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“So what’s wrong with her?” Felix whispers, crouched next to Dimitri while they spy on the Court Mage. Felix has seen her around the castle before, but he’s never paid her much mind. When Dimitri hesitantly admitted that he doesn’t like her, Felix insisted on getting a closer look.
Dimitri bites his lip. “I’m not sure. She just makes me feel…uncomfortable. Especially when I'm alone with her.”
There are few greater crimes in the mind of Felix Hugo Fraldarius than making Dimitri upset in any capacity. From that moment, he decides that this Cornelia Arnim woman is evil, even if she did cure a plague once, and he hates her.
“Don’t worry, Mitya.” Felix says fiercely, gripping Dimitri’s hand. “I’ll never let you be alone.”
Neither of them realize that they aren’t as subtle as they imagine. They don’t know that Cornelia can hear them, nor that they’ve just inspired her to select different subjects for her next experiment.
Even if Felix had known the consequences of his words, he wouldn't have taken them back.
Before the Tragedy, the worst thing Felix experiences is separation from Dimitri.
The Fraldarius family goes to Fhirdiad for the spring and fall court, and the royal family comes to Fraldarius for part of every summer. This schedule does not account for the shorter visits scattered throughout the year, nor for the near constant letters sent during longer periods without close contact.
None of this makes Felix any less desolated when the time comes for he and Dimitri to part ways. Dimitri learns from an early age to put on a brave face, but he’s just as clingy the night before one of them leaves, holding Felix so tightly that he leaves bruises while they sleep. Felix doesn’t tell him about those bruises, both because he knows it would upset Dimitri horribly, and because he likes how it takes at least a week for them to fade, and while they’re still around, it’s like Dimitri is there too, at least a little bit.
His only real consolation (and the only thing that prevents him from making even more of a scene in the last moments before one of them enters a carriage and rides away for what will always feel like forever) is that he knows with absolute certainty that Dimitri misses him, too. Even when Dimitri stops giving him a hug before boarding the carriage, even when they get old enough that Felix isn’t allowed to kiss Dimitri’s cheek (in public), even when they’re encouraged to drop childish nicknames for their proper, goddess-given names—Felix knows that Dimitri aches at their separation.
It doesn’t take away the sting of loss, nor the sensation of losing part of himself, but it is comforting to be so sure that his adoration is returned in full force. If anyone asked (and no one does, lest Felix start to cry or talk for hours about how Mitya said this and did that and they’ve already decided what games they’ll play when they see each other again), he wouldn’t be able to explain in a way that made sense. Particularly because anyone who asked would probably be an adult, and therefore consider ‘I just know what Mitya is thinking’ merely another way of saying that they’ve been friends practically since birth.
No one would suspect that it is an entirely literal statement. Even Felix doesn’t dwell on the specifics of it much. He is content to know how Dimitri feels and finds it convenient how easily they understand the general shape of each other’s thoughts. No one else understands him like his Mitya does. Not even Glenn or Sylvain.
It’s just another facet of his life. Nothing particularly worthwhile.
Until the nightmares come.
Technically, it starts before the Tragedy. Sometimes Felix feels twinges of anxiety that don’t quite make sense, but those are tiny and easy to brush off. The whispers that come after the funerals are harder to explain. It’s like there’s people at the other end of a hallway, talking about something that seems important, but he can never quite hear what it is. It’s odd, but he doesn’t think about it much. There are more important things to worry about, like how Dimitri keeps trying to drift away from him, even though Felix knows it’s not what Dimitri really wants.
But the nightmares are undeniably the worst of it. They come almost every night, short flashes of fire, of father burning (even though Felix’s father doesn’t look like that), of mother vanishing, of Glenn shoving him aside and—
Felix wakes up in tears every time, but there is something wrong with the panic and pain in his chest. He has a well of grief inside of him, and he knows the shape of it, the depth of its waters, the dangers of its floods. The agony in those dreams does not match the grief of his waking moments.
During the rare moments he can stand to face that feeling in the daylight, Felix suspects that it might just match Dimitri’s. Still, he doesn't chase that thought. He dries his tears in the morning, learns how to breathe through tight dread in his chest, and goes from screaming to whimpering to careful, cautious silence.
He longs to be with Dimitri, but Rufus has no interest in making the trek to Fraldarius and refuses to allow Dimitri to make the trip alone. What's more, for the first time in Faerghus history, the Fraldarius family is not invited to court. Felix doesn't know if his father has any urge to push his luck and show up anyway, but it hardly matters, since he does nothing regardless.
Felix manages the nightmares and the whispering by throwing himself into training and writing to Dimitri near constantly. He knows that the letters he gets in return aren’t entirely honest, but they’re better than nothing. Dimitri often mentions the boy he brought back from Duscur, and Felix doesn’t know how to make sense of the mixed jealousy and gratitude, both soul-deep.
