Archive of Our Own

dying lonesome in the dark (begging for you)

Whenever people talk about the disease, the afflicted always give some bullshit line about how they don’t even know how they got infected. That it just happened and one day they were coughing up hydrangeas.

Felix knows exactly when he got sick. He didn’t know it at the time, but in retrospect he knows just when this cancer infiltrated his lungs, biding its time.

He was thirteen and Glenn was dead. Just gone like a grain of sand thrown back into the ocean. And just as inconsequential.

Felix was thirteen and alone and his big brother was dead. He ran to the woods surrounding his family’s estate with his training sword at his hip and traveled so deep into the trees that he couldn’t even see the towers of the castle anymore.

When his lungs and calves were too weak to run further, he stopped and drew his sword. He faced the biggest tree in his immediate vicinity and attacked it relentlessly. The blade crashed and crashed against the bark of the tree, the cuts insignificant to its huge trunk in a way that was wholly unsatisfying. Still, Felix kept swinging, each slash punctuated with an anguished cry. He hacked his sword against the tree even as his muscles failed him and the blisters on his hand burst and bled.

He only stopped when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Felix.”

Felix whipped around to face the intruder and swung his sword. The intruder in question stumbled back to avoid the blade’s edge and Felix’s eyes set on the bright red hair that could only mean Sylvain.

“Careful! You could have gutted me right here and then where would we be?”

“What are you doing here? Leave!” Felix said, his voice hoarse.

“Now, hold on—“

“I said ‘go!’”

That should have been the end of it. Sylvain should have listened to Felix—he should have gotten back on the horse he rode in on and left Felix to destructively grieve in peace.

But he didn’t.

“You’re bleeding,” Sylvain said, nodding at Felix’s red soaked hands.

“So?”

Sylvain rolled his big brown eyes at him and then, with a gentle touch, he took Felix’s hand. “Sit down on that log. I brought dressings.”

Felix isn’t sure why he obeyed back then. Maybe it’s because Sylvain had always been someone he cried to, someone he reached for in the dark, or maybe he just needed something to hold on to in the vast sea of his own pain. If Sylvain wasn’t there, he might have lost himself completely in that forest.

Quietly, Sylvain took Felix’s right hand and poured fresh water from his canteen on it. It stung and made Felix wince; he hadn’t noticed the pain before, but he really had torn his hands apart. Next, Sylvain moved onto an oily balm that smelled of aloe and with two fingers, gently massaged the balm to Felix’s palm. It was soothing, but the motion covered Felix’s arms in goosebumps, making him want to snap his hand away. He endured, however, as Sylvain wrapped it and started on the next one. It was all too careful. Too much of Sylvain’s attention on him. Felix could only breathe when it was done. It was clumsy work, despite how focused Sylvain was. Magic would have been better, Felix thinks, but he can’t help but stare at the gauze on his right hand.

“I’m sorry, Felix,” Sylvain said as he finished wrapping Felix’s left hand. “I’m really sorry.”

Rage boiled in Felix anew. “Did I ask for your pity? Shut up, just shut up.”

“Felix, I’m—“

“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. Sorries are for recognizing a wrong and then fixing it. But you can’t fix this, Sylvain. No one can, so save your condolences. They’ll never bring Glenn back.”

Then, Sylvain did something curious—he took Felix’s hand. His thumb grazed over Felix’s bandaged knuckles with the lightest of pressures and something in Felix stilled.

“He’s not coming back,” Sylvain said. “He won’t ever come back and that’s...really sad, Felix. You get to be as sad as you want. You get to be as angry as you want. You can cry for weeks if you want to. And you can come to me, like you always do. That’s all.”

Felix stared at him—at the tousled red hair and the bright eyes and the freckles sprinkled over his nose—and then he wept. For what might have been hours.

But Sylvain stayed with him the whole time. If he would have tried to hug Felix or pat his head or something, Felix would have killed him. But somehow, Sylvain knew not to do that. Somehow he knew to just keep holding Felix’s hand and that was all.

That was the moment that sealed Felix’s sad fate. The beginning of the end.

—

To say Felix nurtured the budding feeling in his heart would be a gross overstatement, but he also didn’t squash it. Like he should have. He should have ripped it from himself like a weed in a garden.

But to Felix’s shame, he almost entertained it back then, before he knew what it was doing to him. He remembers how Sylvain would smile at him or touch his shoulder and Felix would basically let his heart beat faster.

At the time, it was nice. It was nice to distract himself from his grief and his idiot father, deflecting his problems with daydreams of him and his best friend getting just a little closer. Daydreams of their separate silhouettes becoming one.

That phase died quickly.

It died when Felix was stumbling through the Gautier gardens looking for Sylvain and found his lips locked with a noble, crest-less girl who might as well have been nameless to Felix. It was picturesque, really. Both of them sat on a white stone bench with roses and snapdragons surrounding them, while their shadows melded into one. Just the way Felix once imagined for himself.

It was such a lovely scene, neither of them noticed Felix’s intrusion and they didn’t notice when he ran as fast and far away as he could.

That’s when Felix finally started getting a goddamn brain on his shoulders. It started to click that Sylvain wanted to kiss girls where Felix decidedly did not. He started to understand that these feelings he was harboring were toxic and he needed to extract them.

But it was too late, they had wrapped their tendrils around him and stuck their barbs deep into his skin. That didn’t stop him from trying, though.

Every time Sylvain found himself a new girlfriend (or two), Felix would convince himself he was over it and find himself a relatively handsome stable boy to kiss.

This is fine, he’d tell himself. This is just as good.

It worked for a while. The thrill of having another boy who wanted to touch him, the sensation of lips on his and hungry hands on his body was enough to forget about everything, at least for a few moments. It didn’t stop the growing bitterness within him, though. It didn’t stop the hurt of losing his brother. And it never killed his affections for Sylvain, which was supposed to be the whole damn point.

It didn’t help that Sylvain was always there. Felix had stopped running to him for all his woes when he caught him and that girl in the garden, but Sylvain had this infuriating talent for showing up when Felix needed him most.

Every time the anniversary of Glenn’s death came around, Sylvain would find him. He’d drag Felix along on some mundane errand or ask him to help sabotage an important meeting his father was having. They would never speak about it, but Felix knew what he was doing and Sylvain knew Felix well enough not to voice his intentions.

They came through, though, and it was always enough to reignite Felix’s feelings, for his hidden desire to never be separated from Sylvain’s side. On one hand, he wanted to keep fighting against himself at these times, but on the other, what could be more natural than wanting to be with someone who so fundamentally understood you?

Felix never once considered telling Sylvain, especially as they grew older and Sylvain’s philandering ways only grew more aggravated. There was a new girl on his arm weekly and no hint of discretion to be found anywhere. Felix had to look away, but before he did he’d catch a look in Sylvain’s eyes—something cold and lifeless, something in direct opposition to the kindling kindness Felix was used to. It was a light that had slowly faded ever since they found him in that well all those years ago.

Maybe Felix should have reached out. Maybe he should have told Sylvain that he could see how he was just hurting himself with all these girls who clearly wanted him for his crest and nothing else. Whenever Felix self-sabotaged, Sylvain did something. Felix should return the favor.

Instead, he just got fucking angry and hurt and he’d die before he let Sylvain know he was worried. If Sylvain knew how much his exploits affected him, he might find out. And Felix will never let him find out. Never.

Turns out the elements of Sylvain’s constant fooling around and Felix’s failure to let go of his feelings led to Felix hiding. Well, not hiding. He wasn’t a coward. He just stopped seeking Sylvain out. He threw himself even more deeply into his training. Growing his strength is what mattered, not whatever affliction had taken hold of him.

Months passed, eventually a year, maybe two. Before Felix knew it, Sylvain was more of an apparition in his life than a full-bodied figure. Sylvain was too occupied with his dates and Felix with his sword to pay attention to each other. Which was good. It’s exactly what Felix wanted.

And he was fucking miserable.

Which. Wasn’t that different from how he felt when he was around Sylvain anyway. This pain was a deep, cavernous hole that ached consistently, but being around Sylvain as he kissed a Lady’s knuckles was more like being stabbed through over and over again, so he’d take the former. The plan was to forget Sylvain. At least well enough to fall out of...whatever with him.

But that was before their fathers sent them to Garreg Mach together.

“Together again, huh, Fe?” Sylvain said, already incorrectly dressed in his uniform. “Ingrid and his Highness are here too. It’ll be just like old times.”

Felix had crossed his arms and looked away. He hoped he seemed annoyed and not like he was distracting himself from the bit of collarbone peeking from underneath Sylvain’s undone button. “I’m here to get stronger, not to gallivant with you and the Boar.”

“You’ve got to stop calling him that.”

“Why? That’s what he is.”

Sylvain sighs and Felix can tell he’s already giving up the fight. “Still, I’ve barely seen you the past couple years. We can get meals together, go to town, meet some nice girls—”

“Train,” Felix snapped.

“Sure, we can do some of that as well,” Sylvain said, cradling his head, elbows splayed on either side of it, and sending Felix a wink. It caused Felix’s ears to heat and he hated himself for it.

