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“Hey, Felix, I thought you were all tucked in and sleeping like a baby for the night. Professor Manuela’s orders and all.”
Sylvain’s voice sets him on edge. Adrenaline had carried him to the training grounds from the infirmary, but he’s tired and worn out and the check-in had called back the stench of the battlefield in vivid detail, the gash in his side still showing jagged from that—beast’s—swipe. The last thing he wants is a frivolous chat here, where his mind should be clear and emptied.
“Obviously not,” Felix says.
“Aren’t you like, supposed to take it easy?” Sylvain sidles up by the nearest pillar, hand at his hip, his eyebrows raised.
It had been Sylvain’s brother, at some point, before it was a mindless thing for them to cut down. He can’t tell if Sylvain had accepted the fact that there was nothing left of him in it. Miklan had chosen his own foolish path, though. And he had paid for it.
“Man, guess there really is nothing in your head except weapons and training, huh. I miss when you were sweet.”
“Sylvain. What do you want.”
“Wow, cold reception. Can’t a guy just come to check up on his friend?”
He’s starting to be convinced that Sylvain only ever drops by the training grounds to annoy him, specifically. But his focus is shot and he’s starting to feel the protest of the injuries still knitting themselves back together from that damned mission, so he’s ready to call it a night. Sylvain showing up in a mood just hurried it along.
“I’m done here. If you’re going to train you can do it alone.”
“Naw, hey, Felix,” Sylvain calls after him. “—give me a moment, okay?”
Felix doesn’t give him a moment, but he doesn’t quicken his pace when Sylvain falls in step next to him as they head back towards the dorms. Sylvain is quiet, for the time being, but he’s smiling blandly and something about it is making Felix’s gut uneasy— something about Sylvain all day has been pissing him off in a way he’s really not in the mood to deal with.
Sylvain doesn’t stop trailing him when they get to his door, and he pushes in behind Felix without waiting for a rejection or an invitation, so Felix just ignores him and goes about unwrapping and rewrapping the compression bandage supporting his injured arm. Sylvain, straddling the chair at his desk, says, “You always look so tense now, Felix.”
Felix, sitting down on his bed to pull off his boots, frowns at him.
“Don’t you ever want to release some tension?”
“What are you going on about, Sylvain.” Felix says, mostly rhetorical.
Scratching his cheek, Sylvain gets up and steps toward him. “You really don’t get what I mean, huh. Little slow on the uptake there, Felix. I’ll just show you.”
With a little smirk, Sylvain’s suddenly crouching down in front of him, hands on his knees to push them apart as he crowds in to his space, and his face is craning up in Felix’s direction.
It doesn’t register at first. Felix, dumbly, stares at the stretch of cheek in front of him and it takes a moment to catch up to the fact that it’s Sylvain’s lips that are pressed against his. Sylvain’s fingers squeeze against his knees and there’s the brush of something damp and warm against the crease of his mouth, and he realizes it’s Sylvain’s tongue.
Sylvain’s always doing this, he thinks, thoughts gone slow. He’s always been the one saying ‘hey I’ve got an idea’ and leading them both into stupid and reckless things, and Felix, never one to back down from a challenge and always—loathe as he it is to admit it these days—willing to follow Sylvain’s lead, follows him.
Ingrid always yells at them.
Felix shoves Sylvain off.
“Ouch,” Sylvain mutters but Felix isn’t looking at him, trying to sort out what the hell is happening.
“Do you even—,” like men, Felix’s brain helpfully supplies. He grimaces. “—nevermind.”
He’s not having this conversation with Sylvain. They don’t talk about stuff like that—it’s unsaid territory, shoved in with other feelings Felix never wants to touch again, and he’s always respected that Sylvain, at least, didn’t try to push any of it. Felix doesn’t pay any attention to girls and it was never supposed to matter, because he wasn’t an heir—was never supposed to be an heir. Sylvain was.
Sylvain is gingerly touching a finger to his lip. It’s bleeding. “Hey I know you’re surprised and all, but you took a chunk out of my lip there and that’s not very sexy.”
“Fuck off,” Felix snaps. He frowns down at him. “You deserved it.”
Sylvain shrugs and regards him from the floor, and a slow smile starts to spread across his face, bloodied lip gleaming with it. “Oh, I see,” he says. “It’s because of His Highness, isn’t it?”
Felix, very suddenly, wants to do a lot more damage to him than an accidental bloody lip. He digs his fingers into the palms of his hands and doesn’t lunge at Sylvain.
“Get out,” he grits out.
“Man, you keep calling him the boar, didn’t think you meant it like that, don’t tell me you’re still nursing that schoolboy crush on him…”
“Get out,” Felix snarls.
