Work Text:
“Whatever mistake I make, you’ll always forgive me, won’t you, Felix?”
Mere minutes from sleep, Felix doesn’t even open his eyes. He doesn’t need to look to know that Sylvain is sitting in his chair, hiding out in his room for the night yet again. He’s used to this — Sylvain filling the air with his idle talk in the most inopportune times.
Felix sighs, not bothering to guess at what kind of frivolous thoughts were running through Sylvain’s head. “Yes,” he answers in a mumble, burying his face in his pillow, hardly even entertaining the thought that Sylvain could ever do anything unforgivable before he falls asleep.
-
Sylvain’s late transfer to the Black Eagles doesn’t come as a surprise. If anything, it’s more surprising he had held out for this long with the new professor heading the house; his fellow classmates joke that it was only a matter of time before Sylvain followed, chasing after women as he always did. They’re still friends anyway — Sylvain still visits them in their classroom, loitering like he never left, but even Felix will admit to noticing something different, how Sylvain moves with a newfound determination.
“He’s changed,” Ingrid says to him quietly, when they see Sylvain talking to Edelgard in the courtyard, and Felix doesn’t say a word when Sylvain’s gaze meets his, just for a moment, before he turns away.
-
It’s raining when Felix sees Sylvain again at the Tailtean Plains, fighting among the Adrestian forces. After five years of war, Felix is no stranger to killing, has made his peace with taking the lives of those he once called friends; the last of his bloodline, he follows the whims of a vengeful beast that can hardly be called a man, no longer knowing what it is he’s fighting for, why he’s fighting, only the familiar motions of fighting, of killing keeping him on this path. Through the downpour, Sylvain rides his horse, the Lance of Ruin in his hand glowing faintly against his dark armor, and it feels wrong to be relieved to see him alive, feels wrong to see him, of all people, on the other side of the battlefield —
Felix fights, cutting down the soldiers in front of him, refusing to let Sylvain distract him. If Sylvain comes for him, he’ll fight, but for now, he needs to focus on what his blade can reach — uncertain when the Knights of Seiros will arrive, he needs to kill as many as he can, hold ground for as long as he can for —
For what?
Gritting his teeth and discarding his useless doubt, Felix blocks a swinging sword, the blade screeching against his own, catching against the guard. He loses his footing in the mud, forced onto one knee as the soldier bears his weight down on him. His muscles ache as he struggles to hold, his grip slipping as the rain falls harder; out of the corner of his eye, he can see Sylvain running toward him, Lance of Ruin in hand. Felix would never go down without a fight, not even against Sylvain — faced with his impending death, he finds a morbid thrill in having the chance to test his mettle against a Holy Relic. With a guttural yell, Felix shoves hard and slashes open the soldier’s throat, but he can’t turn, can’t regain his footing fast enough, can’t lift his sword in time — he sees the Lance of Ruin glowing bright against the dark sky —
Finds himself yanked forward, his jaw colliding against Sylvain’s armor, the Lance swinging past him, shattering the armor of an Adrestian knight about to strike him in the back and embedding the Lance into their chest, ripping them open —
The Adrestian soldiers nearby see it happen, begin to shout to the others to target Sylvain. Gripping tight to his sword, Felix stabs the closest one, throws a spell at one of his own soldiers trying to get a shot in at Sylvain while he’s vulnerable, while Sylvain fights off his former allies. Against the two of them together, none of the soldiers stands a chance at surviving.
A distant horn sounds from the side of the Adrestian Empire, signalling another rally of reinforcements. The survivors have already begun to retreat, intending to return with their second wave, and there’s no doubt they’ll report to their officers that Sylvain has turned on them. His own battalion now wiped out, leaving him alone on the battlefield, Felix turns when he hears Sylvain whistle, his horse emerging through the fog. The Lance of Ruin is left buried in a corpse as Sylvain climbs onto his horse; Felix only watches, wondering if this is supposed to be his chance to strike, but his hands hang useless at his sides, gripping his sword loosely as he breathes heavily, suddenly exhausted, knowing a lost battle when he sees one. He doesn’t know who else is left alive, doesn’t know if help will come. For all he knows, all that’s left for him to do is to wait to die.
