you planning on doing after we graduate?” he asks.
There. He’s out with it.
Felix rocks back on his heels, and with some small amusement, Sylvain realizes he’d been hoping for another kiss or one of Sylvain’s patented cheesy lines. No matter how much he claims to be above these things, over these past few months, Sylvain has learned that there’s little he likes better.
“What?” he asks, blinking for a moment in shock, then scowling. “That’s all you wanted to ask?”
“Indulge me, Fe,” Sylvain answers, reaching out to grasp Felix’s hand.
Felix takes it thoughtlessly. “As if I don’t do enough of that already.”
“Please?”
Felix sighs and caves as Sylvain had hoped he would. Tugging Sylvain forward, he slumps into a chair close to the counter, all but forcing Sylvain to sit beside him. That’s fine; Sylvain doesn’t mind being manhandled anyway.
For a moment, they just sit there, Felix’s brow furrowed, gnawing at his lip in a way that makes Sylvain desperately want to kiss him. Then, he opens his mouth.
“I don’t know.”
Whatever Sylvain had been expecting, that wasn’t it. “You… don’t know?”
Felix shoots him a black look, but it lacks all the usual bite. “What, you’re telling me that you’re the very picture of long-term planning?”
“Fair enough.” Their hands are still tangled together; Sylvain squeezes Felix’s, gratified when he squeezes back. “You just always seem like you have your shit together. I guess I was curious.”
“I don’t.” Felix regards him for a moment, head tilted in that way he has when he has insight to share but pretends at not knowing his own smarts. “I never have. You don’t have to, either.”
Sylvain doesn’t act like that’s not where this was stemming from; he’s practicing intimacy, after all.
Instead, he says, “Well, thank fuck for that, or else I’d have to enter a state of permanent crisis.”
Felix, knowing exactly how many times he’s walked in on Sylvain bawling over Disney movies on the couch since they started living together—eighteen, but it’s not his fault he gets his sense of self-worth from Mulan—only looks unimpressed.
But they sit there and talk for the rest of Sylvain’s break and well into Felix’s, trading nonsensical ideas for the future, and for once, things don’t seem quite so overwhelming.
Maybe Sylvain isn’t behind the curve after all.