Archive of Our Own

A LETTER OF FINAL WISHES

A CRAB SHACK RATED 2.3 STARS ON THE INTERNET’S FAVORITE REVIEW SITE

The last time Felix had seen Dimitri, his right eye had been bleeding.

A paramedic had asked Felix about Dimitri’s medical history as the flashing lights of the ambulance and several police cars filled the periphery of his vision. By the time Felix finished rattling off everything he could remember, Dimitri had disappeared inside the ambulance. The next day, Felix packed his things and moved out. He did not visit Dimitri in the hospital; he finished his final semester of college and found a job on the southern edge of the continent far away from the city he had once called home.

That was six years ago. Plenty of time for Dimitri to have changed.

Felix tucked Glenn’s stupid letter as the taxi took its sweet time taking him to a crab shack at least one reviewer had claimed was “violating multiple health codes” before giving it 3 out of 5 stars because it had the best shrimp in Eastern Fódlan. Traffic was light; this part of the coast was bordering on rural. One of his uncles had a house just north of here; they used to stay during childhood visits.

The scenery outside the taxi’s window changed from sand dunes and quaint beach houses to a small downtown area of picturesque storefronts and actual stoplights. The cab passed through it slowly, halted by red lights and cars pulling out of parking spots; in a few minutes, they turned down an unremarkable road and stopped.

Felix paid his fare. The driver had tried to make small talk with him earlier, asking Felix what he was doing in the area, but he was quiet now as Felix took his suitcase, showing no curiosity about their final destination. When Felix was back on the sidewalk, he drove away.

The afternoon sky was a moody grey that was out of place for the south. But then, Felix had never been here in the fall before; maybe this was just what the weather was like when summer was over and the tourists went home.

Felix wheeled his suitcase to the sleazy motel at the end of the road. The sound was loud and disturbing on the quiet street, especially when he reached the motel driveway. The gravel there looked like it had not been patched for decades; he cringed at the sound and was glad when he finally made it into the lobby.

That feeling ended when he saw a head of red hair picking up a room key. He considered leaving but it was too late—Sylvain turned around and saw him.

He looked the same as at the funeral, which wasn’t a surprise. It had only been a few months ago, after all. Still, it felt strange seeing him here; Felix hadn’t quite believed any of the others would show up, curses be damned.

For a moment, Felix feared Sylvain would say something sympathetic.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite asshole.” Despite the weather and indoor setting, Sylvain’s eyes were completely hidden behind dark sunglasses.

“Piss off,” Felix said as they switched places.

Sylvain laughed and waited for him to finish checking in.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Sylvain said as they looked for their rooms. It wasn’t hard to find them; the motel wasn’t very big. “Ingrid’s staying at the Grand.”

“I’m surprised she was willing to pay for it.” Their rooms were next to each other; Felix swiped his key card and turned his door handle after the small LED light turned green.

“Well, she has money now that—” Sylvain cut off before he could finish his sentence but it was pointless when Felix knew how it ended.

Now that Glenn was dead, Ingrid had his life insurance money. It was what Glenn had decided on when they were dating, long before he was diagnosed. That he hadn’t changed it to someone else wasn’t the kind of mistake Glenn would make, regardless of what anyone else might have thought. If Glenn left her as his beneficiary, it was intentional.

Felix turned the door handle. “Right, yeah.” He went into his room and closed the door before Sylvain could say anything else.

Hours later, Felix’s stomach was grumbling almost as loudly as the wheels of his suitcase on bad gravel. He had napped and felt worse for it and if he didn’t eat, tomorrow was going to be even rougher than it already was guaranteed to be.

He crept out of his motel room into the poorly lit night, half-convinced Sylvain would be waiting outside somewhere to ambush him but Felix was alone and remained alone the entire walk to the crab shack.

Felix didn’t even know if it was open. He doubted it, but it was the only restaurant he knew in this town and he wanted to see it before he came with the others anyway.

Miraculously, the lights were still on. The place was exactly as he remembered with a bunch of kitschy decorations devoted to reminding people this was a beach town. It was devoid of customers except for a blond man sitting in a too-small chair, eating a salad.

What type of person came to a seafood place and ate salad? Felix took an instant dislike towards the stranger.

Then the man looked up.

He was beautiful with the type of pretty face people considered wasteful on men but that was because those people weren’t gay. Felix was, which was why he wanted to stare at the man forever. It had been a long time since he’d felt that way about anyone. Instant attraction had never been Felix’s thing, but this man was undeniably beautiful while also being built like one of the superheroes Ashe was obsessed with.

A long, slightly outdated fringe fell over one of the man’s eyes, which was the only reason it took Felix a moment to see the white eyepatch underneath it. When he did, it became apparent the universe was laughing at him.

“Fuck.”

“I’m sorry?” The cashier asked warily.

“Not you. Sorry. I’ll have the #2 as a combo.”

Felix half expected Dimitri to run away by the time his food was ready but he was still sitting at his table, looking devastatingly handsome as he finished the only meal on the menu that wasn’t contaminated with shellfish.

Felix plopped his tray down on Dimitri’s table and sat in the other chair, facing him. They stared at each other, both of them waiting for the other to speak first. Eventually, Felix was too hungry to keep waiting.

“You didn’t come to the funeral,” Felix said. He took a bite of shrimp; he had never liked crab.

“I didn’t think you’d want me there,” Dimitri said. His voice was the same even if the rest of him had changed, the familiarity discomforting instead of putting Felix at ease.

“It wasn’t my funeral; it was Glenn’s.”

“Still.” Somehow, Dimitri stabbed straight through a crouton with his plastic spork. “You look well.”

That was a blatant lie. Felix looked like his brother had died at the beginning of the summer after a long battle with an unexpected disease, which is to say he looked like shit.

“You don’t,” Felix said and that too was a lie because Dimitri looked better than Felix had seen since they were children.

Dimitri’s face fell. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to see me. Then or now. Maybe I shouldn’t have come.”

“As usual, you don’t get it. Glenn sent you a letter to come, right?”

Dimitri nodded.

“Then don’t say you shouldn’t be here.”

They ate in silence; the cashier and a kitchen worker chatted inaudibly over the sound of dishes being washed. Felix read the sign above the doorway and frowned.

Fishing you a wonderful day!

“Where are you staying?” Felix asked, finishing the last of his meal.

Dimitri’s styrofoam takeout box was empty and had been for a while. “The Grand.”

“Figures.” Felix stood up and took his tray to the trash, emptying its contents before setting the tray on top. “Don’t run away before tomorrow. Ingrid’s at the Grand too. You can catch a ride with her.”

He left, his hunger satiated.

Ingrid’s hair was cut short like during their first year of college, except this time there were no hair clips holding it out of her face; she had gotten bangs again which suited her, maybe—it was hard to say when she looked like she hadn’t slept in six months.

They did not go into the crab shack and neither Felix nor Dimitri made any reference to having met there the night before. So far, Dimitri hadn’t even tried to talk to him other than the cursory good morning he had aimed at everyone.