But Sylvain doesn’t leave him. Their eyes finally meet for the first time in five years. When Felix looks at Sylvain, he should see an enemy, but all he sees is the weary face of someone he once trusted with his life. In the distance, metal clashes against metal amongst the roar of demonic beasts and screams of soldiers. The rain patters against Sylvain’s armor, the puddles of blood in the mud. The world narrows to the space between them, to the hand Sylvain holds out to him, waiting.
Felix takes it.
-
“Did you always hate me too?”
Sylvain looks up from the small fire between them. Felix watches him from the other side, cautious, his swords still within reach at his side.
“For my Crest.”
“No,” Sylvain answers, the first thing he’s said to Felix since Felix last saw him before the attack at Garreg Mach.
“Then what made you do all of this?”
The fire flickers in Sylvain’s eyes as Sylvain huffs a laugh. “Did your Crest ever give you what you wanted?”
Felix thinks of Miklan, who cursed Sylvain and his Crest with his last breath before he turned into a demonic beast, of himself still not being enough for his father, unable to live up to the memory of his brother despite his efforts.
“Edelgard said she and the professor would build a world where your blood didn’t decide your worth,” Sylvain tells him. “I believed in that.”
“And here I thought you just wanted to bed them.”
Sylvain huffs another laugh, sardonic, but doesn’t rise to his bait. Felix tugs his cloak tighter around his shoulders.
“So you betrayed your country for that, but you won’t strike me down to see it through.”
Sylvain tosses some more kindling into the fire, nudging at them with a stick, before he glances at him over the flames. “No.”
Felix scoffs. “Coward.”
“What’s your excuse for not killing me?”
Felix glares, not saying another word as Sylvain smiles, though it drops as quickly as it came, silence falling between them once again. What they did was unforgivable, but the alternative was impossible to consider.
-
The Adrestian Empire advances north to take Fhirdiad, so they head south, deeper into Adrestian territory — the chance of being found is too high in Faerghus and the takeover of the Leicester Alliance would mean the cities would likely be scoured for any signs of resistance.
They make it to one of the smaller port cities, just busy enough for them to blend in. Felix easily finds a position with the local guard, the city desperate to replace the number they had lost to the war, and Sylvain picks up work with a merchant, who directs them to an abandoned cottage where they can take up residence.
The cottage is full of dust and rotting wood, but it’s habitable. It’s the best option they could have been given — isolated, unassuming, far enough from the city that no one would have reason to stop by.
Felix doesn’t take the time to survey the cottage, doesn’t wait for the wry comment or joke Sylvain will inevitably make; he picks a room and walks into it, closing the door behind him. He hears Sylvain’s footsteps a few moments later, heading toward the other room, the door creaking shut. He sheds what’s left of his armor, the rest having been discarded along the way as to not get recognized, stripping down to one layer before picking up his cloak. The bed is stiff and musty, but it’s better than sleeping on the ground.
He lies down, curling up underneath his cloak, waiting, but the weight of it all still doesn’t sink in.
-
“Who lives here with you?”
Bleary-eyed from sleep, Felix looks at the guard at his door, illuminated faintly by a dim lantern hanging by their door. He’s not one of their local ones, his armor unmarred and of higher quality steel. “Another guard,” Felix lies easily. “He’s on his shift now.”
The guard peers over his shoulder. “Mind if I take a look around?”
By now, Felix knows how guards think, deciding it would be less trouble to simply let him in. Sylvain isn’t home, having returned to his old habits, his job giving him ample opportunity to meet and flirt with the women who only stayed a night or two near port before leaving for the next leg of their journey. Felix stays by the door while the guard walks through the cottage, looking through their rooms — Sylvain had taken the time to repair the worst of the damage so the cottage almost looks presentable, if only a little sparse. It was a good thing they weren’t sentimental, having burned all of their old belongings, getting rid of their last connection to their old lives, save for each other.