It was going to be a long year.

Felix has never been the “look on the brightside” type, but he tries to tick off reasons why living next door to Sylvain isn’t “that bad”—he’ll be too involved in his training to be distracted by his feelings, their new professor seems like a hard ass and will keep Sylvain in line, Ingrid and the Boar will lecture Sylvain worse than he will, and Felix is getting over him anyway. With this, Felix convinces himself that he can get through this year unscathed.

He’s wrong. He’s very, very wrong.

Sylvain’s exploits have only gotten worse over the past couple of years and he brings home a new girl every other night.

I don’t care, he tells himself. He can do what he wants, I don’t care.

If he needs to do some late night drills to keep his mind off of what Sylvain is doing, so be it. If he needs to ask for a new room, so be it. If he needs to avoid Sylvain completely, so be it. If it doesn’t look like Sylvain is going to change, then Felix is the one who needs to change. He can get over this. He will get over this.

It works for a while. Felix even tells him he’s sick of Sylvain holding him back in hopes he’ll stop asking for them to “get some girls together” like he wants to hunt for pheasants. He sees the hurt flash across Sylvain’s face, but it doesn’t stop him. Sylvain’s been hurting Felix for years. Felix has been downright patient at this point.

Still, even Felix finds it hard to hate someone when you fight together. Their monthly assignments aren’t exactly difficult, but danger lurks in the shadows and they can’t help but protect each other. Sylvain especially is a self-sacrificing idiot and every time he blocks for Mercedes or comes running to Annette’s aid, something in Felix’s chest unfurls. It makes him remember. He knows Sylvain is more than his flirting…a lot more. It brings him back to square one. More than once, he’s watched Sylvain act as a shield between the enemy’s blade and one of their classmates and all Felix wants to do is wrap his arms around Sylvain’s torso and hold him back.

And just like that, he’s in more trouble than he’s ever been. His feelings go even deeper because at the end of the day, Sylvain is still a well of affection, a person who will kill and be killed for those he loves. Felix hates how that seems to be his weakness, how it makes him pull away the facade that he was ever getting over his stupid crush.

He feels it in the peaceful moments—when he accidentally watches the back of Sylvain’s neck during lectures, when they’re tasked with stable duty and Sylvain complains the whole time but not in earnest, when Sylvain goes out of his way to hunt him down so they can eat dinner together. He feels it on their missions—when he’s hyper aware of where Sylvain is at all times, when they’re locked in combat and he wonders if Sylvain is safe, he feels it in the cuts and bruises (and sometimes worse) they get from protecting each other.

Vines grow and curl along Felix’s rib cage with every passing day and he’s too fatigued to keep fruitlessly fighting them back. Whatever this feeling is...Felix is doomed to it.

“Doomed” turns out to be the correct word for it when one night, Felix hears something from the room next to him.

It happens when Felix finishes studying for the night and gets ready for bed. He unclasps his vest, takes off his shirt, and removes his binder before throwing an old oversized shirt on and then—

A small, muffled laugh coming from Sylvain’s room. A woman’s voice.

It’s nothing. Barely noticeable and nothing he can even complain about since it’s so brief and unobtrusive but it—it hurts. Like someone’s hit him with Thoron right in the chest.

It’s so small but Felix can read all the unsaid intimacy of such a noise—what’s happening on the other side of the wall, what they’re doing. Of course, Felix knows Sylvain doesn’t spend his time playing board games with girls but every time he’s faced with the reality it feels like a particularly violent war is being waged in his body.

And tonight is even worse. Frighteningly so. His chest hurts so fiercely, so suddenly that he wonders if he’s ill.

The pain claws up his shoulders to his collarbone and into his throat; it feels so dry that he desperately looks for his canteen. He starts hacking—wet, wracking coughs that make his entire body shake and phlegm creeps into his mouth.

He runs to his water basin and lets himself retch, hoping to dispel whatever foul poison is in his person. He spits up something small and thin at first, but he’s too overcome with the need to cough that he can’t inspect it.

He coughs and coughs until he feels his stomach turn and he retches again, but this time he nearly chokes as something solid passes his throat to his mouth. He spits it out and feels immediate relief once he does. Weak-kneed and trembling, Felix’s hands are still braced on the water basin as he tries to come back to his senses. When he’s certain he won’t collapse, he looks at the foreign object in his basin and when he comprehends it, his blood runs cold.

There, mixed with his saliva and phlegm, is a single blooming bulb of a marigold with petals colored a rich orange-red hue.

A flower. Felix nearly tore his lungs out coughing up a flower.

“Fuck,” he says in a fierce whisper.

And just because the world is just that cruel, someone knocks on his door.

“Felix?” says a voice through the door.

Oh, goddess—

“Are you alright? Your coughs sounded quite disturbing,” Dimitri says, his cadence disgustingly proper. Felix considers offing himself right there.

“Go away, Boar. It has nothing to do with you,” Felix says but it sounds far less intimidating when his voice is hoarse with overuse.

“Please, Felix. If you are sick, allow me to escort you to the infirmary. That cough sounds rather painful.”

“Do you even use those ears of yours? I said ‘go away’. It’s just food poisoning, no need to treat me like a damsel.”

Felix can hear Dimitri sigh even with a whole wall between them. “I’ll go, but please be sure to properly hydrate yourself.”

“Stop coddling me and go back to bed.”

“As you wish,” Dimitri says and Felix hears the soft shuffles of him getting back to his room. It reminds him how thin the walls are...that Sylvain and his guest probably heard it all too.

The moment he remembers Sylvain his stomach drops and his eyes fixate on the marigold again.

And the world spins. It winds itself up like a top for five excruciating seconds and then crashes cruelly around him. Felix trembles.

There’s only one explanation for coughing up flowers and it’s—Felix can hardly think it—it’s humiliating for one thing...fatal for the next.

He has the disease. A rare, magical curse that was bestowed upon all of Fódlan by some cruel saint Felix can’t remember the name of. Felix thought it was a legend, a ghost story meant to frighten children and encourage bravery within one’s personal affairs. But it’s real. And Felix has it.

He takes a hand and rubs it gently over his chest, as if he could feel the flowers that blossom in his lungs through his skin.

There’s no cure for it. Not for Felix. The disease comes to those with (what the stories call) a deep, incurable, and unrequited love. When the magic has a person, it fills their lungs with a bloom to match their love, causing them to cough up petals and whole bulbs until they’re eventually drowned by them. The curse is only said to lift when that deep, incurable love is matched by the infected’s beloved. In short, it’s a death sentence.

The weight of it comes crashing down on him again and he feels weaker than he ever has in his entire life. There are three terrible truths he can no longer deny—He’s in love with Sylvain, Sylvain doesn’t and will never love him back, and it’s literally going to kill him.

With weak knees, Felix tries to get to his bed but his muscles fail him and he ends up clambering along the wall for support. He growls and lets his back slide down the wall, too tired to make a second attempt. Gently, he leans his head back until it hits the wall and he closes his eyes.

I’m in love with him, then? Felix thinks. Is that what all that has been?

He scoffs at his own idiocy. Of course he’s been in love the whole time. He just never thought it would be the “deep and incurable” kind, the kind that marked you for death as soon as it got its talons in you.

Felix swallows and it hurts, like he’s swallowing a stem full of thorns.

What now? He wonders.

His options are few, he knows that. It’s a curse from the Gods, so no human, crest bearing or not, can break it beyond its original requirements, so asking for help will be fruitless. He could tell Sylvain, but that's a nonstarter. Idiot that he is, Sylvain would probably try to fall in love with Felix to save him and Felix will absolutely not suffer the humiliation or the pain. Sylvain is a man who loves women. Felix is a man who loves men.

Man. Singular.

Either way, Felix knows that these teethed feelings are not something Sylvain can match, even if he’d like to try. And, dammit, when Sylvain inevitably fails he’ll harbor that guilt for the rest of his life. He might even try to fulfill their dumb childhood promise from long ago as penance because deep down, that’s who Sylvain is.

No, Felix can never tell him. He has to die without Sylvain ever knowing the cause. As soon as he regains his strength he’ll go home to Fraldarius territory and inform his father that he—

No. No he can’t do that either. Useless as the old man is, he’d probably drag Sylvain to Faergus and force them to marry or some other such half-baked plan. Felix was never the favored son in his father’s eyes, but Rodrigue won’t just let the last of his family die without so much as a fight, especially one as dishonorable as this.

And that more than anything, is what makes his eyes prickle with threatening tears. He’s worked towards strength and sharpening his blade for his whole life and he won’t even get to die with his sword swinging. He was content to die in battle, but this? He never could have predicted that this is where his sad, meaningless life would end and all for the sake of something as trivial as love. He was wrong before. Sylvain isn’t the biggest fool of Fódlan. Felix is.

He blinks back the wetness threatening to fall and clears his throat, then winces. If he can’t go home, then he must run away. He’ll steal a horse and maybe stay at an inn in some little hamlet and die there. He can request that the innkeeper send a letter to the monastery and his father explaining that he died in some meaningless fight or something equally foolish so no one need mourn his wretched life. No one needs to run themselves through with a lance over someone like that.