It was fine. Everything was fine.

They walked out onto the beach, Dimitri holding onto a cardboard box identical to the one in Felix’s suitcase, the words CREMATED REMAINS written underneath an address in Fhirdiad.

District 8. So—Dimitri wasn’t living with his uncle anymore. That was a surprise.

“Where should we scatter him?” Dimitri asked.

“At the crab shack?” Sylvain asked, shrugging. He was wearing sunglasses again but at least today they suited the weather.

“That’s unsanitary,” said Ingrid.

“Let’s walk out onto the jetty and dump them into the water,” Felix said.

“All right.” Dimitri led the way. The wind picked up as they neared the end of the jetty, determining what side Dimitri would scatter his remains unless they wanted pieces of Glenn flying at them.

“Should we say something?” Dimitri asked as he stopped at the jetty’s edge.

“You’re the one scattering him,” Felix said. “If you want to say something, then do it.”

“Very well.” Dimitri looked down at the box. “My father used to tell me the story of our first meeting. I was still only an infant so I don’t remember it, but my father said he had brought me along when he was visiting Rodrigue. I’m told you pointed at my baby carrier and called me fat. You were comparing me to Felix, apparently, and as I was older and not premature, I suppose it’s understandable.

“Growing up, you and Sylvain were like the older brothers I never had. I looked up to you both but especially to you, Glenn. I spent much of my childhood wanting to impress you; we all did, I think. As I got older, I understood you in new ways. Appreciated your friendship and advice. And when my life fell apart, you were there for me even though it wasn’t easy. Even though it put you in a difficult spot.

“I wish we had more time together. I wish I could have been there more. I know what you’d say though—that friendships aren’t a transaction where the goal is for the balance to be zero. You helped me more than I helped you. So it goes sometimes.”

Dimitri pulled out a key from his pocket and used it to break the package’s seals. He looked inside it for a moment before pulling out a folded piece of notebook paper and tucking it into his pocket, along with the key, before taking out a plain metal canister.

“Here, I’ll hold that,” Ingrid said, motioning to the empty package.

Dimitri gave it to her. He was only holding the canister now.

The funeral had been full of relatives remembering Glenn as Rodrigue and Noémie’s son. Few of them really knew him. Felix had not cried when they gave their eulogies because the man they were describing was so little of who Glenn had been.

Dimitri unscrewed the canister and carefully spilled its contents into the sea.

This part of Glenn was gone forever. It could not be picked up and moved to another shelf like the ashes of their grandparents. It was lost in the ocean and Felix could never have it back.

He wiped his eyes; the wind was starting to irritate them.

A CAMPGROUND ONLY FOUND BY THOSE WHO NEED IT

Sylvain rented a car.

Because it was Sylvain, he opted for a fancy Almyran crossover that practically drove itself. Not that Felix was complaining—seat warmers and climate control were more than just perks when you were spending weeks inside a car with an obnoxious playboy, an uptight meddler, and your crazy ex-boyfriend.

They drove along the coast the first two days and hit the border on the third, crossing the mountains into Ordelia where they booked rooms at a seedy motel. Felix roomed with Sylvain, regretting it immensely when he had to take a shit while Sylvain was in the middle of his 10-step skincare routine.

“Fucking perfect.” He would like to think using the bathroom for its intended purpose should be prioritized over pointless skincare bullshit, but apparently not.

“Just go ask Dimitri if you can use his toilet!” Sylvain yelled through the locked door.

Felix would rather walk into traffic than ask to use Dimitri’s bathroom.

Of course, it wasn’t a matter of willpower.

Felix knocked on Dimitri’s door like he was trying to break it down. Please be in. Please be in. He nearly fell when it opened inwards.

“What in the world—”

Felix pushed past him for the bathroom, uncaring about manners and dignity in the face of his body’s demands.

A little while later as he washed his hands, he considered walking into traffic again.

Stupid Sylvain and his stupid fear of aging.

Dimitri wasn’t in his motel room when Felix got out of the bathroom—he was in front of it, holding a bucket of ice even though Felix knew very well he hated cold drinks.

“I’m never rooming with Sylvain again,” Felix said.

“I was wondering...” Dimitri bit his lip, trailing off.

Despite being in the same small space for three days, they had yet to have a proper conversation. When they weren’t driving, Dimitri spent most of his time reading a beat-up copy of a sci-fi novel Glenn had given to him for his fifteenth birthday, while Felix put on his headphones and set the volume to apocalyptic.

"You were wondering what?” Felix asked, annoyed.

“Just that... did you notice the rooms have this strange game emulator you can use?”

“Really? I didn’t even check out the TV. Is Swordmaster II on it?”

“I’m not sure. Want to find out?”

“Yeah.”

Felix followed Dimitri back into his room where the first thing he did was set down his ice bucket and proceed to forget he had even filled it, joining Felix on the bed to scroll through the emulator’s catalog. Both Swordmaster games were on there but Felix had grown up playing the sequel. He picked it with the controller and felt a wave of nostalgia as the title screen popped up.

“I forgot how hard these first levels were,” Felix said as he struggled to defeat a level one slime.

“Hadn’t Glenn already cleared them?”

Felix’s pixel avatar died to a single strike from the enemy AI. “Oh. I think you’re right.”

They took turns playing. Dimitri was notably worse, barely progressing whenever it was his turn. That was a type of nostalgia too; he was always better at puzzle games than fighting ones.

Hours later, Sylvain knocked on the door. “Is Felix there? He isn’t dead is he?”

Felix looked at the digital clock on the nightstand and sprang up from Dimitri’s bed.

“Shit—I should go.” It was late—really late. All three of them should be in bed.

“I had fun,” Dimitri said, almost shyly.

“Yeah. So did I.” Felix cleared his throat. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

“Does anyone remember where this campsite was?” Sylvain asked; he was driving. They were somewhere in a forest at the southern end of Fódlan’s Throat.

“I think it was pretty far to the north,” Dimitri said from the backseat.

“If we don’t find it, we don’t find it.” Felix crossed his arms and looked out the passenger seat’s window.

“We’ll find it,” said Sylvain.

Two hours later they were checking into a rustic inn. Felix coughed up the money to room alone, having learned his lesson the night before.

The four of them ate dinner at the inn’s adjoining restaurant—the first real restaurant they had been to for the entire trip so far. It was overpriced, like everything else in Fódlan’s Throat, but it was preferable to another night of gas station snacks or fast food.

“I asked around about the campgrounds,” Sylvain said. There was a faint bruise around his left eye Felix only noticed now that he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses or a heavy layer of makeup. “Most people had no idea what I was talking about, but I did find someone with a general idea of where it was. At least, it sounded like we were talking about the same place. We should get there tomorrow if it’s real… if not, well, we’ll be somewhere in Fódlan’s Throat if we want to scatter Glenn’s remains anyway.”