“Who are you looking for?” Felix asks as the guard returns to the front door.
The guard steps out, pausing, looking around and at him with a critical eye before apparently deciding Felix has passed muster. “A deserter. The former heir of House Gautier.”
He had guessed as much. Felix is lucky the guard doesn’t recognize him, though he supposes the Adrestian Empire wouldn’t be looking for him anyway. “I see,” Felix says.”The Emperor must be keen on bringing him to justice.”
The guard scratches his neck. “To be honest with you, I don’t think we’ll find him, especially not here. What kind of fool would desert in the middle of a battle and run straight toward the people who'll be looking for him? He could be in Sreng for all we know,” the guard gripes with a sigh. “But I was ordered to look around any dwellings I passed while on patrol. I’ll take a look around the city, but I doubt a former noble is hiding out and stirring up rebellion among fishmongers.”
Felix offers a bland smile while the guard laughs at his own joke. As if on cue, a shadow in the distance emerges over the guard’s shoulder — Sylvain trudging down the path home. By the time Sylvain looks up, meeting Felix’s gaze, it’s too late; the guard has heard his footsteps, turning around before Felix can speak.
The guard squints, his eyes widening as he fumbles for his sword. “You—”
The rest of his words are drowned out by the sound of gurgling blood. Felix lets go of his head and pushes him forward, the guard collapsing to the ground, twitching once, twice as blood rushes from his slit throat. He wipes the bloodied dagger on the dead guard’s tunic before he returns the dagger to the sheath nailed beside the door. He looks up to meet Sylvain’s gaze, unreadable.
They don’t say a word, another sin to add between them.
-
Felix still trains, though only just enough to keep his skills sharp, having lost any motivation to improve beyond that — any sort of renown would be a detriment to their lives now. When he’s not working or training with the other guards, Felix instead spends his time — and most of his coin — drinking alone, brushing off invitations from the other guards, bringing bottles from the tavern home on the way back from his shift.
There are worse ways to waste away; at least he has the luxury of drinking himself numb. Living with Sylvain is easy, the way it’s easy to live with someone familiar, but they move around each other, hardly speaking, passing like strangers, every glance feeling like blame, their existence in each other’s lives reminders of the decision they made. Every now and then, in a moment of clarity, Felix wonders why he even stays, only to remember there’s nowhere for him to go that will be any better.
Felix reaches for the flagon of wine Sylvain had brought home a few days ago, gifted to him by the merchant for the upcoming holiday, pouring a little more into his goblet, the flagon rattling against the table. He drinks, the sweet wine running warm through his body, watching the fire crackling on the hearth. Sometimes he wonders what Sylvain would do if he returned to find him gone. He drinks again, tipping his head back, wine dripping down his chin, smelling the alcohol on his own breath as he sighs, refilling his goblet again. He wonders if Sylvain would even care to look for him.
He jerks, blinking awake without realizing he had fallen asleep, at the shock of being touched — he looks up to see Sylvain, having returned without him noticing, his hand on his, catching it before the goblet could fall out of his loose grip and spill wine all over the floor. “I think that’s enough for tonight,” Sylvain says softly, pulling the goblet out of his hand and setting it on the table, taking the wine to put it away in the cupboard.
When Sylvain returns to him, Felix hasn’t moved from the chair, too tired or too drunk to care. Sylvain sighs. Felix doesn’t protest when Sylvain pulls him up out of the chair, bracing against him before tucking an arm under his knees, lifting him easily and carrying him to his room. His head against Sylvain’s shoulder, Felix can smell the perfume on Sylvain’s skin, the sickly sweetness making his stomach turn. Pushing open the door of Felix’s bedroom, Sylvain carefully walks around the empty ale bottles littering the floor and places him down on the bed, pulling the blanket over him.
