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Felix isn’t used to this kind of touch.
Even now, even after two years working with the team, Felix doesn’t have the right words to describe how it makes him feel. People don’t just... touch him. There’s always something surprising about it, even when it’s Annette grabbing him for a celebratory hug or Ashe offering him a fist-bump.
He and Sylvain are standing in a motel room, in front of the old mirror, and Sylvain has his hands on Felix’s shoulders. He’s unmaking him, step by step, breaking Felix down to fit into the character he needs to play. It makes sense for him to do it; Sylvain's the best liar Felix has ever met.
“Shoulders first,” Sylvain says, his voice warm and private. The sunlight coming through the blinds catches in his eyes somehow, and Felix resolutely does not think about the glow of them.
He hunches his shoulders, letting them roll forward just a little. And at Sylvain’s urging, he unclenches his jaw and ducks his head, so he has to look up more than he usually does. It’s like the best kind of dream, the ones where all Felix has to do is follow orders, entirely sure that he can trust the person giving them. He feels like clay in the grifter's hands.
“Yeah,” Sylvain breathes, opening his mouth to say something else before a knock at the door cuts him off.
Rat-tat-tat, it’s Annette, and not with the signal that means trouble. Felix strides to the door, every ounce of surety back in his body, and accepts the garment bags and the earpieces.
“You can do this,” she says, trying to be encouraging.
“Right.”
“No words of wisdom for me, Annie?” Sylvain calls. He hasn’t moved. There’s tension in his shoulders, just a touch—he’s thinking about something complicated, Felix decides. He gets like this when he can’t decide how he should be acting.
“You don’t need them,” she parries lightly. “Just keep your earpiece in this time.”
---
Felix hates parties. It’s too many people, too much incidental touching—and there are always, always too many entrances and exits, especially in places like this. And he’s uncomfortable in the tweed jacket, purposely a little too big, and he hates it when he has to do the talking.
“Act like you want to be here,” Sylvain hisses through a smile. He winks outrageously at a passing woman, who laughs and flutters a fan in front of her face.
Felix has never been good at faking interest. He looks across the gallery at Sylvain and thinks about the Areadbhar job, when they’d been trapped in a slowly-filling cistern and Sylvain had grinned terribly and said he was afraid of dying alone, and wasn’t this so much better, and he thinks Who are you? with such intensity that it almost scares him. And it takes a lot to scare him.
“Better,” Sylvain murmurs. His voice is warm, intimate, even though he’s at the other end of the gallery. Annette’s earpieces do a hell of a job. “Look at the painting to your left, and say...”
“...which is what makes it such a curious depiction of Saint Indech,” Felix tells the small crowd that has gathered around him, with all the authority his false university credentials give him. “I’ve personally found—ah.”
“Give it time,” Sylvain says. “One, two...”
“Something on your mind, professor?” the mark asks, elbowing his way to the front of the group.
Felix does a phenomenal job keeping the disgust off his face, and does not think about Ignatz Victor with his left arm in a cast, telling Byleth that the mark had threatened to break his fingers next.
“A grant was recently awarded to my department, funding research into rare images of the Saints,” he manages absently, less absently imagining breaking the man’s nose, “and our discoveries have been—”
“Look up now. Catch my eye. Half-step back, look frightened— good, Felix.” Sylvain’s stance shifts. Not a lot, but enough; he’s taller than most people usually notice, and his shoulders are broad, and when he wants to he has some way to make people remember he’s present. With a little effort, Sylvain can shift the gravity of a whole room.
“Ashe,” Byleth is saying, “you got it?”
“Got it,” Ashe grunts, the faint screeching metal of a manhole cover in the background. “Felix, step two is a go.”
Sylvain narrows his eyes, as if in recognition, and he takes one impossibly large step in Felix’s direction.
Felix, as the anxious professor hiding a never-before-seen effigy of Saint Indech in a conveniently off-campus, low security office, flees the gallery, babbling, “They’ve found me! I have to, I’m sorry!”
Sylvain follows like a shadow, his dark suit somehow ominous, the thin gold chain at his neck drawing attention to his blood-red shirt. And, hopefully...
“He’s following,” Annette says. “Camera three, camera four, I see you. Take a little extra time, let him catch up.”
“Have trouble with the keys, Felix,” Sylvain murmurs. “Fumble, but don’t drop them—you’re nervous. Good.”