“That’s up to Felix,” Ingrid said. “He’s the one with the next… section.”

“The faster we finish this, the better,” Felix said.

Ingrid frowned; she was the only one of them finding meaning in this nonsensical journey Glenn had set them on.

Everyone but Felix went for a swim in the inn’s heated pool; he had missed the memo to pack swimming trunks. That was fine; he liked sitting alone with his thoughts and wondering at what point he would get used to having a dead brother.

“Hey.” Sylvain joined him on the pool deck; the bruise around his eye was even more visible now; he must have still been wearing at least some makeup earlier. “Mind if I join you?”

“Whatever.” They were far away enough from Ingrid and Dimitri that Felix wasn’t worried about being overheard. “What’s with the shiner?”

“Oh, you know, the usual. Slept with the wrong person—tale as old as time.”

“Liar. You wouldn’t be covering it up then.”

Sylvain’s casualness disappeared. “Do you ever think about how unfair it is that it was your brother that got sick and not mine? Because I’ve been thinking about it. A lot.”

“Please don’t tell me you got in a fistfight with Miklan.”

“I didn’t. He punched me and I’m pressing charges this time. So. Go me! I finally hit my breaking point.”

Felix wanted to congratulate him but he knew this was never what Sylvain had wanted even if rotting in a jail cell was exactly what Miklan deserved. “Do the others know?”

“Dimitri is the one who convinced me to press charges. Hooked me up with some lawyer friend of his. Though ‘friend’ might be a misnomer. I’m pretty sure they’re dating.”

“Oh.” The world didn’t stop spinning, but it was close. All those years he had wondered what Dimitri was up to, refusing to ask their mutual friends for details, never looking him up on the internet—what was Felix expecting? That he was stuck in the moment everything fell apart? How ridiculous; it would be seven years next spring.

“Felix?”

“What?”

“I guess you didn’t hear me. I was just apologizing for bringing up Glenn’s death like that. It was a bit of a dick move.”

“It’s fine. I’d trade Miklan for Glenn, too.”

Sylvain held his gaze; they raised their eyebrows at each other.

Then:

Laughter. So much laughter.

“Is everything all right over there?” Ingrid called out.

“Yeah, yeah—” Sylvain struggled to speak; this made Felix laugh even harder. “Never better!” 

They found the campground by accident.

Sylvain made a wrong turn somewhere, putting them near the Almyran border. He doubled back, joking about poor GPS signals even though Felix could see the tension in his knuckles as he gripped the steering wheel; they had lost a lot of time and they had not seen any signs of civilization in hours.

Everyone was hungry, tired, and cranky after a day spent almost entirely in the car; as the daylight waned it was inevitable that one of them would finally have enough.

“Pull over,” Ingrid said. There was a moment where it seemed Sylvain was going to argue. “Pull over or I’m going to pee in your suitcase.”

The threat was effective; Sylvain pulled over at the nearest shoulder.

Ingrid ran out of the car and disappeared into the woods.

“Might as well stretch our legs,” Sylvain said.

Felix grunted in agreement. The three of them got out of the car; Sylvain and Dimitri leaned against it and talked while Felix went for a walk, avoiding the direction Ingrid had run off to. His legs thanked him for getting up; even an expensive car was still hell to sit in for so many hours.

He reached an unmarked dirt road and considered turning around. He couldn’t see the car anymore because of the road’s curves but it wasn’t that far away yet. He could walk past the road, but—

Something about it felt familiar. Technically, it should be—they had passed this area twice today—but every stretch of the road looked the same after a while, so he doubted that was it.

He turned down the dirt road, walking until he reached a fork. A signpost pointed in three directions: Claudia Falls, Hanging Bells Trail, and Aureolin Breeze Campgrounds. Not a single name sounded familiar but some part of his memory knew it was what they were looking for.

He went back to the others and told them what he saw. Sylvain turned the car around and drove down the dirt road, following the sign for the campgrounds. When they reached it, there was no longer any doubt that this was the place.

Sylvain picked one of the many empty camping spots and parked. “So,” he said, “Do you remember where this tree is?”

“Maybe.” Felix’s memories of their camping trip were still a blur but he now understood why. It had taken hours for his father to drive him to some dinky urgent care to deal with his arm and Felix, in pain and a child, had cried most of the way there; he didn’t have the presence of mind to pay attention to the road.

“I think I know where it is,” Dimitri said. Other than Glenn, he was the only one there when Felix fell.

“All right, we’ll follow you,” said Sylvain.

Before they did, Felix opened the package addressed to him with his pocket knife. Inside it was a canister identical to the one in Dimitri’s package and a notebook page folded into a triangle.

To: Felix

Open me when it’s time to find the fifth piece.

Felix tucked it into his wallet and followed after Dimitri.

In his memories, the tree was in the deepest part of the forest, towering over everything else for miles. In reality, it was barely out of sight from the nearest camping spot and though it was tall enough to be a concerning choice for a child to climb, it wasn’t even the tallest tree in the vicinity. Not a very impressive place to scatter someone’s remains.

“Is this the tree?” Sylvain asked.

Felix squatted to check a spot near the bottom of its trunk and found the letters G, D, and F carved next to each other. “Yup.”

Felix stood, holding the canister tightly in his arms like it might run off on him. The others stood behind him in a semicircle, giving him space. It made him feel alone.

He wasn’t good at eulogies. He didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t sound stupid or trite. There was a reason he had avoided giving one at the funeral.

But—

Just tossing Glenn’s ashes without saying anything felt wrong.

“I keep forgetting you’re dead,” Felix said quietly, saying the first thing that came to mind. “I’ll see something stupid and try to send it to you before remembering you’ll never see it. It fucking sucks. You were supposed to be here when we were hunchbacked old men chasing kids off our lawns and playing chess in the park, or whatever the fuck old people do for fun. But now I’m the only one who’s going to get older. It won’t even be that long before I’ll be older than you ever were.

“Because that’s it. You’re gone and I’ll never talk to you again. Never see you again. You don’t exist anymore. You’re just ashes in a canister and yet I still hate that you’re making me let you go.”

Felix wiped his eyes with his sleeve, feeling like a fool.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever go a day without thinking of you.” He took off the lid; Glenn’s ashes were perfectly ordinary. “I wish you were here.”

He spread Glenn’s ashes around the tree, dispersing them in a wide enough area that they wouldn’t be obvious to any future passerbys.

On the way back to the car, Felix swore he could hear Glenn’s voice in the rustle of the trees.

A HOLY FISHING POND

The nearest lodging was hours away. Felix volunteered to drive as the others slept as he doubted he would be able to anyway. He wasn’t like Ingrid and Sylvain who were asleep by the time they reached the main road.

Only Dimitri remained awake. He pretended not to be but Felix wasn’t so easily fooled.

“I lied,” Felix said, keeping his voice low, “at the crab shack. You do look well. You’re probably the only one of us who actually does.”

Dimitri gave up on pretending he was asleep. “I’ve had help.”