I should leave tomorrow night. Sooner, if I can, he thinks. But his wicked heart pleads against it. The thought of tomorrow being the last time he’ll see everyone, see Sylvain...it’s too much for even his unsentimental temperament to bear.

Do I not even get to spend my final months with him? Will this curse not even allow me that?

He knows he will hurt himself even more if he doesn’t make a clean break. He shouldn’t be trying to talk himself out of it, but he also doesn’t know how long he has. It could be weeks, months, or years. This disease is of legends. He’s heard whispers of it happening in various regions of Fódlan, but he always thought they were just bouts of gossip meant to entertain. If he leaves suddenly, then there’s no chance he won’t be sought after. He’s heir to the highest ranking noble in the Kingdom. His disappearance will not go unnoticed.

Which means he has to leave when he’s nearing the end even if rationally, it would be best for him to separate from the others as soon as possible. He can’t risk being found out, though.

Felix squeezes his fist so hard that his fingernails leave indents in his palms. That’s what he’ll do then—he’ll stay at Garreg Mach until he can no longer hide his ailment and not tell a soul.

And when that time comes, he’ll scamper out into the night to die like a dog.

It’s less than a minor cold at first—a cough here and there between classes, spitting up a couple petals on nights when he feels lonely, he loses his breath more easily during exercise, but no one’s the wiser. It’s always there though: a persistent, uncomfortable pressure on his sternum that won’t let him forget where his life is heading.

Felix does his best to live as normally as he can; he trains, he eats, he goes to lectures, he keeps everyone at a distance, and then he trains some more. He doesn’t let anyone know there’s something wrong with him, that there’s anything to be worried about and so far he’s succeeding.

In a way, Felix has trained for this. His family has always been good at keeping barriers between themselves and other people and Felix is no exception. No one questions why he doesn’t join in with group gossip or invite others to dinner. He never has.

Sylvain is the first to notice anything.

“You okay?” he asks one day between lectures. “You’ve been coughing a lot lately.”

“I’m fine. Just the changing of the seasons,” Felix says and Sylvain shrugs. He looks like he’s going to ask a follow-up but a pretty girl walks by and he barely spares Felix a farewell.

Watching Sylvain’s back fade away, he spirals into a coughing fit. He’s lucky they were alone on a bench near the sauna or someone might have—

“Felix?” says a voice like a bell. Instantly, there’s a warm hand on his back and another on his wrist. Mercedes.

“What?” Felix says through coughs.

“Oh, my. Are you coming down with a fever? That sounds terrible,” she says and her hand is still gently pressed to his back. Felix pushes out of her grip.

“It’s just the changing of the seasons.”

Mercedes tilts her head and in her lofty voice says, “It doesn’t sound like allergies.”

“What would you know about what my allergies sound like,” Felix snaps and immediately feels guilty. Even he knows Mercedes is the least deserving of his vitriol.

Instead of looking hurt, however, Mercedes looks confused. “You’re awfully defensive over some allergies. Is everything alright?”

Shit. Mercedes is too intuitive, but it’ll take more than her wispy voice and tender eyes to crack him.

“Everything’s fine,” he says, his words like a blunt sword as he stands. “I just hate people fussing over me.”

And he leaves to his room without looking back.

Felix does his best to be more careful from then on, especially around Mercedes. He flat out avoids Sylvain which hurts in its own way and makes his coughing fits worse at night, but it makes them less frequent in the day.

It’s a losing battle and he knows it. It’s like he’s trying to dig his heels in as he falls down a steep muddy hill: barely effective and still inevitable. If nothing else, he hopes to hide it, but that’s not going to last forever. At the very least, Dimitri, Sylvain, and Mercedes all know something is wrong.

“Felix, please. I implore you to see Manuela. You cough every night,” Dimitri says. Felix tells him to go graze some grass somewhere like the boar he is.

“Would you like to get lunch together?” Mercedes asks. Felix tells her he likes to eat alone. He’s smart enough to know she’s trying to wriggle information from him.

“Hey, you gonna get that cough checked out?” Sylvain says. “Hard to set the mood with you hacking your lungs out.” And Felix hates him.

“It’s a good thing I don’t give a damn about your mood,” Felix says, his lip curled in a snarl and he stomps away, feeling another attack coming.

“Wait, Felix!” Sylvain calls. “I was just kidding!”

The terrible thing is that Felix knows that he was. But it doesn’t make the vines squeezing his lungs loosen their grip in the slightest.

He knows it must be getting pretty bad when their professor asks him to tea.

“Thank you for joining me, Felix,” they say, pouring him a cup of what smells like the Almyran pine needle blend he favors. Dammit, how do they know his favorite tea?

“Did I have a choice?”

Byleth gives him one of those strange, detached smiles and nods. “You’re free to leave. I just wanted to discuss your progress recently.”

“You want to discuss my performance in class...with a tea party?”

Byleth takes a sip of their own tea and leisurely puts it down before answering. “I like to take the time to have more casual one-on-ones with you all sometimes. It’s odd being in the position I’m in. You’re all more like my peers than students, really. Why, Sylvain and I are practically the same age.”

Felix scoffs. “In age alone. Sylvain doesn’t have half the discipline or skill you possess.”

He takes a sip of his tea while anger bubbles in his stomach like acid. How could someone like Sylvain be the end of him?

Byleth stares at him, their eyes calculating and deep. Felix almost flinches under the gaze, but he stands his ground and stares back. Eventually, Byleth sighs.

“You’re the last person I would suspect to underestimate Sylvain like that,” Byleth says and it has that “I’m not mad, just disappointed” air that makes Felix’s skin crawl.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You know each other well and you’re a force to be reckoned with whenever I pair you up for missions. Devastatingly so. I’m trying to understand why you would undermine his work like that when I’ve seen him risk his life for you.”

“That’s—” Felix starts, heat rising to his face. “That’s exactly what I mean! He gets emotional on the battlefield and reckless. You’ve told us we need to keep a clear head on the battlefield and he lets himself get sentimental, distracted.”

Byleth doesn’t let up with that bone-deep gaze of theirs. “And you think this makes him weak?”

“It will get him killed! Who, out of all of us, do you see in the infirmary the most? Sylvain! Every month, you send him out on that damn horse and he does his best to play the part of the martyr for all of us. He’s an idiot and he needs to get his act together.”

Again, Byleth is silent. They prop their elbows on the table, intertwine their fingers, and rest their chin on them, then stare into Felix’s eyes with an unreadable expression.

“You’re worried you’ll lose him,” Byleth says and there’s no judgment there, just a statement of fact.

Blood rushes to Felix‘s face and he scoffs, pointedly looking away from them. “What does this have to do with my progress?”

“I know this isn’t something you’ll want to hear, Felix, but how you work with your comrades is an essential skill for the battlefield. Learning compatibility, synchronization, and trust is hard-won between two people. You and Sylvain have that. One of the things I wanted to talk to you about was to keep doing what you’re doing with him.”

“And that is?”

“Having his back, grounding him. Reminding him to go to the training grounds. Supporting each other...that’s strength.”

Felix folds his arms tight to his chest and scoffs again. “I don’t see how that makes me stronger.”

“We rarely win alone. Don’t forget that.”

“Sure, fine. Is that all?”

Byleth smiles and reaches for their tea. “No. No, it’s not.” They sip, quietly letting Felix stew in suspense until they place it down again. “I’ve noticed a dip in your swordsmanship.”

It takes everything in Felix not to slam his hands on the table and tell them to fuck off.

“A dip? In my swordsmanship?” Felix says, voice raising. He trains for hours every day, how can they possibly see him faltering?

“You’re not as sharp, not as consistent these past couple of weeks. You cough in class but try to hide it, yet you don’t go to the infirmary. Why?”

“I—” Felix starts, caught off guard by this line of questioning. “It’s just allergies. I don’t need to take up a whole infirmary bed just because of a bit of a cough.”

“Yes, Sylvain told me that’s what you’ve been saying—”

“Sylvain?!”

Byleth smiles, a bit sad. “You know, he worries about you as much as you worry for him.”

With that alone, Felix feels his chest stir and his throat itch. He has to get out of here. “That—”

“Let me finish,” Byleth says, holding up a hand. “I talked with Manuela and she says she has plenty of remedies for allergies so—”

Feeling like a mouse cornered by a cat, Felix stands abruptly, rattling the tea set as he does. “I’ve had enough.”

For what feels like the thousandth time this month, he storms away, not once paying a glance at the person he leaves in his destructive wake.

-

Byleth doesn’t bring it up again, thankfully, but the conversation lingers on Felix like a bad smell. He snaps anytime someone asks him how he is, he doesn’t eat meals with the others, and he spends more time on the training grounds than out of them.

And the petals keep coming. Mostly at night, but sometimes he has to dash out of class and pretend he’s had some bad herring. It’s mortifying and isolating and the ticking time bomb on his lungs pounds in his ears nonstop. Tick tick tick you’re dying tick tick tick you’re dying tick tick tick.

