Archive of Our Own

“Sylvain,” Felix says, in a tone of voice that says he is dangerously close to throwing himself into traffic. “Why are we listening to Phil Collins?”

“This is the sound of the open road,” Sylvain says. 

“Actually, this is the Tarzan soundtrack,” Ingrid says from the backseat. 

Not for the first time, Felix thinks that he really shouldn’t have come. 

He really hadn’t been planning on it. As soon as he got the invitation, he threw it in the garbage. Then he had fished it out again to read it again, not quite certain it was real. 

You have been invited to the wedding of Dimitri Blaiddyd and Dedue Molinaro. 

Felix wanted to vomit. 

So he decided not to go, and then Sylvain called him and asked if Felix wanted to drive up with him and Ingrid, and Felix realized he had to go. Even if he hadn’t talked to Dimitri in years, and even if he only really saw Sylvain and Ingrid on birthdays and holidays. This was something he had to do. Felix didn’t give a flying fuck about social etiquette, or anything, but if he wasn’t at the wedding every single person he had ever known in his entire goddamn life would notice, and his father would get that sad look on his face, and Ingrid would give him judge-y eyes for the rest of their fucking lives, and it would just be too much. So he told Sylvain yes, and against his better judgement he got into a car with Sylvain behind the wheel, with Ingrid in the back seat to critique his driving, and they set off on a fucking cross-country road trip to go the wedding of a man Felix hadn’t spoken to in five years. 

“Why couldn’t we have flown?” he asks again. Sylvain doesn’t stop drumming on the steering wheel. 

“If you ask that one more time I’m going to kick you out of the car.”

“I should only be so lucky,” Felix mutters. Ingrid kicks the back of his chair. She’s been doing that every time he says something rude or sarcastic. Felix barely notices it anymore. “I’ll stop asking when you give me a straight answer.”

Sylvain turns the music down a little bit. “I told you. This is more fun. Classic friend road trip. Killer soundtrack—”

“This soundtrack is not killer,” Ingrid objects. Sylvain ignores her. 

“The three of us together again! The world at our feet—”

“The sun in our eyes,” Felix complains. 

“The broken air-conditioning,” Ingrid adds. 

“It’s fun!” Sylvain says with forced cheer. “When was the last time we were all together like this?”

Felix doesn’t answer, because he knows the answer is a long time ago. Longer than he can really remember. Him and Ingrid and Dimitri and Sylvain. They’d been inseparable once. 

And then Glenn died, and took a little bit of Felix with him, and Dimitri lost his father and started turning into something Felix didn’t recognize, and he started to pull away slowly. Dimitri had gotten the hint and left it alone, but Sylvain couldn’t take any hint unless it was dressed up in a sexy dress, and Ingrid knew what he was doing but ignored it. And then Dimitri moved across the country, and that made ignoring him so much easier. 

And then he got married, and invited Felix anyway. 

“Whatever,” Felix says, glaring out the window. “I think this was a waste of time.”

“Then you should have flown,” Sylvain says, slightly peevishly. Felix doesn’t answer this. Ingrid kicks his chair again. 

They’ve been on the road for two hours and forty-three minutes. 

At four hours and sixteen minutes, Sylvain says, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

“We have scheduled bathroom breaks, Sylvain. You should have gone at the last rest stop,” Ingrid says.

“I didn’t have to go at the last rest stop, mom.”

“If we keep taking breaks we’ll never get there on time!”

Sylvain changes lanes. “You shouldn’t have let me drive, then,” he says, getting off at the next exit. Ingrid fumes in the backseat. 

“I’m hungry anyway,” Felix says. Ingrid kicks his seat. 

“Oh, don’t start that,” she snaps. 

“Start what?”

“That thing you two always do where you gang up on me.”

“Don’t be dramatic,” Felix says. “We’re not ganging up on you. I’m just hungry.”

“Fine, but I don’t care how late we get to the hotel, we need to be on the road again by seven.”

“Whatever, mom,” Felix says cruelly. Ingrid crosses her arms and sits back, sighing angrily. Felix looks out the window. After a moment, Sylvain turns the radio back up. 

It never used to be this hard. 

When they were eight, Ingrid had proudly told all of them that she was going to marry Glenn. Felix had thought this was the most disgusting thing he’d ever heard. 

“But he’s my brother.”

Ingrid hadn’t seen the problem, and Felix had a hard time explaining why he was so grossed out by his best friend-who-was-a-girl-but-not-his-girlfriend marrying his cool older brother. Glenn was ten at the time, and didn’t need a nightlight to sleep, and dreamed of growing up and becoming a soldier. He was the coolest person Felix knew. 

“You can’t marry my brother.”

“Why not?”

“How would you feel if I married… if I married Sylvain?”

Sylvain, who had been playing battleship with Dimitri, looked up, interested in the conversation for the first time. “What?”

“It’s different,” Ingrid shot back. 

“Why’s it different?”

“Because you don’t love Sylvain.”

“Yes I do,” Felix had said, genuinely confused. He loved Sylvain a lot. He loved all of them like that, in the way only a child can love, completely and selflessly. They were his, all three of them.

“Not like I love Glenn!” Ingrid rarely cried, but her fists were balled up and she was starting to get a pouting look on her face. 

“If Felix wants to marry me then let him marry me!” Sylvain said. He got up to stand next to Felix. It would have been a touching display of solidarity if he hadn’t been trying to see Dimitri’s board behind Felix’s back. 

“You don’t even know what marriage is!” Ingrid said. 

“Neither do you,” Felix shot back. He was frustrated with her and frustrated with himself, for not being able to explain to her the problem. He didn’t want her to leave him for Glenn. Felix loved his brother, but Glenn already had everything. He couldn’t have Felix’s friends too. 

Ingrid stomped her foot. “Dimitri!” She cried. Dimitri looked up from his game and sighed, getting up to stand next to Ingrid, evening the playing field. 

“If you want to marry Sylvain, you have to let Ingrid marry Glenn,” he said, in the tired voice of an eight year old who thought he was secretly thirty. Ingrid sputtered. 

“That’s not what—”

“Fine,” Felix relented. “You can marry Glenn if I can marry Sylvain.” He wasn’t totally sure how they’d gotten to this decision, but it was a decision he thought he could live with. Ingrid seemed to understand that this was the best she was going to get, and held out her hand. Felix reached out to shake her hand, and Sylvain slung an arm around Felix’s shoulders, and Dimitri calmly told Sylvain that he was resetting his board. 

Of course, Ingrid never ended up marrying Glenn, and Felix’s promise to Sylvain got stored in the box of embarrassing childhood memories that existed in his mind, the one he never went near. All of those memories were too bright, too full of Glenn, a time when he thought the four of them would be together forever and his father could still look him in the eye without seeing a ghost. 

They stop at a restaurant a few hours later, some hole in the wall place that smells like smoke and eggs. Felix slides into a cracked vinyl booth beside Ingrid; Sylvain sits across from him and stretches out his obnoxiously long legs, kicking Felix in the ankle. Felix kicks him back, and they keep this up until their waitress arrives. 

Her name is Andie, she’s a biochemistry major, but she really wanted to do drama, you know? It’s just that her dad was like, if I’m going to pay then you’d better do something worthwhile, but it’s not what I’m passionate about, you know?

“Oh, I know,” Felix mutters. Ingrid elbows him and then glares at Sylvain, who has his chin in his hand, gazing up at Andie like she’s something holy. Felix thinks he’s going to throw up. Him and Ingrid exchange a look. 

“I’ll have special #4,” Felix says loudly. “With a water.” He closes the menu with a snap and looks at Ingrid. 

“#2,” she says with a smile. “With extra bacon, and gravy on the fries, please.”

Andie writes this down with a fuzzy pink pen. “And you, handsome?” She says to Sylvain with a wink. Felix makes a gun with his fingers and puts it to his temple. 