“Oh no,” Sylvain says, getting to his feet, still smiling that bloody smile. “Did I hit a nerve? You really should do something to release some of that tension, Felix. It’s not healthy to keep it all bottled up inside like that.”
“What, like you?” Felix snaps, disdain punctuating his words. “I’m not an inveterate womanizer.”
“Hey,” Sylvain says. “I’m just really good at relieving tension.”
“I’m done here,” Felix says, throwing his hands up. He’s completely done with this. Whatever’s going on with Sylvain, it’s not his problem. “Get out. Go bother someone else with your idiocy.”
“What happened to that awful temper of yours, Felix? Not even going to throw a punch? You think I can take all those mean words of yours but not that?”
“Whatever.” Felix says, and turns his back on Sylvain.
The room hangs in thick silence for a long moment, Felix’s blood still humming in agitation, instincts wildly telling him not to turn his back on an enemy. Then Sylvain mutters, “You’re no fun.”
The door shuts behind him. Felix is left with the disorienting, nauseating feeling that something has gone very wrong.
***
Footsteps pass her room and then stop, pause, and reverse back to her door, a shadow casting over the strip of light from the hall. Ingrid looks up from her book.
There’s a quick one-two rap of knuckles against wood, and then the door creaks fully open. Sylvain steps inside with the usual grin on his face. “Fancy seeing you here, Ingrid.”
“This is my room, Sylvain,” she says, eyeing him. “Is your lip bleeding?”
“Uh, yeah.” He thumbs at it and winces when it comes away bloody. “It’s not important. Anyway, I thought you’d still be out at the dining hall. Isn’t it sweet buns night?”
Ingrid raises an eyebrow at him. “And I thought you’d be out hitting on poor unsuspecting women.”
“Not tonight,” Sylvain says cheerfully, with an edge to his voice. It makes her frown. Sylvain is… hard to read, when he wants to be, but she’s also known him long enough to pick up on some of these things. “Tonight I’m all yours.”
“You want to study? I’m surprised.” She’d moved on to more recreational reading, but she sets her book aside and starts gathering together her notes. “It’s not like you to actually commit. To anything, actually.”
“Ingrid! You always have such harsh words for me. No, I was thinking about something else, entirely.” He steps over to her and cheerfully pries the papers from her grasp and taps them into order before placing them back on the desk.
His hands reach down and wrap around hers, warm and calloused and larger than she remembers, and he tugs her to her feet in one smooth motion.
“Have I ever told you how incredibly attractive it is that you’re so dedicated?”
“Sylvain…” She looks up at him. He tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, and leans in.
He kisses her surprisingly softly. Ingrid wonders if this is how it feels for all the women who think he’s going to sweep them off their feet, like a true knight from an old tale, in those brief trysts before he discards them for the next. They always seem so enchanted with him. For a long, strange moment, as Sylvain’s hand slides gently under her braid, she wants to pretend this is something other than it is.
Of course, as she knows too well now, reality is nothing like the tales. She presses his hand back to his chest and lets go of it, stepping back until there’s a respectful distance between them again. “What are you doing?”
“Isn’t it a little weird,” Sylvain says with a step forward, tone light, “how you’re always cleaning up for me with all those girls. Smoothing things over, always following after me and lecturing—maybe you want to be one of them instead, huh?”
“Wow, unbelievable.” Ingrid says, flatly. Her heart’s thudding heavily in her ears and it makes something in her chest go tight and painful. She feels... incredibly sad for him. “I didn’t think even you would stoop that low, Sylvain.”
He sneers at her, that grimace he’s hiding behind a smile that she can’t even begin to take at face value. “What, would it be better if you closed your eyes and thought of Glenn? Bet you could picture Felix, if it’s getting hard to picture him, he’s looking more and more like him these days, though I doubt you could get him to kiss you—turns out he’s already got someone else in mind, which might be even more hopeless than pining after a gho—”
Her palm stings with the force behind her slap. Sylvain’s hand goes up to touch his cheek immediately, and he starts to laugh.
“I kind of liked that.” He looks down at her balled fists. “You gonna do it again?”
She knows he’s suffering. She knows what happened with Miklan… that horrifying thing, that they’re all supposed to somehow put out of their heads like it wasn’t Sylvain’s brother they’d taken down. Hearing him now, she can remember Sylvain’s brittle scoff of laughter as the Professor briefed them on the archbishop’s decision that no details of the mission should go any further than those in the room, and how everyone’s heads had swiveled toward him and he’d looked surprised like he hadn’t even realized he’d been laughing.