“You can’t see me,” Felix snaps.
“I know you did it,” Sylvain grumbles back, and Byleth clears her throat. The chatter ceases.
“He’s in position, behind the third pillar.” Annette’s voice has gone serious. “Charge blows in three, two, one—”
The car Felix just got into explodes with a deafening blast, sending shrapnel flying through the underground parking structure.
Sylvain, lounging against one of the concrete supports, grins like a wolf.
(“You did so well,” he tells Felix once they’re alone. Really alone, no earpieces or anything, their only company the ugly table lamp and the lazy ceiling fan that occupy the motel room. “You could’ve been a grifter—you’ve just got it.”
Felix snorts. “No, I don’t.”
Sylvain watches him pensively, quiet in a way he rarely gets. “You could do anything, Fe.”
It feels like a blow to the head.
“Go to sleep,” he grumbles, and Sylvain laughs.)
---
Felix isn’t good at sitting still. Of course, being dead, Felix doesn’t get to leave the motel room.
He’s been in worse situations. Annette left him a handheld Tetris player with four new pieces modded in, one of which reverses the controls every time he clears a line with it, and Ashe gave him two worn fantasy paperbacks that he gave in and read on the first day. They weren't terrible, not that he’ll ever admit that.
His earpiece clicks softly, twice, before Byleth’s voice comes through on the private channel. “You holding up?” she asks, like he hasn’t almost died of exposure in both Sreng and Almyra within the last six years.
“Fine. Was this really the best plan?” He’s out of books and there’s nothing worth watching on TV, and he hates being out of the action.
Byleth, who probably knows all of that, hums before answering. “When we got here, the plan had to change. Sylvain’s... more adaptable than you are. We needed somebody to meet this guy, scumbag to scumbag.”
“You benched me.” Felix doesn’t try to sound accusatory, it just happens that way.
“You broke three fingers on the last job, and your ribs are still sore from the one before.” Her voice is firm, unyielding. “You need the rest.”
His temper sparks. He’s not—Felix getting hurt isn’t a big deal, it’s what he’s for. She did this last year, too, and she never tags anyone else out.
He grunts, trying to find a place to put the shitty chair that leaves him enough room to do push-ups.
“We’re all taking recovery time after this, anyway. Yours just started a few days early.” She sounds... worn, almost, but he doesn’t stop to care.
“Right. In a motel room I can’t leave, just in case the mark has spies in the middle of bumfuck nowhere—”
“Do you always have to do this,” she snaps, actually irritated. “You and Sylvain, I swear— wanting you to recover isn’t punishment.”
Felix blinks, pausing mid-movement. “Me and Sylvain?”
Byleth inhales sharply.
“Sylvain’s ‘trip’,” Felix grits out, “was that you?”
---
Felix didn’t like Dorothea Arnault.
Neither did Ashe and Annette, for their own reasons—they were mad about her motivations, mostly, thought she was too mercenary, too unpredictable, a little too prone to flirting with Byleth. Felix really didn’t give a shit about any of that stuff, and the more either of them talked about it the less it mattered.
No, Felix’s reasons made way more sense. Dorothea was loud, and insincere, and she wasn’t Sylvain. Sylvain, who he was also mad at, didn’t have the guts to be around for six weeks.
And he came back with something for everyone—recipe cards charmed out of grandmothers for Annette, a first edition of Saint Cethleann’s Meditations on Chivalry for Ashe, a mysterious silver thumb-drive for Byleth, even an absurd ruby necklace for Dorothea, as thanks.
He brought Felix a sword. A Levin sword, in all its impractical perfection, seven hundred years old at the youngest and jagged like only a vanity piece could be, somehow still holding its edge.
Felix left it on the office table for two days, fuming, before taking it to his apartment and storing it under his bed. It’s practical to keep it there. If someone gets that close, he wants something sharp nearby.
Sylvain sold that trip—and looking back it’s so easy to see that he was selling the idea—as an effort to find himself. He said he’d spent too long wearing too many masks, and wanted to get in touch with the guy underneath them. That should’ve been enough of a clue, since Sylvain fucking hates himself, but Felix had been recovering from a mild concussion and was too blindsided by him leaving to put the pieces together.
The first job after Sylvain came back, Felix dragged two guys out of a moving box truck and bruised the shit out of his ribs on the freeway guardrail. The second, he fractured three fingers punching through a van window to get Ashe out of a small mess with the crew of Abyss mercs the mark had hired. Somehow, over the course of those two jobs, he accidentally convinced Byleth he needed an enforced rest period.