“I’d be happy with just your number,” Sylvain says. Ingrid makes a coughing noise that might have been an aborted laugh. “But if you could bring me the #3, that would be even better.” His voice is silky smooth. It grates on Felix’s nerves. Andie gives a high pitched giggle and then heads back to the kitchen. 

“Sylvain,” Ingrid says. “You are the worst person I’ve ever met.”

Sylvain gives them a bright smile. “It’s just harmless fun.”

“Harmless to you, maybe. I’m sure that girl won’t think it’s so harmless when she gives you her number and you never call her.”

“Who says I won’t call her?”

Ingrid makes a disbelieving sound. “You never call them!”

Felix leans back and closes his eyes. They’ve been having this same argument since they were twelve, when Sylvain tried to hit on Ingrid’s grandmother for the first time. Felix could recite it in his sleep. 

Sylvain and Ingrid continue to bicker; Felix is well versed in tuning them out by now. But Ingrid and Sylvain are so busy sniping at each other that when Andie the biochemistry major brings them their food, Sylvain barely pays her any attention. Felix watches her face fall and thinks, before he can stop himself, that he knows how she feels. 

Then he promptly shoves those feelings deep down inside of his chest where they should stay, because he isn’t sixteen and stupid, anymore. 

Sylvain flips Ingrid the keys on the way back to the car. The receipt with the waitress’ number peeks out of his pocket, and Felix crawls into the backseat, not wanting to keep up a conversation. Sylvain has a ratty old blanket in the back that he’s had since they were kids, and Felix tucks it over himself, leaning his head against the window and closing his eyes. Ingrid has thankfully taken control over the playlist, which means instead of Disney soundtracks and one hit wonders from the early 2000s, there’s a bunch of weird shit that Felix doesn’t know and Alanis Morissette songs.

He checks his watch. They’re still three hours away from the hotel, and if he sleeps the whole time he knows he’ll have a harder time sleeping through the night. But the only other option is to listen to this… French ska music? And think about the receipt with a number on it burning a hole through the pockets of Sylvain’s jeans, so he closes his eyes and goes to sleep. 

He was ten when he realized that what he felt for his best friend wasn’t exactly… normal. He was ten when he started to notice his father’s downturned mouth every time Sylvain spent the night in Felix’s room instead of the guest bedroom. He was ten when Glenn told him to be careful about holding Sylvain’s hand, because it could get him in trouble. Glenn never looked at him the way Rodrigue did, with his tight expression, but he always seemed worried. It was that more than anything that made him realize that he and Sylvain didn’t act the way other people did; the way Glenn always seemed concerned for him, afraid that someone might notice. And when he realized that he had to sit back and think about why it was only Sylvain, and not Dimitri or Ingrid. He didn’t want to do anything like that with Ingrid. He didn’t want to hold her hand or sleep in her bed during sleepovers or fall asleep with his head on her thigh. He loved Ingrid, but he didn’t want any of that. And with Dimitri… well, it was a little easier to picture it then with Ingrid, but he still didn’t want that. He didn’t want to hold anybody’s hand except Sylvain’s. 

He managed to convince himself that there wasn’t anything deeper to it than that. And then, when he was almost thirteen, Sylvain discovered girls. 

Discovered wasn’t the right word, exactly. Sylvain had always been a flirt, but it had always been in a cute and harmless way. But that was when his flirting stopped being cute and started being real. Sylvain at thirteen was a charmer, with his honey eyes and the way his hair curled around his ears, his wide grin and infectious laugh. No one stood a chance. 

Least of all Felix. And all of his denials fell short in the face of that grin, or the easy way Sylvain slung an arm around his shoulders, or the way his voice dropped whenever he was talking to a girl (at thirteen he sounds ridiculous; as he gets older, it starts getting deeper. Sexier). Felix couldn’t do anything but watch as Sylvain got smoother, got cockier. There was a different woman on his arm every week. Felix hated all of them; not for having what he couldn’t, but because he knew that they were the same. Helpless. Hopeless. 

And then Glenn died, and Felix became a different person, and Dimitri’s father died, and Dimitri became a different person, and things got all sideways and fucked up, and nothing had ever really been the same since. 

Felix parks the car, and he gets into the hotel just in time to hear Ingrid say, “But I don’t understand. I booked two rooms.”

Felix’s chest constricts and he hurries over to the front desk, stopping beside Ingrid as she argues with the concierge. 

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but there must have been an error with the booking. It says here one room, two beds.”

Ingrid sighs heavily and leans her elbows on the counter. “Okay, fine, just… book us another room, please.”

The concierge looks intensely uncomfortable as he says, “My sincerest apologies, Ms. Galatea, but there are no other rooms. We are booked full tonight. I can offer you a discount on the room due to our mistake, but unfortunately there is nothing more that I can do.”

“Are you kidding me?” Felix says. The concierge looks at him in surprise, but Ingrid shoots Felix a glare that says quite clearly shut up and let me handle this. 

“Go sit with Sylvain,” Ingrid says, but Felix isn’t a child, thank you very much, and so he ignores her. 

“There isn’t one extra room available?”

“Again, sir, you have our deepest apologies. But there is nothing more that I can do.”

“I think it’s cozy,” Sylvain says. Felix entertains the thought of pushing him out the window. 

“It’s only for one night,” Ingrid says, dragging her bag into the room and taking the bed closest to the door. Felix scowls at her. 

“Easy for you to say, you get a bed to yourself.”

“I don’t know why you’re so put out,” Sylvain says, throwing his bag on the other bed and starting to rifle through it. “I’m incredibly easy to sleep with.”

“We know,” Ingrid mutters.

“You’re the one who clings like a koala.”

Felix entertains the thought of pushing himself out the window. “I’m going to take a walk,” he says instead, leaving his bag in the doorway and stalking off downstairs. 

There’s a gazebo around the back of the hotel, which Felix avoids, but there’s a picnic table a little farther away, and he heads that way. He realizes, annoyed, that he doesn’t have his phone. He must have left it in the car. So all he can really do, then, is peel wood chips off the old table and listen to the cicadas scream. 

He’s being unfair, and he knows it. It isn’t anybody’s fault, except maybe the idiot who had originally booked them in for one room and whatever weird fucking event that was going on that brought so many people to this rundown hotel on a Thursday night. But it isn’t Ingrid’s fault, and it wasn’t that concierge’s fault, and it isn’t Sylvain’s fault, either, that Felix is too high strung and in love with him to be able to stomach the thought of sleeping next to him all night. The problem is Sylvain had been right, Felix did cling like a koala. Which meant that he’d wake up in the morning cuddled into Sylvain’s half-naked body.

Why did he agree to this? Why didn’t he just fly? Or better yet, why hadn’t he just told Dimitri no?

“What are you doing?” A voice behind him asks. Felix sighs. 

“In general, or right now specifically?”

Ingrid sits down across from him and just looks at him. Eventually he can’t hold up under her glare anymore. “What?”

“I wasn’t going to mention this, because I knew it would just make you freak out, but obviously the elephant in the room needs to be addressed.”

“And that is?”

“Your big, ridiculous crush on Sylvain.”

Felix narrows his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t start with me,” Ingrid says. “I know you better than that.”

She has a point, so Felix admits defeat. If it were anyone else but Ingrid he would fight, but it’s impossible to lie to her. “Fine. What about it?”

“There are ways to have a crush without it ruining your friendships, you know. Were you planning on sleeping out here tonight? Or on the floor?”

No, and she knows it. Because if he said he was sleeping on the floor, Sylvain would just climb right down there with him, unwilling to take the bed alone, unaware of why Felix didn’t want to sleep in it with him. It wouldn’t solve anything, it would just hurt his back. 

“Do you know why Sylvain wanted to drive?”