There’s a soft brush against his cheek; when he meets Sylvain’s gaze, Felix expects to see pity, disgust, but all Sylvain shows on his face is worry as he brushes his hair out of his face. Sylvain’s fingers linger on the ends of Felix’s hair, shortened and uneven from the time Felix had tried to cut it in a drunken fit of anger and Sylvain had done his best to fix it.
After a few moments, Sylvain pulls away, turning to leave. It should be a relief for him to go, but Felix finds himself catching his wrist before he can stop himself. Sylvain pauses, looking back at him, letting Felix pull him back, sitting on the edge of his bed. Felix lifts his hand to touch Sylvain’s face, cradling his cheek, cold from the long walk home in the night air. He pushes his thumb across Sylvain’s lips, traces of red rubbing off onto the pad of his thumb. His fingers curl.
“I should kill you,” Felix says hoarsely, his nails digging crescents into Sylvain’s cheek.
Sylvain lowers his gaze, leaning into Felix’s hand. “You should,” he agrees as Felix slowly drags his hand down, leaving behind angry red streaks.
Felix’s chest rises and falls as he breathes unsteadily. “I should leave you.”
Sylvain’s gaze meets his again and he catches Felix’s wrist before Felix can pull away, Sylvain’s grip gentle but firm. “Don’t,” he whispers, a plea.
It shouldn’t give him pleasure, hearing that. Felix knows this is jealousy, loneliness, knows it is years of missing him and months of being close but not close enough, but he can’t find a reason not to want anymore, not to be selfish when he’s already made the most selfish choice of all.
“If you wanted to leave, you could’ve let that guard take me,” Sylvain says, the first time he’s mentioned it since that night, since he took the body and rode to the next town over, disposing of it in a pigpen. “You didn’t.”
Felix slides his hand to the back of Sylvain’s neck, his fingers running through the soft hair at the nape. “I wanted you to owe me,” Felix admits as he pulls Sylvain in, lifting his head to meet Sylvain’s lips, the taste of alcohol mixing with the taste of waxy lip paint. He lets his head fall back on the pillow as Sylvain follows, leaning down to kiss him again and again, each kiss growing more desperate, like he’s been waiting for him to give in.
“I know,” Sylvain breathes against his lips, his thumb pressing against his bottom lip as his tongue curls against his, kissing him sweetly, like they were lovers meeting again after spending years apart. Perhaps they were. He sheds his clothes, tugs Felix out of his — Felix yanks him down, climbing on top of him, shivering at the feeling of a bare body against his. “I’ll give you anything,” he promises breathlessly as Felix kisses him again, moaning as Felix bites his lip hard enough to draw blood, crimson staining their lips, the metallic tang headier than the sweetest wine as he soothes the wound with his tongue.
“Give me everything,” Felix begs, Sylvain’s fingers already tangling in his hair, his hand pressing his hips down against his.
They move like they’re having the fight they should have had, Felix drawing Sylvain’s blood, Sylvain bruising his body; it satisfies him, the way Sylvain touches him like Felix already belongs to him, pinning his wrists to the bed as he marks his body with his teeth and whispers his name into his skin like he’s something to be cherished, the pain smoothing over the jagged edge of guilt, the shame of living. It shouldn’t feel so good to have Sylvain’s traitorous mouth on him as he takes him, makes love to him, to be wanted, finally, but it does.
It should be easy to leave, easy to end this, but the thought of never seeing Sylvain again feels too much like punishment, the thought of sliding a blade between Sylvain’s ribs too much like piercing his own heart.
-
All things, even guilt, fade. Sometimes things feel normal, Sylvain smiling when Felix comes home, teasing him about his guard uniform, Felix retorting, biting back a little, like the way they used to rib each other. They slowly settle into their new life, working and earning the food on their table. Sylvain devotes himself to Felix, no longer going out at night, no longer coming home with the smell of strangers lingering on his clothes, and Felix finds less reason to drink, Sylvain happy to serve as his new distraction, as something to do in his idle time. They bring home gifts for each other, teas and books, the occasional treat when merchants from the north come to port when the memory of home no longer feels cold.
