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It’s foggy when they step out of the station, blue sky distant like the view behind breath-blurred glasses, the pitter-patter of small feet cutting through flumes of residual heat like walking over a still lake. He somehow keeps the kids in line, though his forever-grumpy expression is likely to blame for that. Still, it makes his job easier.
“Where are we going, Mr. Fraldarius?” Joshua asks, glancing at the car lights rushing in the haze.
“To the museum, duh,” Ophelia answers, high-pitched and haughty.
Felix suppresses a laugh. “Across the street, then first to the right.”
Ingrid is saying something from somewhere in front of him, golden edges clouded and voice crystal-clear. At least she’s doing a good job for the both of us, he thinks, because hell if Felix has the willpower to speak this loudly at 8:30 a.m. and with only half a cup of coffee in him. He doesn’t remember why he agreed to take their sixth-graders to the National History Museum. The kids cross the street and run towards the museum entrance, and the fog closes around him, leaves him blindly feeling his way ahead, brake lights and street lamps and office neons dotting an elaborate map to the sharp-cut clarity of a marble hall and decorative statues.
Finally, he thinks as he helps the kids put their clothes and bags in lockers, finally, he’s here.
It’s strange, the syntax his thought takes. He doesn’t know if he’s thinking about himself, or someone entirely different, or a mixture of the two. He rubs a soothing palm into his aching temple.
“You don’t look so good,” Ingrid says when he joins her and their exhibit guide. Somehow, she also manages to scold Arthur as he runs in the hallway. Queen of multi-tasking. Glenn would be so proud.
“Thanks. You look like shit too.”
“Har har. Seriously, Felix, are you alright?”
Felix doesn’t answer; the guide crouches ahead of them, talks to Luisa about something he doesn’t hear, the burning red of his hair drowning anything else Felix could possibly see. It’s as soft as it looks, he knows—knows, not because of a wild guess, but because he’s buried his hands there, knotted them between his fingers like he could replicate the mess of his own feelings, a lifetime ago.
Felix’s knees almost buckle underneath him, but it’s not fear he feels, his heart beating against his ribs like they’re a marble table and someone’s drumming their fingers on the edge, watching, waiting for the game to begin.
***
Mist rises from the crystalline pond in wispy curls, as it always does in anticipation of Sylvain’s arrival. It’s mostly performance, Felix now knows, the God of intrigue and persuasion shrouding the world around him and his prey until they feel alone, safe from sight and sound. Felix’s blade glints by his side, the silver symbol of acumen, and it would be so easy to cut through the mirage and remove the veil Sylvain builds.
His gaze drifts to the water near his feet, to the scene below—his human chess piece, chastising children as they make too much noise in the empty superb of the museum, all the while staring at him. He’s so obvious, seen from this far above, his heartbeat like phantom pain echoing in Felix’s chest.
The sound of discreet, distant footsteps grows louder, and Felix forces his restless fingers to stop tapping, wills his expression into a bored scowl. It felt like preparing for battle, the first times they’d met like this, his thoughts and senses armed to the teeth, words cutting as his sword. Now, it feels a different sort of thrilling, like the nervous peace that follows every war, like the last few strides on the long way home.
He wonders if this is how he— how his piece felt when he walked into that museum.
A gentle breeze picks up as Sylvain steps into their orchard.
It’s annoying how breathless Felix feels, even after all these meetings, even through the godly timelessness. The leaves and the vines part before him with all the languished bashfulness his title inspires. Sunlight pours over his face in freckles, radiates off the laurels in his red, red hair, and there’s the flash of a memory shining in Felix’s mind—of the human world, of the black sky and all its stars, of Sylvain standing in the refrigerator light, of his fingers around the neck of a bottle and Felix’s own burying into his hair, of another human dawn breaking his heart like a vow.
“Hey, Felix,” Sylvain says as he takes his seat around the marble table, and Felix pretends he doesn’t hear the tinge of affection in his voice.
“You’re late,” Felix answers. His tea has cooled to the perfect temperature as he raises the cup to his lips.
The God of Seduction smiles a trained smile, pours his own perfectly hot tea. “Sorry. I’d never miss a round for the world, you know?”