Felix looks up at the sky. He doesn’t know a lot about constellations, and he never understood them anyway. He had a hard time connecting stars. 

He doesn’t answer, so Ingrid continues. “Do you remember when we were kids? And it was the four of us, and we were inseparable? Even within that—even within that bubble we built, you and Sylvain had your own separate world. Do you remember? You and Dimitri were best friends, but you and Sylvain were something more. I was always so, so jealous.”

“You were too busy being in love with my brother,” he says, because he’s feeling mean and spiteful. Ingrid is strong enough not to rise to the bait. 

“You can get defensive and mean all you want, you’re only proving my point.”

“Which is?”

“You’ve been pulling away for years. It started with Dimitri, but it’s happening with us, too. Do you think we’re too stupid to notice, or do you just not care?”

Felix doesn’t say anything. 

“He misses you. I do, too. Occasionally.” She kicks him lightly under the table. “But I at least know why you’re being the world’s biggest asshole. He doesn’t. All he knows is that his best friend can barely stand to be around him anymore.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to either get your shit together, or just talk to him. Don’t make that face at me, Felix Fraldarius,” she warns. “If you think I’m just going to sit here and watch you abandon your friends then you’re a bigger idiot than I thought.”

“I’m not going to talk to him.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s Sylvain,” he says, and Ingrid does not need him to elaborate. Because Sylvain is a commitment-phobic serial dater, and Felix isn’t stupid enough to put his heart in the hands of someone who doesn’t want it. 

“He called me and asked if it was a good idea to drive. He wanted to know if I thought the three of us together in a car for two days would help bring you back home.”

“And you said it would?” Felix asks, slightly incredulously. Ingrid hears his tone and laughs. 

“I said no. But Sylvain doesn’t believe in lost causes. Not when it comes to you.”

Felix peels off a particularly big piece of wood from the table. “So what do you want?”

Ingrid sighs, the put-upon sigh of a woman who has been dealing with idiots her entire life. “I want you to have a conversation with your best friend that doesn’t involve you threatening him. I want you to stop pulling away from us. I want you to talk to Dimitri like a fucking adult. I want you to stop making me have to be the parent.” He feels enough shame about that comment that he has to look away from her. She props her chin up on her hand. “I want a girlfriend,” she adds.

“That doesn’t have to do with me.”

“Not everything has to, don’t be self-absorbed.”

He kicks her. She kicks him back, and he can’t help a snort of laughter. 

“But what I really want is for you to go upstairs and crawl into bed beside the guy you’re in love with without having a fucking meltdown, because we have to leave bright and early tomorrow."

“What if I only have half a meltdown.”

She smiles in a way like she’s trying not to. “As long as you don’t make me come chasing after you again.”

“I didn’t ask you to come after me.”

“I’m your best friend, Felix,” she says, looking at him in a way that is almost pitying. “I am always going to come after you. The sooner you realize that, the better.”

Sylvain is in bed when they get back. Ingrid and him take turns brushing their teeth, and then there’s no other option but to crawl in beside Sylvain. The one saving grace is that he’s asleep already, naked chest bare, blankets tangled in his legs. 

Felix slides in beside him, shifting his pillow slightly, and he’s just settled down and closed his eyes when a soft voice from beside him says, “Hey.”

He turns his head; Sylvain’s eyes are open. They shine in the small amount of moonlight creeping in past the curtains. 

“I thought you were asleep,” Felix whispers back. 

“Wanted to see if you were okay.”

Something complicated flutters in Felix’s chest. “I’m fine,” he says. Something like hurt flashes across Sylvain’s face, and Felix remembers Ingrid’s words. All he knows is that his best friend can barely stand to be around him anymore. 

“Hey,” Felix says, nudging Sylvain’s calf with his toes. “I’m fine, I promise. You don’t have to worry.”

“I always worry,” Sylvain says. “Remember that time you accidentally stabbed yourself in the armpit and you didn’t tell any of us until you almost blacked out?”

Felix nudges him again, less friendly this time. “When are you going to stop bringing that up?”

Sylvain is laughing, stifling his face in the pillow, but they hear Ingrid’s voice anyway: “The next person whose voice I hear is getting morning driving duty,” she says peevishly. Sylvain and him share a look, and then Sylvain drags the heavy comforter over their heads. 

“What are you doing?” Felix asks.

“Our voices won’t carry,” Sylvain says. Felix can’t see him at all, now. “We used to do it all the time when we were kids, remember? During sleepovers, or when we were camping.”

Felix remembers. Dimitri always followed the curfew rule like he could be prosecuted if he didn’t, and Ingrid’s mood gradually deteriorated the later it was. That left Felix and Sylvain, who set up under the blankets and talked until late into the night. Felix had told Sylvain so many secrets in the safety of that blanket fort, and Sylvain had done the same. That was where Felix told him he was pretty sure he liked boys, not girls; that was where Sylvain told him, for the first time, all the horrible things Miklan did to him. 

“I remember,” Felix says softly. He can feel Sylvain’s breath in his face. “Did you brush your teeth?”

“Yes! Shut up, my breath can’t be that bad.” Sylvain laughs quietly and then says, “Hey, what did you get Dimitri?”

“I didn’t get him anything,” Felix says. 

“Felix! You can’t get him nothing, he’s getting married.”

“So? What would I even get him? We haven’t talked in years. I’ll just tell my father to write my name on the card.”

Sylvain is silent for a moment, and Felix is expecting more scolding for his complete lack of etiquette. But instead Sylvain says, “You never really told me, you know. What happened with you two.”

Felix sighs. He doesn’t want to talk about it. 

I want you to stop pulling away from us. But it wasn’t that easy. He couldn’t just go back to the way it used to be, when he was young and happy, when his brother was alive, when he wasn’t in love with Sylvain (was there ever a time like that?), when Dimitri didn’t have something ugly and poisonous growing within him. He was a different person, now. 

“I don’t really want to talk about it, Sylvain,” he says. Sylvain is quiet for a moment. 

“Okay,” he says finally. “That’s fair.” And then he says, “We should go to sleep. Ingrid’s making us leave super early tomorrow.” And with that he pulls the blankets back down; the cool air of the room hits Felix, and the sacred atmosphere of the blanket fort has been ruined. 

By Felix. He did that, he ruined it. They had never hidden anything from each other, not under the safety of blankets, and even if it was stupid to be twenty-five and still following the rules of a childhood promise, it doesn’t make it hurt any less when Sylvain turns onto his side away from him. 

Felix wants to reach out, to pull Sylvain back, to say sorry, to tell him everything. But he doesn’t; he just closes his eyes and hates himself a little more. 

“I hate this,” Sylvain groans. Ingrid’s alarm has been going off for five straight minutes; she was already up and in the shower. Felix rolls onto his stomach and holds the pillow over his ears. 

He didn’t normally mind mornings—he always got up early to run. But he hadn’t slept well at all last night, and the prospect of another full day on the road and another night at a hotel wasn’t exactly the best motivation to drag himself out of bed. 

“Felix,” Sylvain says. “Go turn off the alarm, please, I am begging you.”

Felix kicks him half-heartedly. “You do it. You’re closer.”

Sylvain starts to move and Felix thinks he’s won, but then Sylvain rolls over him and squeezes into the small space between Felix and the side of the bed. He is half on top of Felix, warm and half-naked. Felix thinks he might actually die. 

“Not anymore,” Sylvain says. Felix shimmies out from under him and gets up, shutting off the alarm on Ingrid’s phone and resisting the urge to throw it against the wall. 

“I hate you,” he says, sitting down on Ingrid’s bed and yawning. Sylvain buries his face in Felix’s pillow. 

“I love you,” he says in response, falling asleep again before he can see the blush making its way across Felix’s face. 

It’s at that moment that Ingrid gets out of the shower and whips him in the ass with her wet towel. Sylvain yelps and jumps up. 

“What the hell, Ingrid?”