But he manages. He makes the best of it. He touches the edges of the pain in his mind that isn’t quite his and tries to soothe it with a love that’s never once wavered.
When the Western Rebellion comes, Felix feels his own nerves (he’s never seen real battle, and even if he is eager to prove himself, he is also aware of how very mortal he is) (of how mortal Dimitri is), as well as the tangled mess of anxiety-dread-anticipation that does not belong to him. He’s glad that he’ll be squiring for Dimitri. Maybe if he’s close, he’ll know what to do.
He doesn’t know what to do.
After the fight (after the splitting headache, after the screams of the living and the dead, after the nauseating relief that came alongside the sound of a human skull crushed underfoot), Felix can barely sort out his own head, much less Dimitri’s.
The real horror doesn’t come until the next day, after they’ve cleaned the blood from under their nails, and the rest of the soldiers expect them to carry on as though they haven’t just learned the weight of taking another person’s life. Felix finds Dimitri still in his tent and intends to talk, to listen, to try and understand the way he always did before.
Dimitri greets him with a placid smile, the same one he gives to crowds and soldiers and Felix’s stupid, useless father. “Felix. Are you well?”
Obviously the answer is no. Neither of them are anything close to well. Felix knows that right behind that smile, there is a churning mix of fear and eagerness chasing each other in circles until it’s all but impossible to find a clear thought.
“Don’t do this.” Felix says. He can hardly hear his own voice over the chorus in Dimitri’s head. “Not with me. Please, Mitya—”
Something in one of their heads hisses in disgust, and Dimitri flinches away. It is the first time in their lives that Dimitri has stepped back from Felix. Even in that moment, Felix knows it won’t be the last.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Dimitri says, like his voice isn’t shaking, like he isn’t aware that Felix knows, has always known, wants to know forever because anything less than all of Dimitri will never be enough.
“You do.” Felix says, though for the first time, he realizes that he isn’t sure. Maybe this thing between them is one-way. Maybe Dimitri really thinks he’s alone in this. If Felix just tells him—if Dimitri just lets him in—
“I don’t.” Dimitri’s voice is hard, though not cruel. “You seem unwell. Perhaps you should rest.”
It’s a dismissal, clear even to Felix, who doesn’t care about manners. It’s wrong. This isn’t how they’re supposed to be.
But Dimitri is still smiling as he opens the flap of his tent, gently ushering Felix out. As the fabric falls between them, Felix can’t tell where the sick lump sitting in his gut originates. The anger, at least, is easier to locate.
Felix doesn’t find out whether their link is mutual until his father’s been dead for a week.
He knows it’s still strong on his end, even if it wasn’t enough to actually locate Dimitri before they arrived at the monastery. Maybe it would’ve been, if he hadn’t been bedridden and near comatose with pain from the time Dimitri arrived in Fhirdiad until two weeks after the fake execution. Whatever Cornelia did while she had Dimitri prisoner made the connection stronger, which wasn’t as helpful as Felix might’ve hoped. His headaches get worse as the years go on, and Dimitri’s thoughts are…fractured, to say the least.
Sylvain asks him once how he’s so sure that Dimitri is still alive. When Felix says, “Because someone in my head keeps talking to my dead brother, and it isn’t me,” Sylvain doesn’t laugh. He just nods and sets up their tent for the night. Felix can’t describe his relief.
Not that it matters now. They didn’t find Dimitri in time, and maybe that’s ultimately why Felix’s father is dead, but Felix just can’t think about that. Not now.
The first day after Gronder, he’s in shock. He doesn’t know what he does. He remembers flashes of Sylvain and Mercedes, of food that tastes like nothing, of someone brushing a hand over his forehead while a blanket is tucked around him.
For five days afterward, he keeps thinking about the long history of House Fraldarius dying for House Blaiddyd. He loved his brother and maybe even respected his father just a bit, but he doesn’t want to follow in their footsteps. Felix wants to live more than almost anything else. He thinks that might make him a failure.
He eats when Sylvain brings him food, bathes when he’s tugged out of his room, but mostly he sits on his bed and tries to remember how to be human.
On the seventh day, Felix finally lets himself consider what Mercedes has mentioned a few times now. Apparently, Dimitri is doing better. He’s eating. He’s actually washed himself. He’s wearing anything other than armor, and he goes places besides the cathedral.
(Felix spent so much time in that cathedral, staring at Dimitri’s back and thinking you’re alive, you’re alive, you’re alive.
Then, with all the anger in his heart: you’d better stay that way.)
It isn’t that he thinks Mercedes is lying. It’s just—Felix knows his well of grief, and he knows the burning desert of Dimitri’s. But for the first time, he can’t tell them apart. He doesn’t know if Dimitri is fooling everyone again, or if he really is improving. To Felix’s shame, he is afraid to find out. If he lets himself hope only to be let down…it’s just too much. He can’t bring himself to take that step.