“Not from your uncle,” Felix said, remembering the address on Dimitri’s package.

Dimitri laughed, softly and bitterly. “No, not from my uncle. You might even say he’s been a hindrance at times. Glenn, Ingrid, Sylvain… new friends and people I’ve met during my journey to something like recovery... not that I can really call it that when it’s something I’ll live with for the rest of my life.”

“You’re not talking about your eye, are you.”

“No, but that also will never recover.”

“New people you’ve met, huh… is one of them the lawyer you recommended to Sylvain?”

“So he told you then? Yes, her brother is a dear friend of mine.”

Felix’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. “Are you… seeing each other?”

“Which one are you asking about?”

Felix hesitated; it felt like a trick question. “The lawyer I guess? Sylvain thinks you’re dating her.”

“And you trusted Sylvain’s judgment on this?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t be asking. If not her, then… is there someone else?”

“There hasn’t been anyone since you,” Dimitri said calmly.

“Oh.” Felix did his best to hide how the answer made him feel.

“What about you? Is there someone—”

“No. There isn’t anyone.”

The mountain road was dark enough to warrant high beams as he drove down its winding road. The later it got the fewer cars they passed by until there were none at all—like they were the only ones left on the mountain. Maybe they were. Maybe they were the only ones left in the entire world. How would they even know if they were or weren’t?

“Glenn said you’ve been living in Adrestia. But, forgive me, I noticed your package had a Fhirdiad address.”

“I moved back when Glenn’s diagnosis became terminal. I’ve been renting a shitty apartment near Sylvain’s place.” He was surprised Dimitri didn’t know that already.

“Will you return to Adrestia now that…”

“I don’t know,” Felix said, realizing just then that was a lie. “Probably not.”

“I’ll be in Fhirdiad for the foreseeable future,” Dimitri said.

“Okay.”

“In case you were wondering.”

Felix snuck a glance at him; even in the dark, he could tell Dimitri’s face was pink.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Good, good.” Dimitri changed the subject to something innocuous and chatted with Felix until it was Ingrid’s turn to drive.

“World’s largest ball of yarn… We have to see it, we have to.” Sylvain leaned over the center console from the backseat. “Felix? Please? Pretty please with a cherry on top?”

“No.” Felix was driving again; they were a good two to three days from Garreg Mach depending on how long and how often they stopped. He wasn’t going to lose time to look at a ball of yarn.

Sylvain sat back down, defeated.

“I want to eat real food,” Ingrid said suddenly. “Maybe we can stop by this yarn ball and then look for somewhere to eat.”

“You have real food,” Felix said, reaching out to grab the bag of beef jerky on Dimitri’s lap. It took him a moment of pawing at Dimitri’s thighs to find it without taking his eyes off the road, but once he did, he lifted it up for Ingrid to take.

“If I have to eat another piece of beef jerky I’m going to commit a crime.”

“Which crime?” Dimitri asked, biting into a beef jerky strip.

“Guess.”

“Fine, we’ll look at the stupid ball of yarn,” Felix conceded.

It was yarn. Rolled into a ball. What more was there to say?

Sylvain made them take a picture in front of it that he immediately posted online with a quote about friendship that Felix would bet his vintage Almyran dagger was misattributed. (“Everyone has a friend during each stage of life. But only lucky ones have the same friends in all stages of life.” — Claudia von Riegan)

The restaurant Ingrid chose was a much better highlight than some ridiculous roadside attraction. Fresh meat truly was a world apart from jerky; Felix ate with gusto, uncaring if this meant there was no way they would make it in two days. The meat was worth it. Meat was always worth it.

He finished swallowing the last bit of meat on his plate and looked up to see Dimitri staring at him from across their booth.

“What?” Felix asked.

Dimitri’s plate was only half-empty. “Nothing.”

“Then why are you staring at me?”

“I like watching you eat.” He said it so casually, clearly believing it was a reasonable statement to make.

“Excuse me?”

“I always have. You just have a way of doing it that’s… inspiring.”

“You’re insane,” Felix said without thinking.

“While you’re right about that, I don’t think that’s why I enjoy watching you eat.”

Heat rushed to Felix’s cheeks; he had phrased that poorly. “That’s—ugh. Tell me you two are hearing this.”

“Can’t hear anything,” Ingrid lied blatantly before chomping down on her steak kebab; Felix was greatly concerned she was going to bite through the skewer.

“Is it that weird?” Sylvain asked, expression thoughtful. “Wanting to watch someone eat?”

“I can’t believe you’re agreeing with him on this,” Felix said.

“Aren’t you the same? When you two were dating, you used to fuss over Dimitri’s meals all the time.”

Felix ignored how strange it was to hear someone reference his past history with Dimitri. “That wasn’t because I was getting off on watching him eat!”

“No one said that.” Sylvain dared to raise his eyebrows. “Are you sure you’re not projecting your own fetishes onto—”

“You do know we’re in public, right?” Ingrid asked.

Sylvain glanced around; an old woman was giving their table the stink eye. “Ahem. What’s a fetish? I’ve never heard that word in my life.”

“Smooth,” Felix said.

Ingrid sighed in exasperation and picked up her fourth kebab.

“There’s a—what convention in town?” Felix asked in what he believed to be a polite and friendly tone.

The woman behind the motel’s check-in window looked at him like he was a fly she kept missing with her swatter. “A UFO convention. Look, do you want the room or not?”

“Fine,” Felix grumbled, taking the key from the transaction tray. At least the room had two beds.

“A UFO convention?” Ingrid asked skeptically after he explained what had happened.

“Haven’t you heard?” Sylvian asked. “Gloucester is an alien hotspot. They’re probing people left and right if you believe the tabloids at the grocery store.”

“Aliens aren’t real,” Felix snapped. “How are we dividing the beds?”

Five rounds of rock paper scissors later, Ingrid won the right to call dibs on Felix as her sleeping partner, forcing Sylvain and Dimitri to share the other bed. Sylvain whined about the unfairness of this as he and Dimitri “needed more space than they did,” leading Felix and Ingrid to aim identical glares in his direction.

“Is that a massager?” Sylvain asked when they entered the motel room.

It was; for the small price of enough coins to buy a fast food burger, their beds vibrated at a speed just short of painful.

“Wow, this is great,” Sylvain said, his voice sounding ridiculous from the vibrations. “I’m firing my chiropractor.”

“You do not go to a chiropractor,” Felix said, his voice rising awkwardly as the vibration pattern changed.

“When you’re my age, you’ll understand.”

“You’re barely three years older than me.”

“Don’t say”—his voice shook dramatically—“I didn’t warn you.”

“I think I can feel my brain rattling in my skull,” said Dimitri.

“Not me! My skull is nice and empty,” Sylvain said cheerfully.

“Somehow I doubt that.”

After a second round, Felix and Ingrid tapped out. Sylvain kept going for a fourth while Dimitri sat in the only chair in the motel room. A lack of coins for a fifth round forced Sylvain to quit; Felix was pretty sure he would have kept it up all night otherwise.