And now, he’s here in a motel room he isn’t supposed to leave, watching security cameras through Annette’s spare laptop—the actual spare, not the one she uses when she needs two at once. In the grainy footage, Sylvain walks into a conference room like he’s the most dangerous man alive. Across the table, the mark sweats. Acting as an interested antiquities dealer, Byleth folds her hands and looks at both of them.
Just like that, Sylvain is thinking. Felix knows, can see it in his face—the satisfaction of the trap closing.
And Felix watches the negotiation without paying much attention, thinking of Sylvain’s disbelieving laugh the morning he got to the office and the sword was gone; Sylvain swinging a fire extinguisher at some stupid grunt’s head; Sylvain peeling himself out of a racing suit and running a hand through his sweaty hair, something alive in him in the way Felix only sees after he’s risked his life; Sylvain in this room two days ago, something soft and relieved in his face when Felix let him touch his shoulders.
And Felix... Felix has no idea what he’s doing.
---
Felix knows exactly what he’s doing.
Everything is clear and clean, practically sparkling at the edges—the table lamp fits perfectly in his hand, and flies across the room to knock the first intruder into the second. It gives him plenty of time to yank the corded phone out of the wall and tie it, just like that, around the set of hands holding the knife—not a terrible knife, all things considered—and slam his knee into the stunned face of a person that must have, until recently, considered himself pretty tough.
Violence is simple. It’s what Felix is best at.
There’s chatter over the earpiece, when he can hear it again—Annette’s voice, sharp and focused as she talks Ashe and Byleth through disarming a bomb. There shouldn’t even be a bomb, but there also shouldn’t have been anyone finding him at the motel, so something clearly went wrong somewhere. If nobody dies, he doesn't care about the plan falling apart. If someone does...
“Checking in,” Felix says, after they’re quiet for so long that they must’ve cut the wire.
Ashe laughs, breathless, alive, and his whole body relaxes at the sound. Annette giggles, the giddy one that means she’s trying not to cry. And Byleth’s voice, warm and welcome, says, “Sylvain’s coming to get you. Job’s done.”
Felix glances at the two unconscious bodies and decides to meet him in the parking lot.
---
Felix takes Sylvain to a diner.
Ashe, Annette, and Byleth went off-comms about an hour ago—Felix is resolutely not speculating about what they might be getting up to in the van, post-bomb defusing. It’s not his business. It’s not happening. Everything will be sterilized before the next stakeout.
He went with Sylvain to the lobby of the mark’s office building, first, to watch the guy getting led away by a pair of very interested INTERPOL agents. Felix doesn’t usually care that much about the smug little send-offs, but Sylvain seemed to really hate this guy after being forced to spend more time with him, and it was fun to see him lose.
“See,” Sylvain says, gesturing with a waffle fry, “people are easy. Everybody just wants to be safe, powerful, or sexy.”
Felix, who never feels that safe and knows how brittle power can be, grunts.
“Fine, wanted,” Sylvain amends. There’s a little smear of grease on his chin and the booth they’re crammed into puts them close enough together that Felix can see the salt clinging to his fingers. When he’s not playing a role, Sylvain talks with his hands.
Why did Byleth send you away? Felix almost asks. Why did you lie about it? Felix almost asks. Why are you scared of dying alone? Why do you look like you’re dying to touch somebody? Why do you want it to be me?
“I want you to stay,” he says.
“Here?” Sylvain teases, smiling like Felix can’t see the abrupt, gutted look in his eyes. “They’ll kick us out eventually, baby. Can’t get enough of my charming—”
“With me,” Felix says, because fuck, Sylvain was gone for six weeks and he was as miserable as a sad dog the whole time, and he'll say it out loud if that's what it takes. “Don’t leave again.”
“Oh, Fe.” Sylvain’s... scared, a little, under his grin. This isn’t how they talk to each other. Felix is going off-script.
“Stay, or take me with you.” Felix watches him closely, recognizing the tension crawling into his shoulders. Sylvain thinks this is complicated, but it’s really not.
“Agree,” Felix prompts, and Sylvain takes a shuddering breath. “Agree.”
Sylvain looks out the diner window, his jaw clenched, speechless for once. And then he nods.