“This is so inappropriate, Sylvain.”
She knows he’s suffering. But he’s always taking other people down with him, and Ingrid didn’t expect how painful it would feel when it finally happened to her.
“Man, you’re no fun either. Won’t even throw a punch at a guy being a total asshole. Isn’t there something in the knight’s code about protecting one’s dignity?”
He knows, of course. She’s positive he has the whole code memorized, same as her. She steps past him and holds open the door, refusing to break his gaze as she waits.
“Sylvain… please, leave, before either of us does anything more that we’ll regret. I don’t want to fight, but I’m so angry with you right now.”
“Aw, Ingrid—”
“Sylvain.” She warns.
“All right, all right, you’re really…” He throws his hands up. “Whatever. Fine. I’m going.”
He makes a big show of leaving, stepping around her with his hands still up.
She shuts the door and stares at the grain of the wood for a long moment. Maybe this was always coming. After all, it wasn’t so different from anything that Sylvain’s done before. It just... why did he bring up Glenn? Why did he kiss her?
Why did he turn that vicious, awful thing on her, when all she’s tried to do is stop it from eating him alive?
****
The knock at Dimitri’s door comes while he’s in the middle of returning his correspondence, the words swimming in front of him, nearly incomprehensible at this late hour, though he feels wide awake. The distraction is a welcome relief, and he opens the door feeling a little bemused, wondering if Dedue had forgotten something when he’d taken his leave earlier and retired to his own room at Dimitri’s insistence.
He’s honestly not expecting Sylvain. “Hey, Your Highness,” Sylvain says.
His lip is scabbed and his cheek seems to be bruising, the skin red and angry. Dimitri stares at him in dismay, quickly followed by a familiar exasperated disappointment. “Sylvain… don’t tell me you’ve offended a date, again.”
Sylvain touches his cheek and laughs. “Something like that.”
He cranes his head to look past Dimitri into the room and then steals a glance back down the hall. “Look, can I come in? I’m feeling kinda weird just standing in the hall out here.”
“Oh! Of course, sorry, come in.” Dimitri steps back and ushers him in, then closes the door behind them and looks around the room. “Please ignore the mess, I’ve been—unable to settle this evening.”
Sylvain shrugs, barely glancing around, and then fixes him with an unusually intense look. “Look, I’m having a weird night, I’m sure you’re having a weird night.”
“Whatever are you talking about, Sylvain?” Dimitri asks, surprised.
“Come on, Your Highness, I sleep right next door, I know you’re not exactly sleeping pretty over there most of the time. I can hear you.”
Dimitri carefully stops himself from reacting. He clears his throat. “Sylvain, I—”
Sylvain waves a hand, cutting him off. “Don’t worry about it, I’m not here to motherhen you. That’s more your style than mine, anyway. I was just thinking, you’re pretty uptight and all. Maybe if you, like, loosened up, knocked one out,” he punctuates this with what Dimitri is quite sure is a rather obscene gesture, “you’d sleep better.”
“If this is about getting me to go,” Dimitri frowns, “consorting with women with you, I’m afraid my answer is still going to be the same, and honestly, I think you should reconsider your activities, as well.”
“Not here for the lecture, man. No, I was thinking of something a little different.” He steps closer. “I could help you out.”
“Sylvain, what are you suggesting…?” Sylvain steps forward, that intense look still on his face, and slides his hands around Dimitri’s jaw, drawing him in and pressing their mouths together. This is certainly something different than his previous propositions, Dimitri thinks.
Well. If this is what Sylvain needs, he’s happy to assist him with it, rather than let him go out and make a terrible decision with someone who will be hurt in the morning. It’s the least he can do. He puts a hand on Sylvain’s shoulder, trying to come across reassuring.
Sylvain walks back until his knees hit the bed, Dimitri drawn with him, and he’s worried he’s going to knock the air out of him if Sylvain pulls him down on top of him, but Sylvain just shifts and tugs him onto the bed instead, then crowds over him. Dimitri feels clumsy in this, his mouth sliding against Sylvain’s, not really sure if there’s supposed to be some sort of rhythm to it, and Sylvain slips a hand underneath his sleep shirt—making him flinch in surprise. He pulls back, his hand still casually splayed across Dimitri’s stomach.
“You kiss like a dead fish,” he says, and he sounds almost impressed about it.
“Sylvain!“ Dimitri starts, feeling somewhat indignant. “Excuse me if I have not had the exper—”
“Nevermind,” Sylvain replies, cutting him off. “It doesn’t matter, after all, we’re just trying to forget together, right?”
“I don’t—?”