Below, Sylvain’s human piece chats with his own, probably babbling away his usual flattery in the same milk-and-honey voice Sylvain uses every time he first approaches Felix—the same one he used when offering to play this stupid game. God of Victory, he’d whispered, and only Felix’s own status kept him from succumbing to Sylvain’s strange, seductive powers, I bet I can win you over.
“Whatever,” Felix answers, less biting than he’d like. “It’s your turn.”
“Ooh,” he sing-songs, a glimmer of interest lighting his gaze red as he glances at the marble-and-pearl chessboard, “have you made a move since?”
Probably not a good one, Felix thinks, but settles for a shrug. Chess has never been one of Felix’s prized pastimes; he’s never understood how something this boring could wield hours of entertainment, never found the fun in watching your opponent spend an eternity deciding which piece should move from one square to the next. He’s never been one for convoluted strategies—not when mere displays of raw, overwhelming strength do the trick faster and just as perfectly.
Yet Sylvain, like he so often does where Felix is involved, shies from victory.
His moves are always smart enough to leave an opening, a way to turn the tide or invoke a stalemate; his streams of comments are more helpful than mocking; his thousand-and-one retellings of former games are lessons in flimsy disguise. This time, like all others, will probably spell Felix’s God-fated victory—not because of a genius, calculated move, not because of Felix’s own, unadulterated power, but because Sylvain lets him win.
Felix doesn’t know why. He lost a long time ago.
Loss is not a feeling Felix was designed to experience, let alone witness the repercussions of. Yet the fabric of their godly universe is tearing itself apart to accommodate the paradox. Down below, his worshippers are losing wars. Most humans are renouncing the belief a God of Victory exists. Sometimes, in the middle of the human night, he’s flung into one of his pieces' existences on material earth, his godhood unable to hold its own incarnation.
From the thistle-purple circles under Sylvain’s eyes, Felix knows godliness is fleeing him too.
“Sylvain… why are you still here?”
The ghost of a wince twists Sylvain’s features. “Why are you asking?”
“I’ve already…” Felix starts, but the words get stuck through his throat like an arrow. He swallows around them. His eyes glance to the scene below, watch his piece breathe a secret laugh at one of Sylvain’s jokes, and he feels the sound ripple through his own chest. “Don’t you understand?”
Sylvain’s expression turns to confusion,shoulders loosening under the weight of relief. “Is everything alright?”
“You know. You must know.” Felix’s voice reaches his own ears in a foreign, desperate tone, sharp as the memory of a thousand lifetimes—a thousand kisses and love declarations, a thousand, gossamer-thin excuses to veil his feelings with, to keep their secret meetings going as long and often as possible. He remembers how he’d accepted Sylvain’s bet out of pride and challenge, remembers the thrill he felt when they’d live their game out in the flesh, before breaking the Pantheon’s most absolute law became too dangerous. He remembers proposing it himself—sending pieces of themselves in their stead for them to toy with, until their own feelings were no longer distinguishable from theirs.
“We’re already losing ourselves. Our godhood,” he finally says, and from Sylvain’s shiver he knows he’s right. “We’re lucky Byleth doesn’t investigate our meetings more than they probably should. You’re risking so much for this… this selfishness. So why?”
Sylvain suddenly rises and settles beside Felix on the marble bench, buries his head into the crook of his shoulder, and almost like instinct, Felix sinks into the scent of wisteria and home and all things nice. Felix feels a kiss against his shoulder, a press of lips that shakes him to his core—and another, and another, until his breath catches when Sylvain’s mouth finds his neck, his jaw, the shell of his ear.
“This Godhood of mine. What good is it, if I can’t have you near me?”
“You’re lying,” Felix whispers, his eyes shutting close as Sylvain’s fingers cup his chin. “Trying to persuade me.”
A bitter laugh. “And you’re trying to convince yourself that being here is still worth it. The immortality. The powers. Nevermind that our fellow gods are tearing each other apart as we speak.”
He’s right, Felix knows. Unrest and infighting are commonplace here, their peers destroying each other’s realms for the sake of ideals. It’s funny, Felix thinks, how Gods pride themselves on being above humanity when they’re so eerily similar.
“So yes. I’m tired of this. The only thing tying me to this place… Is you.”
When Felix speaks again, Sylvain’s nose is brushing against his, close as a kiss. “If I lose, I’ll be stripped of my godhood. If I continue to win, we’ll play until we both lose it anyway. This is a game with no good outcome. Why continue playing?”