Sometimes they sit together and talk and it almost feels like they’re not trying to talk around the war, the things they did, the friends they abandoned. It doesn’t matter to them who sits on the throne. In their new life, they have each other and that’s all that matters.
-
Sometimes, Felix dreams of the past — of him and Sylvain when they were younger, with Dimitri and Ingrid, back when things were easier, when war was only a story their fathers told them about. He dreams of the last memory he has of them, of Dimitri and his growing, spiralling madness, Dedue dragging them all down into it, Ingrid and her steadfast, sunken-eyed gaze. In his dreams, he hears Annette’s songs again, sung in her small shaking voice, sees Mercedes holding her dead brother, Ashe dying the way the knights did in those stories he loved. Sometimes he even dreams of his family, his father and brother, wonders if they would be disappointed that he didn’t choose to die for the person they had chosen to die for.
“What are you thinking about?” Sylvain asks, his arm resting on Felix’s waist as his fingers trail up and down his spine. Felix is used to it now, sharing a bed with Sylvain, Sylvain holding him like he’s afraid Felix will try to leave the moment he takes his eyes off of him, and Felix is grateful for it. Felix holds him tighter too, tucking his head under his chin, their bodies fitting like they belong together.
“Nothing,” Felix answers because it will be true soon enough. News reaches them slowly this far from the capital, cities they once knew and visited in their youth now conquered, casualties growing as rebellions are crushed underfoot. It’s easier to not think about the things they can no longer change. He feels Sylvain’s lips press against his forehead, looks up to meet his gaze, sincere and adoring.
“I would do anything for you,” Sylvain says, tracing his lips with his fingers. “You know that, don’t you?”
Felix kisses his fingertips. “Yes.”
It’s easy, natural even, to fall into bed with Sylvain; Sylvain has taken him countless times now, has his body trained with a kiss on his neck, a soft touch of his hand, and Felix finds no reason not to give in to his want. Felix rolls onto his back to let Sylvain pleasure him with his mouth, lets him slip his fingers inside him, lets him pull him into his lap. Sylvain is all he has now and Felix won’t deny him, wouldn’t want to anyway. It feels too good to have Sylvain inside him, to kiss him, to wake up beside him every day, even though he knows happiness is the last thing he deserves.
“I love you, Felix,” Sylvain confesses, pressing frantic kisses against his lips as they move together. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too, Sylvain,” Felix gasps, his fingers buried in Sylvain’s sweat-damp hair, curling into fists as he comes.
Sylvain smiles but it’s wrong, not reaching his eyes, his brow drawn tight in the middle. “You don’t,” Sylvain says softly, blamelessly, even as he strokes his cheek, even as Felix whines and pulls him in for a kiss, then another. “Not after all of this. Not after everything I’ve done.”
Felix closes his eyes, presses his forehead against Sylvain’s, his chest winding tighter with every stolen breath he takes. “I do."
Sylvain tucks Felix’s hair behind his ear, brushing his lips against the shell of it. “I betrayed everyone for a world where I could choose you,” he admits, kissing his neck, the marks he’s left on him.
Felix thinks of the promises they made and broke, to their friends, to their families, to their country, leaving only the promises they kept to each other. “I know.”
Sylvain’s hands cradle his face, his thumbs gently wiping away the tears slipping from the corners of his eyes, dripping down his cheeks. “And you still love me?”
“I do,” Felix whispers brokenly, feeling Sylvain’s knife-sharp smile pressing against his lips, and the worst thing is that it’s true.
-
“He’s changed,” Ingrid once told him, but the truth is Felix knows, had known the moment Sylvain looked at him across the courtyard that day, his eyes always seeming to find him wherever he goes, that this is who Sylvain has always been.