“You’re not going back to sleep. Go take a shower.”

Sylvain gives Felix a look, like can you believe her? Whatever ugly thing that had reared up between them last night is gone, and Felix can almost forget the sight of Sylvain’s back turned to him in a way it never had been before. He tries to give Sylvain a sympathetic look as he marches into the bathroom, grumbling the whole time. 

Ingrid waits for the door to close and music to start playing from Sylvain’s phone before she turns to Felix, hands on her hips. Felix wipes sleep from his eyes. 

“What?”

“Did you actually do as I said for once? Did you talk last night?”

“Not really,” he says, not wanting to get into it.

Ingrid’s shoulders slump. “Unbelievable,” she says, walking over to the bed. “Get off my bed,” she says in annoyance. 

Sylvain’s shower is blessedly short, so he doesn’t have to sit there in awkward silence while Ingrid wafts her disapproval. He’s just reaching for his phone when he remembers it’s still in the car from last night. 

“Can I use your phone?” He asks Sylvain. “I left mine in the car.”

“Yeah, sure,” Sylvain says, fishing it out of his pocket and then going over to shake his wet hair all over Ingrid. Felix closes the door on her screaming, opening up Sylvain’s phone (he had his thumb print saved) and searching for some kind of playlist he wouldn’t completely hate. 

As he’s looking, a text pops up. He shouldn’t read it, he knows, but he can’t stop his eyes from flicking up. 

Andie (hot waitress) is how her name is saved, because Sylvain is an absolute douchebag. She’d written well i hope you come back soon!! Maybe you could stop for a few days on the way back ;) im sure your friends wouldn’t mind

Felix has half a mind to text her back that yes, he fucking would mind, thank you very fucking much, but this is already a gross invasion of privacy. She sends him another text (i have a few fun ideas we could do haha) and he leaves that one unread so Sylvain will see it, even if he’s unlikely to text her back. He puts on the first playlist he sees that he doesn’t immediately hate and then jumps in the shower. 

He keeps the water a little colder than usual to wake himself up and smack some sense into him. He shouldn’t be reading Sylvain’s texts. He shouldn’t be poking his head in when all it’s going to do is fuck him up. Sylvain could (and did) fuck whoever he wanted. And it wasn’t Andie the waitresses fault that she was so interested. He could hardly blame her, after all. 

He lets the water hit him directly in the face and vows not to think about it. 

Sylvain passes out in the backseat almost as soon as Ingrid pulls out of the parking lot, leaving the two of them sitting in silence up front, listening to Alanis Morisette, which is a little bit on the nose for Felix’s liking. 

“Do we have to listen to this?”

“Why?” Ingrid asks. “Do you relate to it too much?”

“Fuck off,” he says, crossing his arms and slumping in his seat. “I’m going back to sleep.”

Ingrid turns the music up a little louder. 

He wakes up a couple hours later with a dry mouth and a need to pee. He fumbles at the side of the door for the water bottle he had stashed there earlier and drinks half of it in one go, which is helpful for his dry mouth, but only worsens his need to piss. He turns the music down (more angry girl bullshit, from what he can hear) and then says, “I need to pee.”

“Oh, fuck, same,” Sylvain says sleepily from the backseat. “What are we listening to?”

Ingrid looks in the rearview mirror at him. “I didn’t even know you were awake.”

“I just woke up. Seriously, what is this?”

“It’s not from a Disney movie, I doubt you’d know it,” Felix says, a little snidely. Sylvain makes a hurt noise. 

“How dare you. I’m a cultured man.”

“You both slept through our scheduled rest stop.”

“Holy shit, Ingrid, do you have to be a ball buster all the fucking time?” Felix snaps. 

Both Sylvain and Ingrid fall silent, and Felix closes his eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice low. Ingrid is quiet for a minute, but then she speaks.

“Let’s get one thing straight, Felix,” she says, quiet and deadly. “You do not get to talk to me like that.” She doesn’t take her eyes off the road, and Felix finds himself grateful that she’s driving. He’s not sure he’d be able to withstand the full weight of her gaze. “Ever again.”

“I’m sorry,” he says again, because he is. Ingrid doesn’t respond, and there’s a heavy silence over all of them until Sylvain leans forward between the front seats. 

“I do really have to pee, though.”

Ingrid pulls off at the next rest stop, parks the car, and then storms off into the building. Felix sits there and watches her go. 

“You know you have to go talk to her, right?” Sylvain says, leaning forward again. Felix scowls. 

“I thought you had to pee.”

“You know, your cantankerous schtick is only cute when it doesn’t hurt people,” Sylvain says cheerily as he gets out of the car. Felix gets out and follows him, locking it behind him. 

“One to talk,” he says. Sylvain laughs and slings his arm around Felix’s shoulder. 

“My schtick is a little different,” he says. “And I’m always cute.”

“If that’s what you want to call it,” Felix mutters. 

Ingrid is standing in line at a burger joint when Sylvain and Felix get inside. Sylvain shoves Felix in her direction while he heads to the bathroom. 

He stands beside her for a while, neither of them talking. She’s placed her order and is waiting off to the side for it before he can make himself speak. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. She looks at him. 

“You’ve had all this time to think of something to say and that’s all you got?”

“What do you want from me? I said I was sorry.”

Ingrid shakes her head. “You are absolutely—”

The man calls out her order number, and she cuts off. “I am sorry,” he says while she grabs her food. “I went too far.”

Ingrid sighs and heads towards a table. “You always go too far, Felix,” she says, as he falls into step beside her. “One day you’re going to go too far to turn back.”

He thinks about this. “Is today that day?”

She drops her tray down on a table; it makes a loud noise and her box of fries falls over. “No,” she says, annoyed. “I guess not. Aren’t you getting anything to eat?”

Just as she says this Sylvain appears and drops down beside her, pushing the tray of food into the middle of the table. “I got you a burger,” he says to Felix. “No pickles.”

“Thank you,” he mutters, grabbing one of the fries and throwing it in his mouth. Sylvain looks between Felix and Ingrid and then nudges Felix with his foot. Felix glares at him. Sylvain nudges him harder, and so Felix nudges him back, and then Ingrid shouts out “Ow!” And kicks both of them. 

“What the hell are you two doing?” She snaps. Sylvain lets out a nervous laugh. 

“You know. I was trying to communicate without words.”

Ingrid sighs in frustration. “Felix can barely communicate with words, that might be expecting too much from him.”

“Hey!” Felix objects, while Sylvain bursts out laughing. Felix throws a fry at him, and Sylvain eats it with a wink. 

“For the record, this,” he nudges Felix again, “means ‘did you apologize to Ingrid yet.’” 

Felix rolls his eyes. “Yes, you fucking idiot.”

“Oh.” Sylvain nudges Ingrid under the table; Felix can tell because Sylvain’s foot grazes his. “Did you not accept his apology?”

Ingrid glares at him. “It’s none of your business.”

“We still have over a day on the road! It’s definitely my business.”

Ingrid doesn’t say anything; Felix nudges her with his foot, and she levels a glare at him. He raises an eyebrow and nudges her again, and she huffs out a little laugh. 

“You’re the worst, Felix Fraldarius.”

“Finally won the title off Sylvain, then.”

Sylvain laughs. “I’ll let you borrow the trophy.”

Felix rolls his eyes, and Ingrid snorts, and Sylvain laughs, loud and easy and contagious. Felix catches Ingrid’s eye and tries to give her a smile. Judging from the way her lips twitch up in a laugh, he’s guessing his smile hasn’t gotten any better. But she nudges him lightly under the table, and Sylvain slings an arm around her shoulder, and Felix takes a bite of his burger, and it’s fine. Somehow, they’re always fine. 

Ingrid disappears into the bathroom after they eat, so Sylvain and Felix make their way to the car after Felix pees, Sylvain flipping the keys back and forth in his hands. Felix is about to get in the backseat when he stops and says, before he can chicken out, “Are you mad at me?”