It gets to him and one night—one night when he’s feeling lonely and hopeless and every other color of self-loathing—the thin walls of the dormitory strike again.

Only this time, it’s not a hushed giggle from a girl trying to be considerate but a full-on squeal coming from Sylvain’s room.

Any meager lid that may have contained Felix’s temper is blown straight off. His lips curl into a dangerous snarl as he throws the covers off and hurls himself at his own door, barefoot and in nothing but a nightshirt and leggings.

He doesn’t think. Full stop. He throws open his door and stomps the three steps it takes to get to Sylvain’s door without his mind offering anything by way of caution, no herald screaming at him that this? This is a bad idea.

But Felix is thoughtless in this moment, a creature of pure emotion and that emotion is a dangerous mix of heartbreak and fear.

Felix wrenches Sylvain’s door open—the fool doesn’t even have it locked—and he relishes in the loud, resounding BANG of the door hitting the wall and the wide-eyed expressions coming from Sylvain and his current conquest. They’re both on the bed, still dressed but only just. The girl, some pretty blonde with her blouse hanging off her shoulder, has kiss swollen lips and the porcelain skin of her neck is covered in red blotches. The bloodthirsty lion within him gets into a frenzy at the sight of her, fueled by another gust of hurt and fury.

“Get out!” he bellows, and it’s more animal than human. Briefly, he thinks he’s a hypocrite for calling Dimitri a boar when he’s not much different.

The girl gasps and his eyes zero in on her. She hugs Sylvain’s arm, scared.

“Sylvie, you’re not gonna let him—” she starts.

“Get out!” he yells again.

Sylvain holds his hand up in a placating manner. “Calm down, Felix.”

“Get her out now or I’ll bring about unspeakable horrors upon both of you,” Felix says and the girl squeaks, but doesn’t try to appeal to Sylvain again. She gathers her coat and clumsily shuffles out of the room as fast as she can, trying to keep as much distance between herself and Felix as humanly possible. Felix doesn’t sidestep from the door to make room for her, opting to let her squirm past.

Once she’s gone, Felix slams the door shut and turns on Sylvain who is wearing the most unforgiving face Felix has ever seen from him. If Felix were any less furious, it might have startled him.

As it is…

“Do you have any idea what time it is,” Felix snarls.

Sylvain looks at him, stunned. “You barge into my room, are unbelievably rude to my guest, and then demand she leave—and I can not stress this enough—my room because we got a little loud there for a second?”

Sylvain’s tone is even but it has none of the levity. He’s actually angry with Felix.

But does this make Felix back off? Apologize? Regain one single fucking brain cell? Of course not.

“Don’t pretend like you actually care if I was rude to her,” Felix says, his face hot. “If anything, I’ve done you both a favor.”

“Oh? Please, enlighten me, Felix. How exactly was that a favor?” Sylvain’s hands are balled into fists and there’s an unfamiliar gleam in Sylvain’s eyes. Like he’s challenging Felix.

Felix doesn’t back down, though he should. “We all know what you’re doing and what they’re doing, but I’m fucking sick of it. Could you kindly reduce your self-loathing to once a week? If I have to hear you hate-fucking one more girl—”

“Now, that’s enough!” Sylvain says and he sounds like a completely different person. “You want an apology? Fine. Sorry I like to release some tension every-now-and-then and it interrupted your beauty sleep, Master Fraldarius. It’s such a pity we can’t all be as emotionally constipated as you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Felix says and it’s painfully obvious to both of them that this isn’t about Sylvain bringing girls over.

“I don’t know. Maybe if you spent any time with human beings outside of a sword duel, you’d know.”

It’s then that Felix senses danger, that he realizes he needs to leave. “Whatever. Just knock it off already. I’m going back to bed.”

Felix turns back to the door, pulling on the handle but before he can fully open it, it snaps back in place by an incredible force. Felix looks up to see Sylvain’s palm flat on the door and his arm caging Felix in. Felix always forgets, despite his lack of consistent training, just how strong Sylvain is. And how tall.

“No,” Sylvain says, voice as commanding as his station and it shakes Felix to his core. “No, I’m not done yet.”

Regret starts creeping into Felix’s chest. This is far from the first time they’ve fought, but it’s always Felix mad at Sylvain and Sylvain trying to assuage him. Sylvain doesn’t fight back. Not like this.

Sylvain takes a breath and his gaze bores into Felix. “Something’s going on with you. We all see it. You’re trying to deal with it on your own and you’re dealing with it poorly, if this little episode is anything to go by.”

Felix pushes himself away from the door like it’s burnt him. He would have rather Sylvain yelled at him, but instead he’s doing that Sylvain thing—he should be furious with Felix, he should never want to talk to him again and what does he do? He tries to understand. Felix’s throat itches.

“Nothing’s wrong, I’m just sick of your nonsense keeping me up at night.”

Sylvain’s hands fly in the air in frustration. “Fine! I’ll talk to the professor and ask to move my room far, far away from you. Will that make you happy?”

Felix crosses his arms and cranes his neck as far as he can from Sylvain, choosing silence as his answer. Because the truth is no, he doesn’t fucking want that.

Sylvain takes the silence as a yes, however. “Sure, Felix. I’ll stay out of your hair.” The words come out on a sigh, resigned and sad. It cracks open Felix’s chest, makes him ache from somewhere deep and he’s rendered speechless. When he says nothing, Sylvain continues. “I’ll stay out of your hair, but you have to tell us what’s going on. You’re gonna get yourself killed—”

“Stop.” Felix wheezes, his throat aching and his chest full. An attack is coming and he’s trapped. He has to leave immediately before—no, he can’t even think it. He makes his way towards the door, hoping Sylvain will let him leave.

He doesn’t. Sylvain blocks the entire doorway with his body, his eyebrows set in hard determination. “No one’s seen you in the dining hall for weeks. You keep running out of class. You cough your lungs out almost every night but you won’t see Manuela. You’re spending even more time at the training grounds but you wouldn’t know it because your form is clearly slipping.”

“Fuck off,” Felix says and he tries pushing past Sylvain but dammit, he’s strong and Felix hasn’t been at full strength for a while now.

“We can help you, Felix. You just have to talk to us.”

Stop, Felix thinks. Stop worrying about me or I’ll—

“You can’t help me,” Felix says and he laces it with as much venom as he possibly can. He needs to break what they have already. It’ll be better for everyone if Sylvain stops caring so damn much. Maybe it’s time for him to go if everyone is starting to catch on.

Sylvain catches Felix’s wrist with his hand. “I know. I know you think I’m a good-for-nothing, okay? But you’re my friend, I’m not just gonna let you—”

“I didn’t—” Felix starts but he can feel the tickle of a cough coming. Goddess, how did it come to this? “I didn’t mean that. Now, let me out.”

“Felix, please.”

And Felix has that feeling again. That feeling that always comes when Sylvain cares for him, and not because he’s an heir to the Dukedom, not because he’s Glenn’s little brother, but because he’s Felix. It’s the feeling that poisoned him all those years ago when he was a grieving thirteen-year-old boy hacking at a tree.

Felix tries one last time, his anger dissipating as he pleads with Sylvain. “Let me out. I have to—”

But it’s too late. He coughs. He coughs and coughs and coughs. He coughs so hard that his knees give out and he crumples to the floor, Sylvain following him.

“Felix!” he says, his hands reaching out, but too afraid to touch. “I’ll get Manuela—”

“No!” Felix says between coughs. “Please.”

He doesn’t get a chance to hear Sylvain agreement or refusal as a wave of petals pour from him, whole bulbs and loose alike. Fiery orange things that spill all over Sylvain’s rug and make him quiver as they leave his body. Shit, he’s fucked up so bad.

His eyes water from the effort and all he wants to do is collapse right there on the floor, but he knows a reckoning is coming. Sylvain knows. He fucking knows.

“Felix,” Sylvain breathes. Felix wishes he could disappear; he’s ruined everything. “This is…”

“I know what it is,” Felix says and it’s so weak and damaged he barely recognizes it.

“Felix,” Sylain says again and this time, Felix looks up to him. It’s immediately a mistake because Sylvain’s once neutral face of barely contained anger is replaced with something soft and worried. Felix could kill himself for getting himself in this situation. Sylvain was never supposed to know.

“Don’t look at me like that, Sylvain,” he says and there’s no bite to it, though he means there to be. He’s too tired for that and it shows.

“Who is it?” Sylvain asks, laying a hand of Felix’s shoulder.

Felix throws it off. “Shut up. Don’t concern yourself with it.”

Sylvain rubs at his eyes, frustrated. His expression is pained, making guilt swirl in Felix’s stomach. This is exactly what he was afraid of.

“It all makes sense now. Look, I get that this must be hard for you, I really do, but you have to tell me. I can help. Whoever it is, we can talk to them—”

Felix, weak as he is, grabs Sylvain by his collar. “Don’t you dare tell anyone about this, Gautier, I swear. Not a soul.”