Dimitri slipped into the bathroom right before Ingrid turned the lights off; when he came out, Felix saw he had switched to a flesh-toned disposable eyepatch. Felix wondered if that was what he usually slept in, or if he was wearing it because he wasn’t alone.

Exhausted as Felix was, it didn’t help him fall asleep any faster. The motel wasn’t quiet. Every ten minutes or so people passed by their window—laughing, talking, and generally making noise. Cars pulled in and out of the parking lot; suitcases rolled. This UFO convention was a big deal apparently, really appealing to the late-night party crowd.

“Do you ever wonder if Sothis was an alien?” Sylvain asked.

“What?” Everyone else asked at the same time; apparently, none of them had fallen asleep.

“Think about it. She supposedly fell from a star.”

“That’s metaphorical,” said Ingrid.

“You make a good point,” said Dimitri.

“Maybe someone just saw an asteroid,” Felix said. “And they connected that to the goddess’s arrival. It’s not like the goddess herself wrote down the scripture. It was people years later who did it.”

“You’re really calling the saints just people?” Sylvain asked as if he wasn’t the most blasphemous among them for suggesting an alien Sothis.

“Well, weren’t they?”

“They were divinely blessed,” Ingrid said.

“Is that supposed to erase their people-ness?”

Dimitri chuckled.

“Oi, are you just going to listen in?”

“Ah, well—I’m always refreshed by the way you see the world.”

Felix was glad it was dark and no one was looking at him. “You’re weird.”

“It’s nice hearing you two get along again,” Ingrid said.

Felix stiffened. He hoped if he didn’t say anything he could pretend he hadn’t heard her.

She made it easier than that. “I already opened Glenn’s letter—I opened it the day his ashes arrived. He told me—” She cut off, took a deep breath. “It wasn’t the first time he was diagnosed. He went through treatments while we were still in school. That’s why he broke up with me. He didn’t want to make me a ‘young widow’—his words.”

Anger boiled up inside of Felix—anger that he had nowhere to direct because the man causing it was dead.

“He went into remission and thought it was over,” Ingrid said and Felix could hear the anger in her voice too. “Didn’t say a word about it to me.”

Felix sat up as the implications hit him. “What the fuck.”

If that was the second time—it made sense now why Glenn had made all these elaborate plans for his death. All that time Felix had been hopeful his brother would make it, that he would get through the treatments and survive—if that was a recurrence, the odds were infinitesimally lower in comparison.

“Our parents—there’s no way they didn’t know.” The other bed creaked; Dimitri was sitting up as well.

“Felix—” The expression on his face was guilt. Enough light escaped the curtains to make it obvious.

“You knew,” Felix said. He noticed the perfect silence of Sylvain. “Both of you did.”

That was enough. Felix got out of his bed and put on his shoes.

“How could you?” Ingrid asked; he didn’t know which one of them she was talking to. Both of them maybe.

She started to sob.

As much as Felix’s heart broke for her, he couldn’t be in the room with her as she cried. The openness of her grief was suffocating. Glenn was his brother. She was just an ex-girlfriend. It was an unfair thought—but that was another reason he needed to leave.

The autumn air was only the slightest bit chilly when he stepped outside. In Fhirdiad it would be biting, winter always coming too early. He walked around the motel’s perimeter, taking deep breaths to calm down. If his brother had gotten sick while they were in university, it made sense that Sylvain knew. He had graduated a year after Glenn did; Glenn wouldn’t have been able to hide it from him. He could even understand why Sylvain hadn’t said anything about it—Glenn was a force of nature; you didn’t win an argument with him.

Their parents were a different story than Sylvain. He could imagine their reasoning was something more along the lines of not wanting to upset Felix while he was in school. Little did they know, Felix was already going through hell because of Dimitri.

“Felix.”

Speak of the devil. “What do you want?”

“It isn’t what you’re imagining,” Dimitri said as Felix turned to look at him.

“You have no idea what I’m imagining.”

“That’s true. Maybe you’ve figured it out, but I’ll say it anyway. Glenn never intended on telling me anything. We ran into each other at the hospital. Actually, it’s more accurate to say we kept running into each other and that’s how I knew there was something more to it. You and I were already not talking to each other or else I wouldn't have kept it a secret, not even for Glenn.”

“You didn’t tell Ingrid either.”

“That was different. It didn’t feel like it was my place to make that decision.”

“I doubt Ingrid would agree with you.”

“She doesn’t have to. She’s allowed to be upset with me, with Glenn—with everything.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants and stared at the ground. Felix followed his line of sight and noticed he wasn’t wearing any shoes, only a pair of lion-patterned socks with a Fhirdiad City Zoo logo at the center of them. “Maybe I would have done things differently if I’d known how it would all turn out, or if I wasn’t in the middle of my own crisis, but I’ve spent several years getting to a place where I don’t dwell on what-ifs anymore. Or at least I’m trying very, very hard not to.”

“If I had known it wasn’t the first time, I would have taken it seriously earlier. I would have moved back home sooner, spent more of Glenn’s last days with him. Do you understand that? Do you understand how this makes me feel?”

Dimitri looked up and held Felix’s gaze. “He didn’t want you to put your life on hold for him. Especially when he already saw you do that for me.”

Glenn wasn’t here to get angry at anymore; Dimitri would just have to take all of Felix’s grief, all of Felix’s pain. “Did I? Because I remember cutting you out. I remember running away. I wasn’t there for you any more than I was for Glenn.” Felix couldn’t take care of the people he loved. He was too selfish, too cruel, too cold, too everything that made it impossible to bring comfort to another person. He was useless as Dimitri fell apart. Useless as Glenn grew sicker and sicker.

Felix didn’t know when he fell to the pavement, only that he was kneeling on it when another body pulled him close.

It was Dimitri, of course. He spoke calmly and quietly as Felix tried to remember how to breathe.

“You’re not useless,” Dimitri said. “Taking care of yourself first isn’t an act of cruelty.”

“Then why does it feel like one?” Felix asked.

“That's your survivor’s guilt talking, I think. I’m not actually a psychologist; I just play one on TV.”

Felix half-laughed, half-sniffled against Dimitri’s damp shirt.

“Have you opened your letter from Glenn yet?” Felix asked when he had sufficiently calmed down.

“No, have you?”

Felix shook his head. “I can’t believe Ingrid did.” Then, because he has spent more of his life with Dimitri than without him, he found himself admitting a truth he wouldn’t with anyone else. “I don’t know how to act around her anymore. Until this trip, we only talked once since the funeral. She stopped by Sylvain’s place but I answered the door instead. That’s it. She doesn’t even text me anymore.”

“I did notice you’ve been distant with each other, compared to before.”

“Everyone says I look like him.” He couldn’t put into words what he was thinking.

“So do your cousins, last I remember.” Dimitri grabbed his hand and squeezed it. He didn’t offer Felix any advice nor did he tell him it was going to be fine. Felix appreciated that.