When someone knocks on his door, Felix opens it. He’s learned that there’s no use in hoping whoever’s out there will go away, and he might as well accept their help for now. Better to choke down food than deal with Mercedes looking tender and concerned.
It isn’t Mercedes on the other side. It’s not Sylvain, either. Not Annetter or Ashe or Byleth or Ingrid or once, even Dedue, with calm, pragmatic words and stew that was almost worth trying to taste.
It’s Dimitri, and when their eyes meet, Felix knows that the relief he’s feeling is too large for only one body.
“Felix,” Dimitri says, raising a hand hesitantly. Felix watches it, desperate to feel that touch, for Dimitri to pull him into that tight embrace again, like they’re still children and everything can be made better through sheer proximity.
As soon as he has the thought, Dimitri is pulling Felix into his arms and clinging hard enough to leave bruises again. It’s so good that Felix almost doesn’t mind, though a week’s worth of bruising is somewhat less appealing now that he’s actively fighting in a war.
“I had no idea,” Dimitri’s grip loosens, which is terrible but probably for the best. “I would have been mortified to know I was hurting you like that.”
Even worse, I think I would have liked the bruises too.
Felix feels like he’s been punched. His knees give out, but Dimitri holds his weight easily, carefully moving into Felix’s room and closing the door behind them. He lays them both down on the bed, never once letting go. It is impossible. It is exactly what Felix needs right now.
“I’m sorry,” Dimitri whispers. “I was quiet for too long. I thought it was better that way.”
I was wrong. I should have told you. I should have let myself hear you.
“You knew.” Felix barely manages to speak past the lump in his throat. “All this time, you felt me too.”
“I did. I wasn’t sure if it was real, not with…everything else.” Dimitri’s shame and sorrow sweep through them both, and Felix clings to him, rejecting every negative thought. There’s no point. They can’t change the past, and the present won’t be improved by Dimitri’s guilt. “I know, Felix. I’m trying not to get lost in it.”
It’s getting increasingly difficult to hold back from sobbing into Dimitri’s chest. It’s been a long time since he cried like he did when they were children, but this is—every single piece of it is more than Felix is equipped to handle at his best, and whatever he is right now, it is decidedly not his best.
Don’t hold back your tears, Felix. Not with me.
The intentional touch of Dimitri’s thoughts against his is so tender and vulnerable that Felix can’t hope to hold out against it. He chokes out an awful gasp, letting himself actually cry for the first time since—no, he can’t think about that. All he can do is try to breathe through the sobs and make some small effort not to get tears and snot all over Dimitri’s shirt.
“Don’t worry about the shirt,” Dimitri says, rubbing Felix’s back with one of his absurdly huge hands. It’s so achingly fucking comforting that Felix wants to scream. “Hm. I suppose my hands are rather large compared to yours.”
“They’re big compared to anyone’s.” Felix snaps, pulling back just enough to glare. He can tell from the warmth on Dimitri’s face and in his own chest that the teasing was intentional. It is so terrible and wonderful to finally get everything he’s longed for since he was five years old, holding Dimitri’s hand while they watched a witch wander through the castle.
“I don’t want to hide from you, ” Dimitri says, horribly sincere in a way that Felix has wanted for years and yet makes him want to run. He stays where he is, and he can feel how Dimitri thinks he’s brave for that. “I’m going to try not to stay quiet any longer, Felix. It won’t be easy for me, and I might disappoint you, but—”
“I don’t want easy. I’ve never wanted easy.” Felix takes Dimitri’s face in his hands and presses their foreheads together. You won’t disappoint me if you just keep trying. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.
“Okay,” Dimitri chokes out. “Okay. For you…goddess, fine, for both of us. There’s really no need to shout in my head, you know. I can hear you quite clearly.”
Felix kicks Dimitri’s shin. Dimitri laughs, and it doesn’t make any of this less awful, really. There’s still so much pain between them, individually and shared, but Felix refuses to do anything less than take this thing with both hands. He is tired of running.
“I won’t leave you again.” Dimitri brings up the hand not still stroking Felix’s back and slides it through Felix’s hair. “I never really wanted to. I wanted to tell you everything, but I was so afraid. I still am, but if you’ll have me—”
Felix leans forward and shuts Dimitri up in the way he’s wanted to do for so many years. There’s no moment of shock or hesitance. Dimitri sighs into the kiss and pulls Felix impossibly closer, hands gentle and firm all at once. They separate only to breathe, and they slide back together easily, intent shared and echoed between them until all they can feel is each other, hardwon and familiar.
I love you, you know.
Another sigh, a mingling of breath, a few more tears shed between them.
Of course I know. I always have.