Syvain shakes his head, but his voice gets quiet. “Whoever it is, they must care about you. It’s an incurable love, right? That’s not gonna be someone you just met, so I’m sure if we talk to them—”

Felix pushes Sylvain back with as much strength as he can muster and stands, though he loses his balance and has to catch himself on the wall.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Felix repeats, hobbling to the door. Sylvain doesn’t try to stop him, just stares at him from the floor.

“You’ll die, Fe,” Sylvain says to Felix’s back. “You’ll die.”

The words stop Felix at the door. He can hear the legitimate grief in Sylvain’s words, the hidden plea there. And it tears Felix apart. He never wanted Sylvain to know. He never wanted him to know.

“Then, I’ll die.”

He pulls open the door and goes back to his room without waiting for a response.

Felix feels Sylvain’s eyes on him wherever he goes after that night. Frequently, Felix snaps at him and asks what he’s looking at, but in true Sylvain fashion, he makes a joke of it (“Not my fault you look so good I can’t take my eyes off you.” Felix punched him hard in the shoulder for that one.)

As annoying as it is, it doesn’t seem like he’s told anyone and Felix is thankful for that at least.

His condition doesn’t get better, but it also doesn’t get worse. The others stop noticing once it becomes normal for them. It’s a nice reprieve, but of course, it doesn’t last.

Because they’re tasked with taking down Miklan. And they do. Sylvain’s an active participant.

He tells them all he’s fine, that Miklan was a bastard that threw him in a well when he was a small child, and that he has no attachment to him.

But Felix knows better. Felix knows Sylvain.

He doesn’t remember walking to Sylvain’s door once they’re back at the monastery, but that’s where he ends up. Fool. He should let Sylvain be. Felix hates being fussed over and Sylvain probably does too. He should go back to his own room.

He knocks on the door. It’s a quiet, tentative sound, unlike his normal decisive, bold self, but the situation doesn’t really call for brashness. Though, Felix isn’t sure what it does call for.

Sylvain takes his sweet time coming to the door and when he opens it, it's slow, like he’s stalling. When he actually shows his face, it’s with a smile, but Felix can see the hint of red in his sclera, the slight glass sheen in his eyes.

Felix sighs and pushes his way in without an invitation. Sylvain lets him, closing the door and gesturing to his bed for Felix to sit. Felix does as he wipes his palms on the top of his thighs. The room is quiet and tense, filled with all the grief and conflicted feelings Sylvain thinks he can hide but can’t.

Sylvain sits next to Felix on the bed and rests his forearms on his thighs, fingers interlacing. They don’t look at each other and they don’t speak to each other. It’s the early evening, the sun about to start its descent and its rays casting a soft glow through Sylvain’s curtains, dust motes dancing in the air like snowfall.

Maybe, Felix thinks. It’s enough just to be quiet.

Sylvain never liked the quiet, though. He huffs and runs a hand through his hair. “I’m fine, you know.”

“I know,” Felix says, even though the only thing he does know is Sylvain is lying. “I’m actually here to congratulate you.”

Sylvain’s head bobs up at that. “Congratulate me?”

“Yeah, you’re officially a member of the dead big brother club.”

Felix doesn’t know why he says it. Maybe it’s because he’s a total fucking asshole, but instead of punching Felix (which, in truth, he deserves) Sylvain bursts into barking laughter.

“Is that your way of comforting me?” Sylvain asks and it’s actually a little irritating how delighted he is by it.

Felix scoffs and crosses his arms. “It’s not anything. You know I…” He trails off then sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “I’m no good at condolences, but if you need to talk or whatever, you can talk while I’m here.”

A warm hand falls on his shoulder, but if he looks at Sylvain, he knows he’ll see the blush on his traitorous face.

“Thanks, Fe,” Sylvain says with a little push against Felix’s shoulder before he sighs and kicks his feet on the bed and rests his torso on the head board. “It’s nothing you can’t guess, really. My brother was a piece of garbage that left me to freeze to death before I knew what the word ‘murder’ meant.”

“But?”

“But he was my brother,” Sylvain says, and there’s a slight tremor there, the mask slipping just the tiniest bit. Felix looks at him and sure enough, his smile is gone and there’s a ghost in his eyes. “I’ll always wonder what might have been if he was the one with the crest or if we both had one. His life was over the day I was born.”

“Are you really blaming yourself?”

Sylvain shakes his head. “No. No, I blame my parents, I blame the world for making crests such a big deal, I blame the Gods and Saints for passing down crests to begin with. I blame Miklan, but not as much as I should. He was an asshole, but he got dealt a shit hand.”

Felix says nothing. Instead, he watches Sylvain wrestle something within himself, his face raw and vulnerable.

“I’m not really grieving Miklan,” Sylvains says at last, choosing his words carefully. “But the—I don’t know—potential of what he could have been. Of how my life would be different if I had a big brother like Glenn.”

Felix huffs a laugh. “You wanted a dead brother?”

“No. I wanted a brother that loved me.”

The words pierce through Felix’s heart like an arrow. It’s a familiar pain, one that comes every time Glenn is mentioned, but that doesn’t ever make it feel less fresh. Yes, Glenn loved him and Felix loved Glenn. And his death has never stopped hurting.

“That’s all good and fine until they’re gone,” Felix whispers.

There’s a long stretch of silence before Sylvain speaks again. “I guess that’s true.” He sits up again and gently places his palm on Felix’s shoulder blade. Felix’s mouth goes dry. Must he always be so touchy?

“What?” Felix asks.

Sylvain’s lips are curled in a small but genuine smile and some of the warmth has come back to his brown irises. “Thanks. For checking on me.”

Felix shrugs and looks away as if he’s been caught staring at the sun. He hates it when Sylvain’s like this—sincere and earnest. It makes him…

It makes him cough.

Felix’s throat rattles with his hacking and Sylvain is there to rub circles on his back and place a hand on his knee. The idiot’s probably just making it worse.

It’s not a terrible attack this time; there’s only a few petals and a couple of droplets of blood on his hand.

“Felix…”

“Don’t.”

“Felix,” Sylvain says again, his hand still on Felix’s knee, his body too close, his voice too soft with concern. And Felix too weak to move away. “You’re really not going to tell me who it is?”

“No.”

“It’s killing you.” Sylvain’s hand grips tighter to Felix’s thigh. “You get that, right?”

Felix gives Sylvain one of his “you’re too stupid to exist” glares, but Sylvain just rolls his eyes.

“This isn’t like you,” Sylvain says. “You’re just going to let it happen? You’re not going to fight?”

“It’s not something I can run through with a sword,” Felix says, voice raising.

“No, but you can do something.”

“What? What can I do? Tell them? Offer them a lifetime of guilt when they realize they can’t help me no matter what they do? Throw myself at them to save my sorry soul? Die with even less dignity than I already will?” Felix says, each word a stinging. He hates how powerless he is, he hates that this disease has rendered him useless to his fate.

“But they could love you back! It’s only unrequited because they don’t know.”

“They don’t. I know they don’t.”

“Then woo them. Flirt. Ask them out for tea. Anything. I’ll help you,” Sylvain says and the earnestness in his voice hurts. Felix realizes that Sylvain has just lost his brother and it won’t be long before he loses Felix too.

Felix shakes his head. “Fine, let’s say I do that. Let’s say I confess and they reject me. What then, Sylvain? I can’t make someone love me. If I do that, all that will do is give them the burden of my death and give me the sting of their rejection. I’d rather die in peace.”

“But if they could accept you too. Then, it’s win-win. Look, I get that it’s a gamble, but—”

“It’s not a gamble,” Felix says, quiet again. “It’s a guarantee.”

“Felix.”

“I know, Sylvain. I know. Just...drop it,” Felix says and he doesn’t even sound like himself, he sounds like a shell of himself. And Sylvain is looking at him like he’s already dead, like he’s a ghost about to fade from existence and it’s torture. Felix never asked for this. He never asked to fall ill or to fall in love.

He makes to get up, feeling suffocated by their closeness, but before he can, Sylvain’s arms wrap around his shoulders and he crushes Felix to his chest.

“Sylvain—”

“There’s got to be something,” Sylvain says and Felix can feel his cheek on top of his head. “A loophole. Something.”

And Felix deflates, resigns himself to the touch. He presses his forehead to Sylvain’s shoulder and wraps his arms around his waist. He’s glad Sylvain can’t see his face because he knows it must be pink. And because he doesn’t have the energy or the heart to argue any more, he leaves it at one word.

“Idiot.”

Sylvain holds him tighter.

As promised, Felix gets worse. Every day, it’s harder to conceal and every day, Felix tells himself that it’s time to go before he talks himself out of it. The problem is he doesn’t think he’s actually close, more at the mid-way point. If he leaves too soon, they’ll look for him.

Does it even matter anymore, he wonders. Sylvain knows and the only truly unbearable scenario is if he finds out he’s the root of the infection. Still, Felix hates the idea of the others knowing, of the pitying looks and the whispers. Whispers that may travel to his father.