Sylvain looks at him in surprise, leaning against the car and crossing his arms. “Why would I be mad at you?”

Felix looks away, not able to make eye-contact. “For last night. For…” he trails off, not sure how to phrase this in a way that’s not completely embarrassing. How do you say I’m sorry for breaking the unwritten rules of our blanket fort without sounding like a child?

He needn’t have worried. It’s easy to forget, sometimes, how well Sylvain knows him. How he can read Felix like only Glenn ever could. He grins and shrugs. “Don’t worry about it, man. We all have secrets. It’s not a big deal.” His voice is warm like always, and Felix believes him. 

Which might be why he says, “I also—I didn’t mean to, but—you got a text. From that waitress. And I kind of read it when I was setting up music. So… sorry.”

Sylvain laughs nervously, hand on the back of his neck. “Oh, yeah. I haven’t really gotten around to responding.”

Felix should shut up, now, should leave it alone. It’s a conversation that’s been had between Sylvain and Ingrid enough times that nothing new could be said, but he remembers Andie’s eager smile and can’t help but feel—guilty. “Why do you do that? Why do you get their hopes up if you never plan to do anything?”

Sylvain’s easy smile drops off his face and he kicks at the ground. After an uncomfortable moment of silence he says, “She wasn’t really interested in me, you know? So it’s not… it’s not like it’s really going to hurt her. She didn’t even know me.”

“How are people supposed to be interested in you if you don’t ever give them the chance?” He’s not sure why the fuck he’s doing this, why he’s rehashing an argument Ingrid has been saying for years with no success, why he’s telling the man he’s been in love with for years to just give someone else a chance, but Sylvain’s self-destructive tendencies don’t just hurt him. 

Sylvain smiles at him, soft and sad. “Maybe I don’t want them to be interested,” he says. Felix narrows his eyes, trying to understand, but Sylvain doesn’t elaborate, just keeps looking at Felix like that. Felix can’t look away; Sylvain’s eyes bore into him, and he’s afraid that if he so much as blinks, whatever weird moment between them will be broken. 

“What are you two doing?” Ingrid’s voice barges between them and breaks down the fragile silence. Sylvain finally looks away from Felix and grins at Ingrid, wide and bright and false. It’s a smile that’s broken hundreds of hearts, but none more so than Felix’s when he sees Sylvain hide behind it. 

“Nothing,” Sylvain says, throwing the keys up in the air and then catching them with his other hand. “Come on, let’s get going. If I drive fast enough I can make up for the time we lost.”

Ingrid glares. “That’s not funny.”

Ingrid and Sylvain start to bicker as Felix crawls into the backseat. It’s a comforting sound, and he closes his eyes as he listens. The car rumbles to life and Sylvain reverses out of the spot, and then they are on the road again. 

This time there are no problems with the hotel, and so with strict orders to be on the road by eight in order to make it to the hotel Dimitri had booked for everyone by check-in time, Ingrid disappears into her room, and Felix follows Sylvain into theirs—with two beds this time, thankfully. 

Sylvain unpacks his toiletries and then disappears into the bathroom; Felix watches him go, waiting for the door to click behind him before he digs his pyjamas out from his bag. He plugs his phone in beside the bed and then collapses, throwing his arm over his face. 

He’s almost asleep by the time Sylvain returns; he smacks Felix on the leg. “Get up and brush your teeth, I don’t want to deal with your morning breath tomorrow.”

Felix chucks the extra pillow at him but gets up. He takes significantly less time than Sylvain did, since Sylvain had a vigorous skin care routine that he said helped him “keep his good looks.” He brushes his teeth and splashes water on his face, resting his hands on the kitchen sink and studying himself in the mirror. He sighs before using the hair-tie around his wrist to put his hair up, piling it on top of his head to keep it out of the way when he sleeps. 

Sylvain is in bed when he gets back out, one arm behind his head as he scrolls through his phone. Felix wonders if he’s texting that girl. The answer is probably not, but he isn’t sure if he’s happy about that or not. 

“Did you set an alarm?”

Sylvain points to the door that separates their room from Ingrid’s. “Yeah, it’s called Ingrid Galatea.”

“Fair point,” Felix mutters. He checks his phone, sees the message from his father that’s been there all day: Wondering what time you’ll be at the hotel tomorrow. 

He doesn’t answer. 

“Can I turn the light off?” Felix asks, and Sylvain makes an affirmative noise. Felix watches him for a moment before he leans over and flips the switch, so the only light left in the room comes from Sylvain’s phone. 

He lies there in silence, listening to the occasional click of Sylvain’s nails on his phone screen and the whir of the air conditioning. He closes his eyes and tries to fall asleep, but all he can hear is the tap tap tap of Sylvain on his phone, and he is reminded of what Ingrid had said earlier: you always go too far, Felix. 

“It was the summer it happened,” he says quietly. He doesn’t look to see if Sylvain is listening, but the light from his phone goes away, as if he’s turned it off. “You know what happened,” Felix says, staring up at the ceiling light and watching the fan spin. If he closes his eyes, maybe he won’t see it. 

He had been eighteen when his father had gotten the call; he will never forget, for as long as he lives, the tormented scream that had ripped from his father’s throat. 

A mugging gone wrong. Dimitri had survived with serious injuries, but Lambert and Glenn hadn’t been as lucky. 

“He was different after that,” Felix continues. “Dimitri. He wanted revenge more than anything, and he… it’s like because Glenn was there, too, he wanted… he always wanted to include me. He wanted me to be angry, too. He wanted me to seek revenge with him. He was obsessed with it. And I didn’t feel that way. I wasn’t angry like that. Sure I was angry, but not like him. That anger made him turn into someone different, someone I didn’t like. Like a beast. And I get he was mad, and I get that his uncle was an asshole, but that sickness in him—it scared me. So I pulled away.”

Sylvain is quiet for a while, perhaps to be sure Felix is finished, and when he speaks his voice is quiet. “It wasn’t just Dimitri you pulled away from.”

Guilt licks up Felix’s spine. “I know,” he admits. “I don’t have an excuse for that.”

“I’m sorry. About Dimitri, about Glenn. Nothing’s really been the same since. But I do miss you, you know. You’re my best friend, Felix. And if I have to sit in a car for two and a half days to prove that, I will.”

“No one asked you to.”

“You didn’t have to. That’s the thing about being best friends.”

Felix is chastised into silence. He should be happy with what he’s got, but instead a small, forbidden part of him knows it’s not enough. He wants Sylvain more than that, and it’s always going to sour everything he says, because Felix is greedy and ungrateful. 

“I’m sorry,” Felix eventually says. “I’ll try to be better.” And he will. For all that considers himself a lone wolf, he does miss his friends. 

“Thanks, Felix,” Sylvain says. “For talking to me. For telling me.”

Felix nods. His throat feels traitorously tight, so he doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to. Sylvain knows him well enough.

Felix closes his eyes and drifts off. 

Felix loads himself into the backseat the next morning and decides to finally text his father. Ingrid says we’ll be there around 2pm, he says. The wedding starts at four, which gives them two hours to get in with early check-in and get ready. Felix’s suit is taking up valuable space in his bag, and he’s not looking forward to stuffing himself into it. Actually, Felix isn’t looking forward to any of this. 

The three of them are uncharacteristically quiet for the first part of the ride. Felix finally takes over driving duty for the latter part of it, Ingrid beside him and Sylvain snoozing in the back. 

“Are you ready for this?” Ingrid says at some point. Felix looks at the clock and sighs. They’ll be there in forty-five minutes. 

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” he says. Ingrid is quiet for a moment, as if debating whether to say what she wants to, but Ingrid has never been known to hold her tongue. Not around them, at least. 