Sylvain kisses him again, rough and open-mouthed and Dimitri’s not sure what to do with it so he just lets Sylvain go about it, watching him.
“Come on,” Sylvain mutters against his mouth. “Put your hands on me.”
It takes Dimitri a moment to gather what he’s said. “Ah, how—?” He carefully wraps his hands around Sylvain’s sides, unsure if this is where they’re supposed to go. Sylvain’s hand slides further up his shirt.
“Yeah, like that. Come on, harder, grab me harder.” Dimitri tightens his grip and Sylvain groans, the sound reverberating strangely this close to Dimitri’s ear.
“You’re so fucking strong, I bet you could—” Dimitri experimentally clutches harder and Sylvain whimpers. Suddenly, Dimitri feels very young and very scared. He isn’t—this isn’t— “Sylvain? What do you want me to do?”
Sylvain freezes. “Gods, you sounded just like when we were—” he pulls his hand from Dimitri’s shirt and reaches up to tug jokingly at his collar. “Come on, why are you sounding so young, you know I’ve got this kind of thing in the bag.”
“It’s not—“ Dimitri looks closer at Sylvain and flinches. “Your lip—did I do that?”
Sylvain grins around it, something shaky in it, the blood on his lip catching Dimitri’s attention and making him feel dizzy and unsure. He leans in to kiss Dimitri again, Dimitri watching his eyes squeeze shut and looking out at the strange, mottling color of his bruising cheek up close. Sylvain slides a knee between his legs and presses up against him and Dimitri jolts—hands gripping hard against Sylvain’s sides.
“Oh fuck, that hurt,” Sylvain groans. Dimitri can’t breathe. “Hey. Hey, hey, Your Highness, it’s cool, I was into it—shit.”
He sits back, staring at Dimitri, and wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. Dimitri, unthinkingly, mirrors it and wipes his own mouth. His hand comes away a little bloody. Sylvain makes an indistinguishable noise in the back of his throat, and his face suddenly breaks into an expression Dimitri’s never seen on him before.
“Gods, Dimitri, you—” he’s running a hand across his face, clutching at his own jaw with a kind of distracted horror. “You deserve like, cute clumsy rutting with your dearly beloved, not my shi—this shouldn’t be ruined for you too.” He laughs, and drags his hand down to his neck. “What’s wrong with me? What the hell. I shouldn’t ruin you too, Goddess, any of you. You were always so meek and pure… I always knew better, about everything, but I—”
“Sylvain,” Dimitri says, feeling baffled and disoriented, caught now between a bubble of panic and a strange sense of calm. His friend is clearly in need of help, but he cannot figure out how he is injured. “Did I hurt you?”
“What?”
“When I—did I hurt you?” He doesn’t reach out to touch him, cautious of his own hands, and Sylvain leans back. He squeezes his eyes shut and breathes in, a deep breath, and then looks down at Dimitri.
“Here’s the funny thing, Your Highness. You were, of course, a perfect gentleman.” Sylvain’s hand grips harder around the side of his neck and he mutters, “something I’ve never been a day in my life. I just—look, let’s just forget about this, okay? You’re clearly not into it, I’m not feeling it, it was a bad idea.”
“Please, don’t—” Dimitri looks around, helplessly. “Don’t leave. I was going to help you. I’m afraid you may make... questionable decisions without me.”
Sylvain bites out a laugh. He reaches down and tugs Dimitri’s shirt back down his waist and then shifts off of him, standing up and running a hand through his hair. “You’re a wreck too, you know, Your Highness. Sorry I can’t seem to figure out what to do about it.”
Dimitri sits up. He doesn’t quite catch what Sylvain’s said, still feeling a bit disoriented, still trying to remember what he was supposed to be doing. Ah, right. Sylvain was going to make a bad decision if he doesn’t stop him.
“Of course. Sylvain, remember we have drills early tomorrow morning, I highly suggest you don’t come in late and disappoint the professor.”
“What?” Sylvain runs a hand down his face again, staring at him. “Seriously? —Man. Okay. I’m gonna go. I’m gonna … definitely go.”
Good, Dimitri thinks, vaguely. Sylvain’s listening. He doesn’t want him to leave, though, and as Sylvain lingers at the door, shoulders tense and his hand hovering over the handle, Dimitri waits for him to turn back around. Instead, the door thuds shut behind him after he steps out into the hall.
Dimitri is left alone with his thoughts, and the shadows. Sylvain doesn’t come back.
***
Sylvain sits down on his bed. He touches his lip against the hem of his shirt, pulled carelessly up to his face, a new stain on his white uniform. He doesn’t look at the sliver of light from the hall.
There is a monster in that corridor.
None of them can sleep.