No. His father can’t know. For all the contempt Felix holds for him, he doesn’t want Rodrigue to think he lost his last son in such an ignoble way. Rodrigue...Rodrigue has been through enough, Felix thinks. His wife, his eldest son, and now Felix. Perhaps, he should write to him…

Felix scoffs at himself as he heads to pick up his lunch from the dining hall. Is this disease infecting his mind too? Since when has he given one flying fuck about his old man feelings?

“Felix.”

A wispy voice pulls him from his thoughts and not a moment too soon because when he looks up, he sees he’s only a step or two from a collision with Mercedes. “Oh. It’s you.”

“It’s me!” Mercedes says, pleasant and accommodating as ever. “You’re just the person I was looking for.”

“Me—?”

Before Felix can finish his question, Mercedes tugs him by the elbow around a corner behind one of the arches as she swivels her head looking for prying eyes.

Felix glares at her. “Is there a reason you’re carting me around like an ass?”

“I figured you’d want some privacy.”

“Privacy?”

Mercedes nods. “Felix, I think it’s about time you told us what’s going on with you.”

“Is that what you think?” Felix snaps, a familiar heat rising in his gut. He’s getting very tired of this question. “Last time I checked, I hadn’t given you any license to my business.”

“So, there is something going on, then?”

Felix straightens, the hairs on his neck raising. Careless.

He turns heel-toe from her and shoos her with a flick of his hand. “Think whatever you want, just leave me out of it.”

“Sylvain knows, right?” Mercedes says as Felix is mid-step. He freezes and his heart stops.

“There’s—there’s nothing to know,” Felix says, but he feels trapped. Mercedes steps in front of him and holds out a book for him to see.

Curses and Cures, Anthology III.

“Did you know?” Mercedes says with an innocent tilt of her head. “Sylvain’s been chewing through this series for the past week. I was assigned library duty this week and he’s been there every day, reading this until the library closes and then checking them out to read in his room. He’s probably not sleeping much if those dark circles under his eyes are anything to go by.”

Felix’s eyes widen and immediately, his chest constricts—an omen of a bad attack on its way. Stupid fucking Sylvain.

“That—that has nothing to do with me,” he says and his body is screaming at him to run as far as he can from her.

Mercedes eyes soften and she shakes her head. “I think it does, Felix. I guess you wouldn’t have noticed, but Sylvain has been—he’s very worried about you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Mercedes pauses, debating on how to proceed before she finally speaks. “He keeps watching you. Usually, he’s always got his eye on a new girl to approach, but he only has eyes for you, recently. Even in class.”

“That’s ridiculous—”

“That plus your odd behavior the past couple months and Sylvain’s new field of study...I put two and two together,” she says, pulling the book to her side. “Felix, I want to hel—”

She’s cut off by Felix dissolving into another fit. He quickly turns away from her, trying to get himself under control, but blanches when he finds petals on his hand. He clenches the petals, his fist trembling.

“Felix—”

“Stay out of it,” he says. And he runs. Runs as fast as he can back to his room, back to hiding, and he can figure out what to do from there.

Mercedes calls after him, she might even be running after him, but he pushes himself to run at his top speed though it makes him wheeze. In truth, he doesn’t even know what he’s doing. This isn’t going to protect him from Mercedes. Or Sylvain. Or the professor. They’re all catching up to him, no matter how fast he is. How long before they learn the whole truth?

Finally, he gets to the dormitories, trying not to think of all the odd glances and gossip that generated from his mad dash. His lungs ache and his head is light, but all he needs to do is grab the handle, pull it, and get inside…

But the world falls to darkness when he reaches out his hand.

His dreams are restless, clawing things with tendrils wrapping around his limbs and throat, flowers blooming from his open chest cavity, his blood spilling into the inky blackness he’s suspended in. The wind whispers to him, you’re running out of time.

He retches, tosses and turns, and the tendrils tighten, holding him steady. His vision is a blur of orange marigolds and neverending blackness and he wonders if he’s fallen on death’s gate. If it’s come to whisk him away on swift wings.

“Felix,” someone calls, but it’s drowned out and fuzzy. He hears it again and this time, he thinks it might be Sylvain and his eyes water uncontrollably. He wants to see him.

He wants to see him. So bad. It’s not something he can ever admit outside of this purgatory, but Sylvain is his favorite person. Even with his stupid, skirt-chasing ways and his insufferable lack of self-preservation, he’s the only person Felix wants to spend his life with.

And if that life will only last a few more minutes, then Goddess, let him have those minutes with Sylvain.

Tears sting his eyes once more. It’s like he’s six years old again: blubbering and weak, sensitive and dependent. After Glenn died, he swore he’d never be that person again, but he can’t help it, not when he’s here in this infinite abyss and the cold wraps its iron arms around him.

The voice gently chanting his name is clearer now and increasing in frequency. The dark fades to grey and the voice gets louder. His ears pound and his lungs feel full to bursting. He can’t breathe.

He can’t breathe he can’t breathe he can’t breathe—

“Felix!”

The voice shocks him into the light, his eyes snapping open and the dark place dissolved around him. He tries to sit up but his body feels like lead, but a quick scan of the room gets him back to his senses. He’s at the monastery—lying on a bed, but not his own.

“Felix?” Above him, Mercedes hovers, her soft blue eyes filled with softer concern.

Felix doesn’t answer, he just breathes as deep as he can, savoring the sensation that was ripped from him in that dream place. Mercedes takes a rag from a bedside table and dabs it along his sweaty forehead as she sits on a stool at his bedside.

“Take your time,” she says. “You frightened me, you know. I followed you to your room and found you passed out at the door.”

“H-how long was I out?” he asks, his voice scratchy and dry.

“A couple hours.”

“What happened?”

Mercedes stares at her lap and Felix instantly knows she has bad news. “Your body wasn’t getting enough oxygen so you fainted. I imagine it’s because you have large bodies in your lungs impeding your breathing.”

“Large bodies?”

Mercedes still doesn’t meet his gaze, but instead she looks to a clay bowl on a bedside table next to her. Felix cranes his neck to see what’s inside it, but then snaps his head back to the pillow, his eyes focusing on the ceiling.

It’s a bowl of marigolds.

Just like in the dream, his eyes sting and he doesn’t have the strength to get himself together. This whole thing is so fucked.

“Oh, Felix,” Mercedes says and she wipes the tear that slides down the skin just below his temple. It’s so achingly kind that it makes Felix just want to cry harder.

“Who else knows?” he whispers.

“Just me. When I found you, I had to clean up the mess and then I found help to get you to the infirmary. I told them you were severely dehydrated. You’re lucky the professor brought Manuela along for the thief raid. I wouldn’t have been able to fool her.”

“I guess I should thank you.”

Mercedes shakes her head. “No, not necessary. I suppose it was my fault for spooking you so much that you felt you had to push yourself so hard. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t want any of you to know,” Felix says, flexing his fingers along the worn material of the infirmary bed mattress. “I didn’t want any of you to know.”

“I guess I can understand why, but Sylvain...he knows?” Mercedes says.

Felix nods. “We were fighting and I had a fit. I was careless and then careless again.”

He wants so badly to chastise himself, to scream and throw things, and all while he lists every way he’s been a complete moron. He doesn’t even know what he should do anymore.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” Mercedes says and the house of Felix’s heart collapses like it’s been hit by an unfathomable storm. No. No no no. That was the one thing he couldn’t let anyone know.

“Mercedes, please,” he says and he can hear how cowardly he sounds, how weak. “Don’t tell him. He can never know. Please.”

Mercedes looks at him, her eyes big with sympathy. “Of course. Your secret is safe with me.”

Felix relaxes and it feels like the first time in years. If nothing else, he can trust Mercedes’ word.

“How did you know?” he asks. Maybe he can find a way to stop being so damn obvious.

“Well, I just figured it couldn’t be anyone else. The way you two are with each other...and you always seem like you’re on the lookout for him. I guess you could call it a woman’s intuition.”

Felix scoffs, but his cheeks are pink. “Ridiculous.”

“You know,” Mercedes says, clearing her throat. “You don’t have many options, Felix.”

“Thanks, Mercedes, but actually, I did know that,” Felix says, nearly spitting the words.

“Let me finish. Look, I think I understand what you’re doing and why you’ve hid this all from us. Am I right to assume you’ve resigned yourself to your fate?”

Felix turns his head to look at the wall in favor of her piercing gaze. “Hmph.”

“That’s what I thought and I can understand why, I know you’re trying to protect us, but—now, I don’t want to give you false hopes—but I think you might be able to be cured,” Mercedes says, voice lofty.

“Do you know of a way?” Felix says, rolling onto his elbow to prop himself up.

Mercedes shakes her head. “There’s only one way to break the curse. What I’m trying to say is—”

“You’re wrong,” Felix says, his poisonous tongue reemerging as he rolls back to lie down. “Shut up. Don’t be frivolous.”

“Felix, I’m not. I don’t pretend to know Sylvain’s heart, but I really think there’s a chance—”

“There’s not. This is why I didn’t want any of you to know. You’ll just make it worse,” Felix says and he’s tired, dammit. He’s so tired.