“The Gods of Chaos only allow my presence because they believe this game can remove one of the most powerful gods of Order from play. If we stop, I’ll… I’ll never see you again.”
A maelstrom of feelings storms through Felix, at that moment, accumulating in all the times he’s lost Sylvain, in the human world, all the times he was torn from him like a heart from a chest. “How can I know this isn’t yet another part of your scheme?”
Sylvain takes his hand as he rests his forehead against Felix’s, puts it against his chest, lets it take root there until Felix’s heart beats in canon with his own.
“God of Victory, God of Oaths, can I make you a promise?”
“What?”
“I vow to you,” Sylvain starts, and when he opens his eyes they gleam like molten gold, “that if you lose your Godhood, I will renounce mine too, and live by your side in the human world to repent until we die together.” Sylvain’s voice, too, rings gold, the way vows do when spoken to the God of Victory and Oaths and Retribution, the absolute truth of a contract sealed.
“You’re insufferable,” Felix only says as acknowledgement.
“I’m in love with you,” Sylvain simply answers, and Felix’s heart stutters in his chest as Sylvain leans in again, whispers against his lips. “And you, God of Victory? Have I won your heart yet?”
Felix breathes in the Realm of Gods’ scents, lets the too-familiar feeling of loss take root inside his lungs—and speaks.
***
The guide looks at him every time Felix looks away. Felix feels it again—he’s felt it since the beginning of the tour—the licking of a flame against his spine like desire, like yearning. The turmoil of his thoughts spins like coffee under a silver spoon: it’s the strangest experience he’s had, mostly because he somehow expected it, anticipated it like the blasting chorus after the bridge of his favorite song. So he doesn’t look away; he holds the stranger’s gaze, throws caustic words his way to see if he’ll fight back, stifles his laughter at the guide’s historical jokes. He sees Ingrid watching, too, smiling like she knows all his secrets. He chooses to ignore her.
“These are the Gods and Goddesses of our Pantheon,” she explains to the kids,voice echoing to the glass ceiling.
“Isn’t she stealing your job?” Felix asks the guide.
He doesn’t get a response. The guide’s brown eyes have turned to liquid gold under the cone of sunlight raining down from above, fixed on two carved marble busts on a pedestal.
Marble busts that look eerily similar to them.
For a few seconds, Felix forgets to breathe. His neck constricts under the pressure, as though fingers are holding him by the throat, moving him from one tile to another, knight to c3. He’s standing in front of the statues, tracing his own features with the palm of his hand.
“This is the God of Victory,” the guide says, his gaze drifting from the marble portrait to Felix’s human face. “He was also the God of boldness, retribution, acumen, and oaths. At the time, it was said that he had never once known loss.”
Felix swallows. “Is that so?”
The guide laughs, and when Felix looks at him, his eyes burn with longing.
Felix’s fingers trace the laurels in the second statue’s hair, the perfect cut of his nose, the dip above his lips that he’s kissed and kissed and kissed, game after game. “And this one?”
The stranger’s breath catches, a lungful of glass. “Ah. The God of intrigue, persuasion, flattery, and seduction. Also… the god of desire, and yearning. Do you know the legend?”
Felix feels his gaze cut into him. “Humor me.”
“The God of Persuasion once bet the God of Victory that he would triumph: that he would win his heart, and thus make the God of Victory lose for the first time and strip him of his title. The God of Victory accepted out of pride, but the game was the most dangerous of all -- taking incarnations in the human world, and thus they slowly started losing their Godhood. As the God of Victory wanted to stop, the God of Persuasion made an oath: that if they lost their Godhood, he’d lose their game, and that as retribution he’d stay by his side until they died together, promising never to live even a minute more.”
“That’s… weirdly romantic,” Felix admits. “Is there an ending?”
“Maybe there is,” the guide answers, a smirk dancing on his face. “Or maybe not.”
He turns away, sunlight catching along the red of his hair, and Felix’s hand shoots forward. “What’s your name?”
The guide looks at him like he’s tasting the answer along his tongue before responding, and Felix’s heartbeat drums against the marble of his bones.
“Sylvain. But you already know that, right?”
Felix smiles.