They couldn’t just dump Glenn’s ashes into Garreg Mach’s pond.

Aside from being a private university, it was still an active monastery and the center of Fódlan’s dominant religion. If people were allowed to scatter ashes in the pond, the whole thing would be filled up in a matter of weeks.

They had to sneak in.

Ingrid parked out of sight from the road far enough away that the hike up to the monastery was a pain in the ass, especially in the dark. Felix ended up tripping over a small hole in the ground and was only saved from falling on his face by Dimitri catching him but it still wasn’t enough to keep him from twisting his ankle.

“Maybe we should go back,” Sylvain said, frowning.

“We’re almost there,” Felix said. “Better to get it over with than to do it again tomorrow night.”

“Felix can lean on me,” Dimitri offered. “He’ll be alright.”

Sylvain didn’t look convinced but he knew better than to try arguing with the both of them. Still, he kept glancing back at Felix as they walked up the rest of the mountain.

Another problem arose when they reached the monastery’s perimeter. None of them had thought twice about climbing the wall around it when they made the plan earlier (they had all done it as students—it was practically a right of passage) but now that Felix’s ankle was sprained, the prospect seemed daunting.

“I’ll carry you,” Dimitri said.

“You can’t carry me and climb at the same time. I can make it up myself, I think.” His arms would have to do most of the work. “Getting down is what I’m worried about.”

“I can catch you then.” It was only a little less absurd of an offer than carrying him, but Felix didn’t see how he had much of a choice.

“Fine.”

Climbing up was harder than he anticipated even using the rope ladder every Garreg Mach student knew the location of. But once he had started, he had no choice but to finish. He pulled himself to the top of the wall, sweating as he reached the final hurdle and lifted his legs over. Dimitri was standing underneath him with his arms out to catch him. The height wasn’t too bad but Felix felt nervous about Dimitri catching him anyway.

“I’ve got you,” Dimitri said.

Felix let himself fall.

He landed in Dimitri’s arms perfectly.

Sylvain and Ingrid were still on the other side, waiting to climb over once they were sure Felix had made it. He should call out to them and let them know that he was fine.

He brought his lips to Dimitri’s in the lightest of kisses. The adrenaline was getting to him, probably.

“It worked,” Felix called out, not so loudly that it would catch the attention of anyone wandering the monastery.

Dimitri set him down. There was a question in his eye that Felix wasn’t ready to answer.

The monastery was quiet as the four of them made their way to the pond. They managed not to bump into anyone, making it feel like they were the only ones there. They picked a spot to stand that was partially obscured by the greenhouse, giving them some cover in case anyone did come out.

Ingrid took out the canister of Glenn’s ashes from her knapsack and held it in front of her, staring at it as if it might give her answers.

“I’ve been trying to make sense of why you didn’t want me to know you were sick. Despite what you wrote, I don’t believe it was solely for my benefit. I know you—knew you better than that. You always hated being seen as weak; I’d blame it solely on pride but I know there was more to it than that. You worried about us. You wanted to protect us.” Ingrid rotated the canister in her hands. “But you forgot that I might feel the same way. That Felix might too. We wanted you to lean on us. Don’t tell me it was better for us to live in ignorance.”

Felix reached for Ingrid’s upper arm and squeezed it. She looked at him in an understanding no one else could. They had both loved Glenn and had both been hurt by him. Getting sick didn’t make him a saint—he was difficult and flawed and made stupid, hurtful decisions. They were allowed to be mad at him, even if he was dead.

“Glenn Fraldarius, you were an infuriating man. But—I still loved you. I loved you in every way a person can over the years. As a brother, a friend, the person I wanted to spend my life with—and even when that fell apart I was glad we still were friends. I was glad! I just knew I wanted us to be in each other’s lives because you were someone special.

“So why then? Why aren’t you here?” Ingrid’s voice, once soft, snarled as she unscrewed the canister of Glenn’s ashes. “Even though I was willing to ignore getting unceremoniously dumped by you, you still aren’t here. It’s so fucking unfair!” She violently threw Glenn’s ashes into the pond, her body convulsing with grief and rage. It was so different from Ingrid that he had gotten used to in the past year. The one who was quiet in her grief, who smiled at Glenn’s funeral because that’s what everyone wanted of her.

“Hey—who’s there?” A man’s voice called out.

“Shit.” Sylvain grabbed Ingrid and dragged her away from the pond. “We gotta go.” They took off running.

Felix let out a hiss of pain when he tried putting weight on his ankles to follow after them. He couldn’t walk, let alone run—he was going to get caught trespassing.

“Climb onto my back,” Dimitri said, kneeling in front of him.

Felix did even though it was humiliating; he didn’t even want to think about what would happen if they were caught—trespassing on independent holy land would not end well.

Dimitri ran carefully and quietly, sticking to shadowed corners. There were definitely more people starting to appear, likely called upon by the first person who noticed something was amiss.

“I don’t think we’ll be able to make it over the wall without being caught,” Dimitri whispered.

“How are we going to get out then?”

“We can either wait here until morning or make a run for it at the gate.”

“Let’s wait. Hopefully Ingrid and Sylvain don’t do anything stupid.”

They found a nice neglected corner of the monastery and hid. Felix was glad they hadn’t come in the winter; even if the monastery’s weather was much nicer than Fhirdiad’s, it still wasn’t fun to be outside for hours. Felix huddled closely to Dimitri for warmth, telling himself he would have done the same with anyone.

Unfortunately, having nothing to do and being too nervous to sleep meant there was not much to do but sit with their thoughts or talk—and after a long stretch of silence, Dimitri switched to the latter.

“I was wondering,” he said, “what it meant when you kissed me earlier.”

“I get why you’d wonder about that.”

“Felix…” He was being more patient about it than Felix would have been in his position.

“I don’t know—or maybe I do and I just don’t want to deal with it yet.”

“Do you still—” He cut off and shook his head. “I want to kiss you again. But I also don’t want to kiss you if this is something you’re unsure of. As well as I’m doing these days, you’re someone that can change that—for better or worse.”

“Don’t blame me for your—your mental state.”

“That wasn’t my intention. I’m warning you that if you can’t give me a clear answer on your feelings, I have to protect myself by not crossing any lines past friendship.”

It was a reasonable request but it blindsided Felix anyway. He wasn’t used to Dimitri being reasonable. They had originally stumbled their way into a relationship after a lifetime of friendship, with nonexistent boundaries and poor communication that worked for them until it didn’t—Dimitri’s struggles with mental illness exposing the cracks in their foundation.

Dimitri had changed. It was a good thing even if it meant Felix had to figure out his own shit before they went any further.

“That’s fair,” Felix said. “Can you wait? Not forever, but—at least until this trip is over.”

If he still wanted Dimitri when he wasn’t stuck with him like this—then it would be real.

“I can do that.”

A WINDFLOWER FIELD WHERE TIME DOESN’T MATTER

Felix was exempt from driving duty.