Mercedes sighs and moves a few strands of Felix’s hair out of his face. He’s just now realizing that it’s down.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to upset you,” she says, pulling her hand away. “I just...don’t give up just yet. It’d break a lot of hearts if you weren’t here any more. Genuinely.”

He faces away from her again. “Stupid.”

“Maybe, but I’m here. I’ll do whatever I can to make this easier. Just ask, okay?” she says and if she doesn’t leave now, he’ll end up crying again. He can only take so much of that.

“Fine,” he says, waving her away. “Stop smothering me. I’m tired.”

“Of course, get some rest. Drink some water if you can.”

And with that, she’s out the door, and Felix's chest aches with the knowledge that he never did deserve her friendship.

Felix misses summers in Faergus. The winters are bitter and unforgiving as hell, but the summers even make a man like Felix nostalgic. He remembers the grassy knolls of Gautier territory. The cool rivers of Fraldarius. The lively city nights of Fhirdiad.

He remembers going to festivals with Glenn and sometimes with Sylvain. There was one night when Felix was eleven and Sylvain thirteen that Sylvain dragged him by the hand to the top of a hill on the outskirts of the city yelling at him “Hurry up, we’ll miss it!” as they went. Sylvain’s always been so much taller than Felix, with far longer legs, but by some summer night magic, he kept up better than he ever had.

When they finally made it to the top of the hill, all by themselves save for an old oak tree, Sylvain grinned at him and said, “This is the best spot in all of Fhirdiad!”

“Best spot for what?”

The answer came as the sound of a whistle and a bang, then an explosion of color smattering the night sky.

“Wh-whoa!” little Felix had said. He has seen magic before, but not like this. It was like the Goddess herself was painting glowing flowers in the stars. “What is that?”

“Fireworks!” Sylvain said as even more explosions whistled and whirled. “They only do it on the last night of the festival. Glenn told me you hadn’t seen it before, so I had to show you.”

“This is...amazing,” Felix said, staring up in wide-eyed wonder as Sylvain laughed beside him.

“I knew you’d like it,” he said and sat down, leaning his back against the old oak tree. “C’mon, sit down. It’s a whole show.”

Felix hastened to join him and felt an inexplicable mix of warmth and excitement pop in his body like the fireworks lived within him just as they did in the sky.

Looking back, Felix realizes that he was feeling alive. Maybe more so than he ever has holding a sword or cutting down an enemy.

So, it’s only fitting that the end of his life comes with the rainy season.

Felix hates the rain.

It’s raining when Felix is in his room, putting on his armor for what he decides will be his last battle with the Blue Lions. His condition is nearing its peak, he can feel it in the way his lungs act like he’s barely keeping his head above water. He has to excuse himself every hour to dispel the flowers and the whole class notices but they don’t say anything. He thinks Sylvain or Mercedes may have told them not to, but he doesn’t miss the worried glances.

It’s raining when Felix folds his school uniform, planning never to wear it again. It’s raining when Sylvain knocks on his door.

“Come in,” he says, but he doesn’t turn around, opting to stare at the window.

The door slowly creaks open and whoever it is (though Felix knows), is quiet for a stretch of time, only the sound of the pouring rain breaking the silence.

Felix closes his eyes, takes a breath, and then turns to face him.

He was right. It’s Sylvain. But this is a Sylvain that’s foreign to him—humorless, slouched, and tired with dark circles under his eyes. His hair is messy, but not in the manufactured boyish way Sylvain puts effort into.

“What is it?” Felix asks, voice barely loud enough to be heard over the heavy rains.

Sylvain considers him a moment and shakes his head. “I know you won’t listen to me, but...maybe you should sit this one out. You don’t look so good.”

“Better than you, though.”

Sylvain scoffs a laugh, running a hand down his face. “You might be right about that.”

“You haven’t been sleeping.”

“No.”

Felix sighs. Over and over again he thinks, this is why I didn’t want him to know.

“Stop it,” Felix says, but it doesn’t come out in the usual whip-tongue Felix style. His imminent demise is making him soft, especially for Sylvain. “Mercedes told me about all the research you’ve been doing. I know what you’re trying to do. Just stop. It’s pointless.”

“It’s not pointless.”

“You haven’t found a cure, have you?” Felix says and Sylvain’s dejected stare is answer enough. “There’s only one cure, Sylvain. And it’s not going to happen.”

Sylvain glares at him. “I can’t believe you’re just giving up. Even if there’s a million to one chance—”

“I’m not going to put that guilt on them for a million and one chance—”

“I don’t care about their guilt, I care about you,” Sylvain says, voice strained. “What’s some hurt feelings over your life?”

Felix feels the familiar squeeze at his heart, the one he gets whenever he remembers just how deep his affections for Sylvain go. And he laughs.

“You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you? Idiot.”

“Felix—”

“I love them too much to do that to them,” Felix whispers, the word “love” foreign and awkward on his tongue.

He can hear Sylvain’s breath catch. His hand moves over his chest, like he’s been wounded there and it hurts to look at him. This is why I never wanted him to know. If this is what it takes for Sylvain to back off, then so be it.

“I guess...that must be true,” Sylvain finally says. Felix can tell by the furrow in his brow that he’s thinking too hard, looking for an answer where there is none.

Felix grasps his sword at his side and walks toward Sylvain. “C’mon, we’ll keep the others waiting.”

As Felix is about to cross the door’s threshold, he’s stopped by Sylvain catching his wrist.

“Are you planning to get yourself killed out there?” Sylvain asks, the hand on Felix’s wrist trembling. “Go out in a blaze of glory or some crap.”

Felix looks him dead in the eye. “I’m not.”

It’s the truth. The class would just mourn and blame themselves, the morons. His plan hasn’t changed—he’ll run off and die alone once he’s too ill to conceal it. And that time is tonight, once they’re back. He’ll have one final hurrah with his class, his comrades and that will be his goodbye. It’s all he can give them.

Sylvain visibly relaxes but he doesn’t let go. “Oh. Good.”

“Sylvain.”

Sylvain looks up, his brown irises far too big and too familiar. Felix has always admired his eyes.

“Do you remember our promise?” Felix says.

Sylvain shifts, standing taller. “Of course I do.”

“Make another one with me.”

“What is it?”

Felix looks straight ahead at the hallway wall, then closes his eyes. Sylvain won’t like this. “Promise me you won’t keep our other one.”

“What?” Sylvain says, letting go of Felix’s wrist.

“Must I always repeat myself? I said, I want you to—”

“I know what you said. But how can you—Goddess, Felix, please. I can’t believe you’re just giving up.”

“Promise me,” Felix says, glaring at Sylvain. “Promise me you won’t do something stupid like off yourself once I’m gone. I’ll be going first and you’re not allowed to follow me.”

“Felix…”

“Promise me.”

And then to Felix’s surprise, Syvalin laughs, but it’s not a happy, bubbly laugh or even one of his fake laughs he uses to charm those around him; this is something darker.

“Is that really all I can do?” Sylvain says, covering his brow with his hand. “I’m so useless, all I’m good for is not dying.”

“Don’t be stupid. Who said that? You’re just not allowed to die, got it? If you do, I’ll find your soul and kick its ass.”

Sylvain laughs again, but this one has some levity to it. “If I promise, will you tell me who it is?”

“No.”

“C’mon, Felix, compromise.”

“No.”

Sylvain sighs. “Fine, I promise. But that doesn’t mean I concede. I’m not going to let you die, despite your best efforts to thwart me. Kind of hypocritical of you, if you think about it.”

“If you want, you can put ‘Felix Hugo Fraldarious: a total ass and complete hypocrite’ on my gravestone.”

“Okay, one, don’t joke about that. Two, don’t tempt me.”

Felix gives Sylvain a playful shove in the shoulder and holds back a smile. “C’mon, Gautier. The professor will be making up both of our gravestones if we don’t meet at the gates soon.”

Together, they make their way down the hall, shoulders nearly touching, and step into the downpour.

Felix will never forgive himself.

He knows damn well that Sylvain likes to play the martyr and he also knows he has no business on the battlefield with his constant fits. With those two pieces of truth tucked in his mind, he should have known it would come to this.

Felix was locked in combat with some rookie cavalier when his body shivered with the overwhelming need to cough. He jumped back, doing his best to gain distance, but expertise aside, a cavalier has the high ground and the reach. The plan was to buy himself time, cough enough to satiate his body for now, and then maybe retreat fully.

But nothing ever goes the fuck to plan.

The cavalier had at least been clever enough to see that Felix was weak and vulnerable, and he took the advantage. His horse bridged the gap between them too quickly and Felix watched the spear raise, wet and dripping from the rain, and watched it cut through the air before he closed his eyes. Before he accepted his fate.

The sound of steel meeting flesh pounded in his ears but was then followed by a grunt of pain that was not his own. Felix snapped his eyes open.

In front of him, Sylvain was standing between him and the cavalier with the cavalier’s lance sticking into Sylvain’s side.

Felix will never forgive himself.

Felix doesn’t think as he lunges with full force at the cavalier, his crest thrumming in his veins and hungry for blood. He tears open the cavalier’s belly with one swift slash of his sword, the power of his crest cutting through even the armor. The cavalier crumples and falls, his horse running mad into the forest.