“He’s different, you know,” she says. “After he moved across the country, after he met Dedue. He got a new therapist, went on new meds. He’s not the same man as he was after it happened.” Felix doesn’t say anything, because he doesn’t know what to say. “Just… give him a chance, is all I’m saying. He was your best friend once. Remember? You used to cry unless you could do everything with him.”

Felix scowls. “I did not.”

Ingrid laughs. “Don’t you lie to me, Felix Fraldarius. I know you better than that.”

“That’s the problem,” he mutters. Ingrid punches him lightly on the arm. 

“I told your dad we’ll be there in five, so he should be waiting for us,” Ingrid says. Felix scowls at her. 

“I hate when you people text my dad.”

“Well we know you won’t,” Ingrid says. 

Sure enough Rodrigue is standing outside the front sliding doors of the hotel. The hotel is absurdly fancy, courtesy of that Blaiddyd inheritance. Rodrigue is already dressed in his nicest suit, and Felix feels frumpy next to him in his sweatpants. 

Rodrigue smiles at him warmly when he sees him, and even tugs Felix into a hug. Felix pats him on the back awkwardly before Rodrigue moves onto Ingrid and Sylvain, who are much more enthusiastic with their hellos. Sylvain always said that Rodrigue was their shared dad, which had always deeply annoyed Felix. 

“Hello, you three. How was the drive?”

“Manageable,” Ingrid says. “When did you get here?”

“This morning,” Rodrigue says. “I’ve seen both Dimitri and Dedue, although I’m not sure you’ll be able to catch them before the wedding, they’re fairly busy. Can I help with the bags?”

Dimitri, of course, had booked them all separate rooms. Felix doesn’t even want to know how much this wedding is costing him. They’re on the same floor, so they head up together and go their separate ways into their rooms. Felix dumps his bag on the floor and sits on the edge of the bed, taking a deep breath as he’s finally alone. He slumps onto his back and stares up at the ceiling of the room. 

There’s really no turning back now. 

Felix jumps in the shower before he gets ready, washing the road trip grime off him. He puts his suit on after, and he’s just finished tugging his shoes on when there’s a knock on his door. 

“Hey,” Sylvain says when Felix opens the door. “You ready? We’re gonna head down soon.”

Sylvain looks obnoxiously handsome. He cleans up nice; his hair is as wild as ever but his suit is a dark colour and his tie highlights his eyes. He’s going to break dozens of hearts tonight, and Felix hates to include himself in that. 

They get Ingrid after that. She’s wearing a nice teal dress and her hair is in two braids. Sylvain bows to her. 

“My lady,” he says. Ingrid and Felix both roll their eyes. 

“Don’t start,” she says. 

“I’m just saying, we all clean up nice,” Sylvain says. “Where’s your Old Man?”

“He said to head down without him,” Ingrid says. Felix scowls. 

“Stop texting my dad.”

“No,” Ingrid says simply. “Let’s go.”

The wedding is being held in the courtyard outside, with the large ballroom being where dinner will be served. Outside is decked out with arches and flowers, a large gazebo presumably where the grooms will stand. People are milling about; Felix recognizes a few of them from back home, but there’s a large number of people he doesn’t know, new friends from Dimitri’s new life. 

They mingle. Felix hates mingling, and he hates crowds, and he hates people he doesn’t know, so he sticks close to Ingrid. Sylvain, of course, has disappeared, likely looking for some woman to pester, but Ingrid is good at keeping Felix close without abandoning him. 

Eventually music starts, and they make their way to their seats. Sylvain slinks back to them to sit beside Felix, slinging an arm around his shoulder that Felix shrugs off. 

“It’s too hot for that,” he complains. Sylvain nods. 

“Yeah, no kidding. When I get married I’m doing it in the fall.”

“God help that woman,” Ingrid mutters. 

The music swells; the crowd falls silent as heads swivel to the back. Soon enough Dimitri arrives. It’s the first time Felix has seen him in five years. 

He looks… well, happy is the word that first comes to mind. His hair is longer, reaching his shoulders, and his blue eyes are bright. He has a smile plastered onto his face, and a lightness in his step. His eyes flick over the crowd as he makes his way up the aisle, standing under the gazebo and waiting. His white suit is bright in the sun. 

Everyone’s heads swivel back around, as Felix gets the first look at Dimitri’s future husband. 

Dedue Molinaro is also wearing a white suit. He has white hair that is tied at the nape of his neck, and an impressively sharp beard that is close cut to his face. He is, somehow, bigger than even Dimitri, and even though his face is neutral, Felix thinks he can see happiness in his eyes. 

The ceremony is short and to the point, which Felix can appreciate. A green haired woman leads it, and when it’s done she turns to the crowd and says, “May I present, for the first time as a married couple, Dimitri Blaiddyd and Dedue Molinaro.”

Felix applauds politely as Dimitri waves at the crowd. Dedue stares at Dimitri, mouth curling up at the side in a smile that lights up his face. 

They are instructed to make their way back to the ballroom for drinks and dinner. Dimitri and Dedue go first and set up at the doorway to greet everyone, meaning Felix has to wait in the line to address the grooms and can’t feasibly think of any way to continue to ignore Dimitri. 

Ingrid elbows him as they get close. “Be nice,” she warns. He scowls at her.

Dimitri greets Ingrid and Sylvain first, with warm hugs and congratulations; the two of them greet Dedue with familiarity as well. Dimitri’s eyes find Felix, and he gives him a soft smile.

“Felix,” he says. “I’m so glad you could come.” There’s a genuineness in his voice, like he really is glad Felix made the trip. 

Felix is thrown off, and the first thing he can think of to say is, “I didn’t get you anything.”

Dimitri chuckles. Dedue is looking at Felix with a blank expression that Felix doesn’t like. “That’s quite alright, Felix,” he says. “It is simply good to see you.”

Felix suddenly has more to say, but he is aware he’s holding up the line. So he just nods at Dimitri, nods nervously at Dedue, and hightails it after Ingrid and Sylvain into the ballroom. 

They’re all sitting at the same table, along with some of Dimitri’s new friends. He’s grateful that his father isn’t sitting with them; instead he’s a few tables away with people a little closer to his age. He sits between Ingrid and Sylvain, across from a woman with long brown hair and brilliant green eyes. She smiles at all of them before focusing her attention on Ingrid. 

“Well hello there,” she says smoothly. “My name is Dorothea.”

Ingrid stammers a little under her attention. “I-Ingrid. This is Sylvain and Felix. We’re old friends of Dimitri’s.”

“Lovely to meet you! You’ll save me a dance later, right?”

Felix turns away from where Ingrid is turning bright red. “I’m going to get a drink,” he tells Sylvain, who stays to back up Ingrid. 

It’s an open bar, of course. Felix hadn’t been expecting anything less. He gets himself a stiff drink and heads back to the table.

Felix makes it through dinner and speeches before he starts getting antsy, and it’s after his father has made a dramatic, sappy speech that has both Ingrid and Sylvain tearing up that he makes an excuse to go outside and get some air. Sylvain makes to follow him, but he waves him off; he needs to be alone for a bit. So he heads out, past the smokers, all the way back to the gazebo where Dimitri and Dedue had gotten married. 

He’s been sitting for a few minutes when someone clears their throat behind him. “Mind if I sit?”

Felix’s heart rate spikes up, and he stands. “Sure. I was just heading back in.”

“Before you go, Felix—I would really like to talk to you,” Dimitri says. Felix debates making a run for it, but he’s cornered, so with a sigh he sits back down. 

“What do you want?”

Dimitri sits down next to him, crowding him on the bench with his wide shoulders. “I wanted to apologize to you, Felix. For so much. For who I was. For who I became, after what happened. For trying to drag you down with me. For ruining our relationship. For turning your brother’s death into a farce. There is nothing I can do to make up for what happened and for the time we lost, but it means so much to me that you still came out here for my wedding. I cannot thank you enough.”