His ankle wasn’t broken, but the urgent care doctor who looked at it forbade him from putting too much pressure on it for at least two weeks. She warned him if he didn’t, it was going to take even longer to heal.

“Please,” Sylvain whined from the backseat, “I can’t listen to this song again.”

Felix reached over to the volume dial and turned it higher.

Sylvain groaned dramatically. “Why are you letting Felix control the radio?” The question was directed at Dimitri; he was the one driving and therefore had the legal right to choose the music.

Dimitri smiled charmingly; as children, it was an expression that had won over almost every guardian and teacher when paired with his goody-two-shoes behavior. But Sylvain should have known better—Dimitri could be just as much of a brat as anyone. Really, it was Sylvain’s fault for complaining when both Dimitri and Felix started to sing along to the radio in unison.

“Are you serious?” Sylvain screeched.

Felix sang even louder. Dimitri, having reached a part of the song he didn’t know the lyrics to, started “singing” the instrumental backing.

“You guys are fucking insufferable. Ingrid, you’ve gotta—ow! What was that for?”

“Mail truck,” she said.

“Why am I friends with any of you,” Sylvain said, defeated.

Two hours out from Tailtean National Park, they stopped at a gas station for lunch. This part of Faerghus was mostly farmland; it would be a waste of time trying to find a restaurant. They ate in the car, laughing and teasing each other over ridiculous things: Sylvain’s bedhead (terrible—he had a cowlick you could see from space), Ingrid’s snack bag (who carried around a bag solely designated for snacks?), Dimitri’s driving (too law-abiding for an empty rural highway), and Felix’s aversion to sweets (he had no idea why that was something to make fun of).

Felix’s chest felt light, an invisible weight pressing against it gone. He loved all the stupid people in this car. They were his people, even if they sometimes pissed him off. He didn’t want to be apart from them. Didn’t want this silly road trip to end.

Too soon, there was a sign for Tailtean’s recreation area. They parked as close as they could to the start of the meadow’s hiking trail and set off. It wasn’t very far but with Felix’s ankle slowing them down, it would take a good hour or two each way. His ankle was protected by a removable brace but he still had to use a cane to get around. Crutches would have been better, but he had refused to get any when the doctor had offered them; they were too awkward and annoying to deal with. A cane coupled with the brace was good enough.

Every fifteen minutes or so, Felix stopped to take a break, resting his ankle by leaning on Dimitri for support. The trail was flat and well-worn and would likely be full of tourists during the season’s peak but on a random weekday afternoon in autumn, there had only been a handful of cars parked in the recreation area. During the entire hike to the meadow, they only saw two other hikers returning from its direction. It wasn’t a surprise then when they reached their destination and found it deserted despite the beauty of the place.

“What types of flowers are these?” Ingrid asked.

“Windflowers,” Felix said at the same time Sylvain said, “Anemones.”

“I take it windflowers are another name for anemones,” said Ingrid.

“I guess so,” said Felix. There were other flowers and grasses in the field but only the windflowers were in bloom. They came in a variety of colors, but the majority were shades of pink, white, and red.

Sylvain had tied a hemp cord around Glenn’s ashes and let it dangle from his wrist like a shopping bag as they had hiked. Now that they had reached the meadow, he held onto the canister properly as he walked almost to the center, stopping near a fallen log.

“This is good enough, probably.” Sylvain looked down at the canister. “To be honest, I was hoping I would think of something inspiring and heartfelt to say by the time it was my turn, but I’ve been thinking of other things.

“So I’ll keep it simple: thank you. Thank you for putting up with our bullshit for thirty-one years. Sorry we didn’t get to take this trip with you. I know that was the original plan when we talked about it, what—almost seven years ago? I’m kicking myself for not making it happen when you were still here. But I guess life is shitty like that sometimes.

“Wherever you are, I hope you’re enjoying yourself. Though let’s be real, that ‘wherever’ is probably hell for trying to sell Felix on FódlanBook; child trafficking is presumably frowned upon by the goddess.

“I’d say see you soon, but I have my reasons for sticking around. You’ll just have to forgive me.”

He unscrewed the canister and scattered Glenn’s ashes. He was meticulous about it, spreading them throughout the field and edge of the treeline.

“What do you mean Glenn tried to sell me on FódlanBook?” Felix asked as Sylvain returned to them.

“It’s exactly what it sounds like. He put your house number up on the listing and everything so your parents were getting a bunch of calls from people who wanted to adopt you.”

“I don’t remember this at all,” Felix said.

“You were like, three, so I’m not surprised.”

“Where to now?” Dimitri asked.

“I guess we should open our letters,” said Sylvain. He turned to Ingrid. “What did Glenn say about the fifth piece?”

“He gave me part of a GPS coordinate. I’m guessing he split it up so we’d be forced to work together.”

“That’s… surprisingly straightforward. I was worried he was going to make us solve a riddle or something.”

“Let’s find just somewhere to spend the night,” Felix said. “We can figure out the rest tomorrow.”

A BROTHER’S LETTER

THE PLACE WHERE WE GREW UP

Ingrid typed up the coordinates written in Glenn’s letters and pulled up a neighborhood they all knew well.

“Of course,” Felix said. Glenn had delivered the rest of his ashes to their parents.

Tailtean to Fhirdiad was only a few hours, depending on the traffic. This road trip of theirs was almost over—would be over by tonight. Felix supposed he should be happy at the prospect of sleeping in his own bed again.

The mood in the car was somber as Dimitri drove, aided by a rainstorm that had started up an hour after breakfast. They spoke sparingly and no one seemed interested in talking about their letter from Glenn. With the end in sight, it seemed like things were going back to how they were before.

Shortly before noon, Dimitri exited the freeway for the familiar suburbs of Fhirdiad. He drove by Ingrid’s house first, with its peeling paint and overgrown yard, before reaching Sylvain’s perfectly manicured one. On the next street over was the house Dimitri grew up in. The family that lived there now had added a swing set and a tree house to the giant oak tree in the front. They drove three houses past it and parked.

Felix doubted his mother was home; she was a teacher and rarely missed work. His father was another story; he worked three to four days a week as a psychiatrist, making it much more likely he was at home on a regular weekday.

Rain pelted the windows. Even the small walk to the house was going to be a pain in the ass.

“Ready?” Dimitri asked.

“No,” Felix said, unbuckling his seatbelt.

He stepped outside in the rain; a blue sports car was in his parents’ driveway—Glenn’s pride and joy, except it wasn’t really his anymore. Seeing it used to mean something—that Glenn was near, that Glenn was staying here—and it was hard fighting back that initial joy to remember there was no Glenn anymore. Just ashes and memories.

Felix had a key to the house but he wasn’t going to use it unless he needed to, which he didn’t. A few moments after he rang the doorbell, his father opened the door, looking very much like he had just woken him up despite it being the middle of the day.

“Felix!” A streak of white was in his hair; it hadn’t been there during the funeral.

“Where is it?” Felix asked.

“Why don’t you come inside and warm up? I’ll make tea.”

Felix didn’t want to go inside and have tea with his father but before he could snap and say something cruel, he felt Dimitri’s hand on the small of his back. “Fine.”

His father beamed.

The house was much the same since the last time Felix had visited, which was to say there was evidence of Glenn everywhere. He had been living there when he passed, moving back for the help their parents offered him. His coat and shoes were in the entryway closet; his books were on the shelves; his guitar was in the living room; on and on it went—these little signs of Glenn’s presence that stung to see.

“Dimitri, my boy, how are you?” his father asked once the tea kettle was warming up.

“I—I suppose I am well.”

“You suppose?”

“Don’t start psychoanalyzing him,” Felix snapped.

“I wasn’t.” He held up his hands like Felix was a wild animal he was trying to placate. “Really.”

The tea kettle beeped.

He questioned Ingrid and Sylvain next as he went around grabbing teacups, deciding they were safer to talk to than Dimitri or Felix.

Eventually, Felix’s father walked off and returned with a familiar-looking canister, setting it on the kitchen island near their teacups.

“May I ask where you plan on scattering them?”

“Just underneath the pine tree,” Felix said, referring to the tree in the center of their back garden.

“Ah.” Felix’s father nodded. “Glenn used to love sitting on the bench out there.”

“I know,” Felix said, his anger dissipating. Sometimes Felix forgot his father was grieving too.

“Take an umbrella if you’re going outside. Your mother will kill me if I let you catch a cold. And what’s that around your ankle? Is that a brace?”

“I sprained it. And you went to medical school. You know perfectly well that’s not how colds work.”

Felix and Dimitri shared a blue umbrella with his father’s favorite hockey team written in bold letters on top; Dimitri held it over both of them as they walked out to the back garden.

“Should we all say something?” Ingrid asked when they reached Glenn’s bench.

Felix nodded; it made as much sense as anything else.

“I’ll go first,” said Dimitri, swapping the umbrella for the canister.

Felix stood close to him, determined to keep neither of them from getting wet.

“Thank you,” Dimitri said, “for reminding me not to get lost in my head.” He unscrewed the canister and scattered a fraction of Glenn’s ashes before handing it to Ingrid.

“Thank you for supporting my dreams,” Ingrid said, “especially when they went against what I was supposed to want.”

She scattered another portion and handed the canister to Sylvain.

“Thanks for the reminder that I don’t always have to hide everything with a joke, even if it’s a bit hypocritical of you.”

Felix snorted.

Sylvain winked at him as he spread Glenn’s ashes.

Dimitri took the umbrella back from Felix, leaving Felix’s hands free to hold what was left of Glenn. It was strange seeing this person Felix had loved so dearly reduced to something so small and unrepresentative.

It hurt—it would always hurt. But Glenn was more than his flesh; he was the impact he had made on people. He was a brother, a son, a friend, a first love. He was there for all of them, protecting them in his own way. Bringing them together even when it seemed like an impossible feat. A voice of reason as much as he was a bad influence. A person who, more than anything, cared about others no matter how much he pretended they irritated him.

“Thank you for reminding me I don’t have to be alone.”

Felix scattered the remainder of Glenn’s ashes.

And with that, their trip ended.

HOME IS WHERE YOU ARE

It was a lovely spring day.

“Dimitri proposed,” Felix said, showing off the ring on his hand. Of course, there was no reply, but a bluejay did land in his mother’s bird fountain. “It was extremely inconsiderate of him. As you know, I was planning on proposing during our anniversary. Leave it to an impatient fool like him to ruin all my hard work.”

Felix looked towards his childhood home and saw his parents hounding Dimitri at the kitchen table, hopefully with questions about the wedding instead of their usual hints at wanting grandchildren that had started up the moment Felix had turned thirty. (His mother had a bad habit of leaving adoption brochures all around the house for them to “stumble” upon whenever they were over.) Felix watched Dimitri cough and choke on his tea in reaction to something Felix’s father said and felt not the slightest bit of sympathy for his fiancé. This whole ordeal could have been a phone call.

(“We’ll just stop by for a few minutes to tell them,” Dimitri had naively suggested.

“You know they’re going to keep us there all day, right?”

“No, they won’t. I’m sure they have their own things to do.”

So far, “a few minutes” had already turned into an hour; Felix was fully assuming they would be staying for dinner.)

“I’m considering repurposing my proposal plans for our honeymoon. I already booked the hotel, after all. That would mean we’d be marrying in the fall, but I suppose that’s a good enough time as any.”

He stood up from the garden bench.

“Until next time, Glenn.”

“So whose best man who?” Sylvain asked.

“Um,” Dimitri said. “I was actually going to name Dedue as my best man. My apologies.” He took a nervous sip of his tea.

Sylvain mimed being stabbed in the heart. “I can’t believe this. Except I can, but still.” He turned to Felix; he and Ingrid sat together on the other side of the café’s table. “So who will it be—me or Ingrid?”

“Do I have to choose?” Felix asked. “Can’t you both be my best man?”

“Unconventional, but I like it. So, for the stag weekend—”

“No,” Felix said immediately before blowing on his tea.

“I didn’t say anything yet.”

Felix took a sip; it was like trying to drink lava. He set his tea down, pretending that he hadn’t just burned his tongue, wondering as usual how Dimitri did it.

“Don’t worry,” Ingrid said, “I’ll keep him in check.”

“That’s not that reassuring,” Felix countered. “You’re too easily bribed.”

“I am not!”

“All it takes is a particularly good kebab and you’ll be hiring the stripper for him.”

“No one said anything about a stripper!” Sylvain said unconvincingly.

“Please, no strippers,” said Dimitri. “What if we—I don’t know, played some board games?”

“Board games?” Sylvain and Ingrid asked in unison.

“Dimitri…” Ingrid looked at him pitifully.

“No, wait.” Sylvain’s expression turned dangerous. “Actually, that might be fun.”

Felix was instantly on guard. “Why would that be fun? What are you planning? What horrible game do you have in mind?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Felix was very much worrying about it.

“Thank you, Sylvain,” Dimitri said obliviously. “I would much prefer that to any sort of adult entertainment.”

“Please don’t call it that,” Ingrid said, wincing.

“Sylvain,” Felix hissed. “Don’t think I’m letting this go. What game—”

“Ah!” Dimitri said as his phone’s alarm went off. “I have to leave for my appointment.”

Instantly, Felix turned to him. “I’ll walk you to the station.”

“Thank you, Felix.” Dimitri kissed him unnecessarily, not that Felix was complaining. Even after years of being together, he savored every kiss from Dimitri.

“Ahem,” Sylvain said, interrupting them, “didn’t you say you were going to be late?”

Dimitri jumped up, nearly bumping into a passing businessman. “That’s right.”

They said their temporary goodbyes, knowing they would all see each other soon enough. That was simply the type of friends they were.