Felix is quiet for a long time. 

“I don’t hate you anymore,” he finally says quietly. “But it’s never going to be like it used to be with us, you know. It can’t.”

“I know,” Dimitri says. “But the fact that you’re here is enough.”

They sit there in silence for a few minutes, a silence that isn’t completely uncomfortable. There’s more to talk about, and maybe they will sometime. But tonight is not the time. 

Eventually Felix bumps his shoulder against Dimitri’s. “You should go in. People will be looking for you. It’s your wedding, after all.”

Dimitri sighs but stands up. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. But thank you for listening to me, Felix. Perhaps we can stay in touch.”

“I… yeah, maybe. I’ll text you.” It’s a shitty olive branch, but it’s an olive branch all the same. Dimitri smiles at him before he turns to head back inside, and eventually Felix follows him. 

Dancing is in full swing by the time he gets in. Ingrid and Sylvain are both on the dance floor, to his eternal annoyance, Ingrid dancing with Dorothea and Sylvain with some random woman he probably picked up. Felix scowls down at the floor and goes to sit down again. 

He’s scrolling on his phone at his seat when a hand lands on his shoulder and someone says, “Dance with me.”

He looks up in surprise to see Sylvain looking down at him. Sylvain is a few drinks deep, and Felix can smell it on his breath when he leans into Felix’s personal space. 

“What?”

“Dance with me!” Sylvain says again, holding out his hand. Felix looks at it. 

“You’re drunk,” he accuses. Sylvain laughs and collapses into the seat next to him. 

“Guilty,” he says. “But come on, dance with me.”

“No,” Felix says rudely. He can’t believe they’re even having this conversation. 

Sylvain clutches at his chest over his heart. “You wound me, Felix. Guess I’ll have to find some beautiful lady to spend my time with, instead. Hey, maybe I’ll get some use out of that hotel room, eh?”

He moves to get up, and Felix can see with extreme clarity that he won’t see Sylvain for the rest of the night if he lets him walk away right now. So Felix takes a swig of his own drink and then says, “Fine.”

“Huh? Fine what?”

“Fine, let’s dance,” he says begrudgingly. It’s almost worth it for the way Sylvain’s face lights up. 

“Oh hell yes, let’s go!”

Sylvain drags him onto the dance floor just as the song is turning slower. Felix turns to leave but Sylvain grabs him, wrapping an arm around his waist and grabbing his hand as if they’re waltzing. 

“Nope, you promised. Gotta stick it out.”

“I didn’t promise,” Felix argues. “And why do you get to lead?”

“We’re swaying on the spot, Felix, no one is leading.”

Felix grumbles, but he's too weak to do anything except wind his arm around Sylvain’s waist and continue to sway with him. Sylvain's big hand is on his hip, and it's making him feel some type of way. 

“I asked Dorothea to dance,” Sylvain says, as they continue to sway in place. “She laughed at me and went to find Ingrid.”

“Good for Ingrid,” Felix says genuinely. Sylvain nods. 

“Yeah, she deserves it,” he says. The music is loud, and other couples dance around them. After a few moments Sylvain says, voice quieter than usual, “I saw Dimitri follow you outside. Did you guys talk?” 

Felix sighs. His friends are such busybodies. 

“Yeah, a bit. Nothing too in depth. But he apologized.”

“Did you accept?”

Felix thinks about it. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

“Oh! Good. That’s good.”

The song ends. Felix makes to move away, but Sylvain drags him in close, so their bodies are aligned. 

“Nah, we’re not done.” He keeps his hand firm on Felix’s waist as he rocks them.

“This isn’t even a slow song,” Felix complains. 

“It’s the only way I can keep you here,” Sylvain says. “Besides, if Ingrid is off gallivanting around with beautiful women, it’s my job to be on Felix duty.”

Felix’s voice is low and deadly when he says, “What the hell is Felix duty?”

“Oh, you know. Making sure you don’t threaten to fight anyone or slink back to the hotel room. Tonight’s a big deal. You’ve got to be present.”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Felix says with deep annoyance. And then he says, even though it leaves a bad taste in his mouth, “Go dance with some woman if you really want to.”

Sylvain gives a self-conscious kind of laugh. “No, I’m good.”

Felix eyes him with suspicion. “What do you mean? Since when?”

“I dunno. I’d just rather spend time with you, I guess. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Are you sick?”

Sylvain laughs again. “No, okay! I’m just… re-evaluating my priorities.”

Felix narrows his eyes. “You’re being really weird today.”

Sylvain’s eyes seem impossibly bright. “I’m just finally being honest about what I want.”

“And what’s that?”

Sylvain winks. “Now that’s a secret.”

Felix rolls his eyes; the song ends, and Sylvain mercifully lets Felix pull away. “No more dancing,” he says firmly. 

“That’s fair,” Sylvain says. “C’mon, let’s go sit down. You want a drink?”

Sylvain brings them back something pink and bubbly, which Felix drinks anyway. It’s a little too sweet for his liking, but you can't taste the alcohol, which is dangerous. 

They drink and they talk—or rather, Sylvain talks. Felix is approaching his limit. 

Ingrid comes over and asks him to dance, which he declines because dancing with Sylvain was enough. She sticks her tongue out at him childishly and then asks Sylvain, who does agree. They leave Felix at the table, who listens to the chatter around him before deciding he needs another drink. 

He’s just ordered a gin and tonic and is waiting when he hears someone call his name, and his father comes up beside him. He flags down one of the bartenders and orders himself a gin and tonic, as well. Felix hates that they have the same taste in drinks. 

He wonders what Glenn would have ordered and then promptly puts it out of his mind. 

“I was wondering if you’d talked to Dimitri,” Rodrigue says. Felix snorts. 

“Straight to the point, huh Old Man?”

“It’s an important day, Felix. And I know how much he appreciates you being here.”

“Hmph. It’s none of your business.”

“Felix, please. Meet me halfway, here.”

And maybe it’s the influence of his damn friends, but Felix sighs. He takes his gin and tonic, tips the bartender, and then says, “Yeah, I talked to Dimitri.”

“Oh!” Much like Sylvain, Rodrigue seems entirely too pleased about this shitty olive branch. “That’s good, Felix, I’m glad. How did things go?”

“It was fine. I told him I’d text him.”

“That’s good. That’s really good. I’m really proud of you, Felix.”

Felix rolls his eyes and takes a sip of his drink. “Save it, Dad.” He moves away from the bar, but to his chagrin his father follows. 

“Felix… I know I haven’t always made the best decisions. And I know that after Glenn—”

Felix jolts. “Really? We’re doing this now?”

“Well when else are we supposed to do it, Felix? You don’t call. You don’t visit. When else am I supposed to talk to you?”

Guilt licks up Felix’s spine, because his father is right. He’s been pulling away from everyone. 

“Yeah, I know, Dad,” he says. “I—when we get back I’ll come over for dinner okay? I promise.”

Rodrigue studies him. “I would like that a lot, Felix.”

Someone calls Rodrigue’s name, and with a clap to Felix’s shoulder he turns around to meet them. Felix sighs and hightails it to his table. He’s having far too many life-altering conversations today. 

He sticks around for an impressive amount of time, if he’s being honest. He really puts up with it, even though all he wants to do is run back to the hotel room. But as soon as people start filtering out, Felix is done. 

“I’m going upstairs,” he says to Sylvain and Ingrid. “I’m exhausted.” Weddings were altogether too much, and he must look as shitty as he feels because neither of them argue. 

“Are you going to say goodbye to Dimitri?” Ingrid asks. Felix looks around and can’t find him in the crowd, so he shakes his head. 

“I’m not searching him out. I need to get out of here.” The walls are starting to close in. He needs to breathe. “Just tell him I said goodbye. And my father, too.”

“Okay,” Ingrid says. “Well, check-out is at eleven, but I’d like to be on the road by ten at the latest.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I’ll meet you in the lobby at 9:30.”

Ingrid surprises him by hugging him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck and crushing his body against hers. “I’m glad you came, Felix,” she says into his ear. He exchanges a look with Sylvain over her shoulder and then pats her on the back. 

“Yeah, okay,” he says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Ingrid lets him go and steps back. Felix nods at Sylvain and then hightails it the hell out of there. 

Felix heads up to his hotel room and changes out of his suit and into a pair of pyjamas. It takes him a while to unwind; he scrolls on his phone for a bit, snuggled up under the covers, until sleep finally claims him. 

He wakes up to a banging on his door. He groans and stumbles out of bed, flinging the door open to find Sylvain. 

He’s still in his suit, but his tie is undone and hanging loose around his neck, hair messy and disheveled. His eyes are bright as he looks at Felix. Felix rubs his eyes. 

“What?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“And it couldn’t wait until tomorrow?”

“Uh, not really?”

Felix sighs, but Sylvain looks serious, so he stands to the side. “Come in, then,” he says, and Sylvain slides in beside him into the hotel room.

Felix walks further into the room and leans against a wall, as Sylvain stands in the middle and rocks from foot to foot nervously. Felix yawns, stifling it with his hand, before he crosses his arms and says, “What’s got you like this?” 

“Remember earlier today, you asked me what I wanted? And I said it was a secret?”

“Yeah?”

“I want what Dimitri and Dedue have. I want someone like that. Someone who’s mine.”

“Okay? You have that with four different women a week, Sylvain.”

Sylvain sways on his feet a bit and laughs. “Yeah, okay, I deserved that. But that’s not what I mean. I mean someone real. Someone I actually love, who really loves me.”

“Right.” There’s a pit in his stomach; it had been bad enough when Sylvain was fucking around, just what he needed was to have Sylvain settle down. “And why are you telling me this?” And why did he have to wake him up just to break his heart more?

“Because I—fuck, I thought this would be easier. Because it’s you, Felix. I want that with you.”

Felix is certain he’s misheard. Or that this is some kind of cosmic joke. Or, more likely— “You’re drunk.”

“A little,” Sylvain admits. “Just enough to give me courage, not enough to not know what I’m doing.”

“Which is what? What are you trying to do?”

“Be honest about what I want. What I really want, for once.”

“Which is…”

“You.”

Felix shakes his head. “Sylvain…”

“Look, remember that promise we made when we were kids? To stick together until we die? I meant it then, and I mean it now. I know this seems like it’s coming out of nowhere, but I’ve been feeling like this for a long time now. It’s why none of those girls stuck. It’s why I don’t care about the hot waitress. It’s why I talked us into a two and a half day road trip in my shitty car with broken A/C. Because you were pulling away, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I missed you. And I realized tonight, watching Dimitri and Dedue, that I needed to tell you. So this is me. Telling you.”

Felix stares at him. “You’re being serious.”

“Dead fucking serious, Felix.”

“But you… how long?”

“A while,” Sylvain says. “Realized it when you started only calling on my birthday. How much I missed you. How much I needed you.”

Felix crosses over to the bed and sits down. He buries his head in his hands and takes a few deep, calming breaths. 

“Look, Felix, you don’t have to do anything. And I’m sorry if I’ve ruined things between us. But I—I needed to tell you. I needed to get it off my chest. I needed to take that chance.”

“What?” Felix looks up. “I’m completely in love with you, you moron. Obviously.”

“What do you mean obviously! How was I supposed to know? And don’t call me a moron when I’m confessing! I—wait, what? Really?”

“You’re the biggest fool I know,” Felix says scathingly. Sylvain grins stupidly at him. 

“For how long?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Felix mutters, because he’s not about to admit that it’s been more or less since he was a kid. Sylvain takes a step closer. 

“Oh come on, don’t be like that! You seriously feel the same?” 

“Would I lie about something like that?”

Sylvain looks absolutely giddy. “Well, what are we doing then! Stand up so I can kiss you.”

Felix blushes. “You can’t just force that! Idiot.”

“Felix, who between us has the most kissing experience?”

“It doesn’t matter, it needs to be… organic.”

“It’s not expensive food, Felix, it’s a kiss.”

“Okay, well! Your breath probably stinks like alcohol.”

“You’re really not going to let me kiss you?”

“Not yet.” He’s not totally sure why he’s holding off. Maybe because it’s late and he just woke up and Sylvain is drunk, no matter what he says, and Felix doesn’t want it to happen this way. He doesn’t need it to be special, necessarily, but maybe not quite so… scripted. And maybe there’s some part of him that doesn’t quite believe what Sylvain is saying, that thinks he’ll wake up in the morning and regret it.

“Unbelievable. What kind of love confession doesn’t end in a kiss?”

“Kiss me in the morning,” Felix says firmly. “After you’ve brushed your teeth.”

“You’re a tough one, Felix,” Sylvain says. “But fine. You better be ready for the best kiss of your life.”

Not that hard to do, if he’s being honest, but he’s not about to tell Sylvain that. Sylvain rubs the back of his neck. 

“Alright, well, tomorrow it is. I’ll let you get back to sleep, okay? And I’ll see you in the morning.”

He turns to go.

“Sylvain.”

He turns back maybe a little too quickly, something hopeful on his face. “Yeah?”

I love you. I’m sorry. There’s a million things Felix could say, should say, and he doesn’t know how to say any of it.

“Nothing,” he says. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

He doesn’t sleep. 

Of course he fucking doesn’t. He stays up for the rest of the night going over what happened, wondering if he’s hallucinated the whole thing, going over past interactions with Sylvain, and above all, wondering why the hell he didn’t let the idiot kiss him. Felix goes through every line, every word with a fine toothed comb to try and figure out what the hell just happened, and he comes up blank each time. 

By the time his alarm goes off he’s spent hours laying awake. He gets out of bed, grumbling, hops in the shower and brushes his teeth, and has just pulled on his comfortable spend-all-day-in-a-car clothes when there’s a knock on his door. 

It’s probably Ingrid, making sure he was up. He swings the door open without looking through the peep hole—

And is immediately pulled in, hands on his face, as Sylvain leans down and kisses him. 

Felix flails his arms momentarily before they settle on Sylvain’s waist, arching up slightly on his toes so Sylvain doesn't have to bend quite so much. Sylvain kisses him slowly, deeply, like he really means it, and Felix knows that despite all his misgivings, waiting was the right decision. 

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” a voice says, and they separate to see Ingrid standing in the hallway with her arms crossed, studying them with an unimpressed expression. “This is going to make my life even more difficult, isn’t it?”

Sylvain turns towards her and then stops. “Ingrid Brandl Galatea,” he says. “Is that a hickey on your neck?”

Felix’s eyes drop and sure enough, there’s a dark red spot just under the hinge of her jaw. He raises an eyebrow. 

“Amazing,” Sylvain says. “You beautiful slut.”

“Oh shut up,” Ingrid snaps, flipping her hood up, which does nothing to hide the mark. Sylvain cackles and throws an arm around both her and Felix’s shoulders. 

“Come on, my friends,” he says grandly. “The open road awaits us. The wind in our hair! Disney’s best hits!”

“I’m choosing the music this time,” Felix says. Sylvain grins at him. 

“That’s a boyfriend privilege, so I’ll allow it.”

Felix flushes bright red and looks away.

“Oh, gag,” Ingrid says. “I’m going home with Rodrigue.”

“Oh come on, Ingrid. Who will yell at us when we have to pee if you don’t come?”

Ingrid and Sylvain start to bicker as the three of them head down to the lobby. Sylvain slips a hand into his, and with the familiar sound of the two of them going back and forth, they set out. 

Felix has a feeling the ride back will be way better.