He turns around, desperate to see Sylvain and sees he’s fallen to the ground as well.

No. No no no no no.

Felix falls to his knees and cradles Sylvain’s head in his hand. “Sylvain!” He surveys Sylvain’s body and there’s a bloody gash on one side of his abdomen, red and gushing. He quickly puts his hand on it to apply pressure, then yells, “MERCEDES!”

The field is a mess of rain, mud, and blood—corpses litter the ground among the fighting, everyone nearby engaged in their own battle.

“I need a healer!” Felix yells again, his voice hoarse with the strain. “Please!”

“It’s okay, Fe,” Sylvain says through a wheeze and he has the gall to smile up at Felix. “It’s just a flesh wound. Won’t die from this.”

“Shut up. Just shut up and let me get you help,” Felix says. There’s no masking the desperation in his voice; it cracks and rasps with every word. Blood seeps through the openings between his fingers.

Felix is just about to call out for help again, when his eyes catch on the professor running directly toward them. “Professor!”

The professor’s indigo eyes look to Felix then Sylvain, and color drains from their face. They kneel beside Sylvain on his other side and their hands float over where Felix holds his hand.

“Remove your hand,” they say. Felix obeys, but he has to tear it away, not wanting even one more drop of blood to leave Sylvain. Green light gathers then dissipates around the professor’s hands as it floods Sylvain’s wound. The wound closes around halfway, still bleeding but certainly slowed. Byleth takes a cloth from their armor and presses it to the spot and curses.

“This is the extent of my ability. Mercedes is coming Sylvain, just hold on. I sent her to the east with Annette, but she’s coming.”

Sylvain is sweating and Felix can see the pain in his eyes, but he doesn’t stop smiling. “It’s too bad I’m injured, otherwise I’d be flattered you didn’t think we needed a white magic user on our end.”

Byleth smirks. “You usually don’t.”

Usually, Felix thinks, but I’m not my usual self. I’m weaker than I’ve ever been and Sylvain had to rescue me.

Felix has been an angry person for a long time, but he’s never felt rage this white hot before, this boiling acid that courses through him like a river. He’ll never forgive himself.

He should have left weeks ago. He knew he was nearing the end, but he’s been so fucking selfish. He cared more about the glory of a final battle and his own desire to be near them all over Sylvain’s life. He should have known he’d need saving. This is his fault.

But it’s also Sylvain’s.

“You idiot…” Felix says, head bowed as he clutches the armor at Sylvain’s shoulder, his other hand still under his head.

Sylvain sighs—a labored thing—and looks up at Felix through his lashes. “You’re not seriously mad, are you?”

“Be quiet.”

Sylvain makes to argue but stops when Mercedes runs toward them, her ponytail waving behind her.

She joins the professor’s side instantly and surveys Sylvain’s body. “Oh, Sylvain.”

“Nothing you can’t patch up, I’m sure,” Sylvain says with a wink.

She smiles weakly at him, but sets to work right away, Byleth moving out of her way. Mercedes’ hands glow green and pulse its gentle healing properties through Sylain’s wound. It’s a slower process than Byleth’s spell, but Felix knows it will be strong enough that he’ll make a full recovery.

“Idiot…” Felix whispers and he just wishes he could be closer, that he could just—but no. He has to stop that line of thinking. He’s been far too selfish already.

“Still going to pick a fight, huh?” Sylvain whispers back and their heads are closer together than Felix realized, but he’s fully hunched over him, their foreheads nearly touching. Sylvain doesn’t seem to mind and Felix can’t move. “Well, if you’re looking for an apology you’re not gonna get one.”

“Shut up. I’m so sick of you,” Felix says, rage rising in him again. “You know. You know I don’t have long left and yet you still—”

“You’re the idiot if you think that means anything to me,” Sylvain says and Felix hates how much he doesn’t hate him at all.

The others have started to show up—he hears Annette’s gasp and Dimitri’s quiet “oh, no. Professor, is everything alright?”—but Felix is afraid if he looks away from Sylvain, he’ll slip through his fingers like smoke. It’s irrational, Sylvain will be fine, but he doesn’t want to let go.

“You promised,” Felix says. “You promised you wouldn’t get yourself killed.”

“I promised I wouldn’t follow you to the grave. Didn’t say I wouldn’t lead the charge,” Sylvain says and it infuriates Felix how light his tone is, like he’s telling a joke.

“Why are you like this?” Felix says, voice no longer a whisper. “What good would it have even done?”

The smile is wiped from Sylvain’s face and his eyes could shoot daggers. “To keep you safe?”

“Yes! Sylvain, I have days—”

“I will never let you die, Felix. Never. So shut up about it,” and Sylvain is so utterly serious, almost angered, that Felix can’t respond.

Why? Why can’t he understand that he’s not worth saving anymore? Why can’t he just take care of himself?

A small voice in the back of his head whispers, because that’s who he is.

Without any warning, without a chance for Felix to prepare, to run behind a tree or push it down, Felix retches violently. He’s quick enough to get the trajectory away from Sylvain thankfully, but he feels like his lungs are being ripped from him as his body expels flower after flower bathed in blood.

It’s happening. It’s happening.

He hears gasps.

“Felix!” Mercedes.

“Oh my—are those flowers?” Annette.

“Can anyone here heal him?” Dimitri.

Panic hits Felix harder than the sickness and he knows he has to run. He really fucked up this time.

He stands abruptly and he doesn’t look at a single face as he darts into the forest, ignoring the chorus of voices saying his name.

He runs, without direction or aim, all in hopes that he can get away from them, as far as he can. They may all know, but they don’t have to watch him die, helpless to do anything.

It’s little comfort. He fucked up. He fucked up he fucked up he fucked up. If he had just left yesterday, the other wouldn’t have found out. And now, even his father will…

His chest hurts for reasons completely beyond his illness. He runs harder.

He runs and runs and runs until his calves ache and his lungs cry. He runs until the forest trees thin and reveal a meadow full of marigolds. He almost laughs. He’s found the perfect place to die.

It’s misty and an eerie, grey fog covers the place, but somehow the flowers remain. Felix takes a few more steps into the meadow before he collapses onto his hands and knees. As the fight leaves him, he rolls himself onto his back, so he can stare up at the gloomy sky framed by red-gold petals.

This is the last picture he’ll see before he dies. Fitting. He doesn’t have long now—he can feel the petals in his throat growing, about to seal all the air away for good.

With every breath he remembers they’re numbered, slowly ticking down until it’s the last one. He tries to find some peace within himself, make it a little easier, but his heart is panicked. He doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want to be in this gloomy place by himself, he doesn’t want to fade away.

He thinks of Sylvain and—for just a second—he wishes he were there, but he banishes the thought as quickly as it comes. Sylvain will already be upset. If he was here, it’d just be worse.

Instead, he thinks of Glenn. Glenn who never lost any of their fights, Glenn who read him stories of brave knights, Glenn who left too soon. Maybe, there’s an upside to this. Felix has never been religious. He doesn’t believe Sothis guards the souls of the dead, but for now, he’ll entertain the idea. Maybe when he dies, he’ll see Glenn. His mother too. She died when he was so young, he hardly got to know her.

He closes his eyes and lets the rain hit his face. And he accepts it. He accepts his fate. It won’t be glorious or meaningful, but there’s nothing to be done about it.

“Felix!”

No.

“Felix, C’mon! Answer me, you asshole!”

Sylvain. Of course, it’s Sylvain. Felix sits up and another wave of violent coughs rack through him. Sylvain’s figure comes out through the trees into the clearing and he rushes to Felix, one hand clutching where he was injured.

If Felix was in any condition to, he’d run away again, but as it is, he can’t imagine himself getting far.

Sylvain reaches him and slides onto his knees to put himself on Felix’s level. He grabs his shoulders and gives him a rough shake. “What the hell were you thinking? We’ve got to get you back to Mercie. You’re as pale as a ghost and you’re shivering.”

“Sylvain.”

“C’mon, get up—”

“Sylvain, there’s no point. I’m—”

“I’m not letting you die here, you hear me—”

Felix punctuates his point with more retching. More flowers and phlegm and blood that mingle with the natural blooms.

“Oh, Goddess, Felix. Please—”

“Don’t you get it? It’s over.” Felix says. “It’s over.”

Sylvain grasps Felix’s shoulders even tighter. “No. No way. I’m sick of your bullshit. Tell me who it is now.”

“You’re so goddamn irritating.”

“Tell me. I don’t care if you don’t want to bother them with it. I’m not letting you die here.”

“I’m not telling you, so save your breath.”

“Felix. Felix, look at me,” Sylvain says and he cups Felix’s face with both hands, forcing him to meet his eyes. “Whoever it is, you must have known a long time, right? Everything I’ve read about the disease has said it’s an incurable love and there’s no way you’d feel that way about someone you just met.”

Felix’s eyes widen and he tries to break out of Sylvain’s grip but he won’t let him. “Sh-shut up.”

“If that’s the case, I bet you they love you too. Felix, just look at you. Who couldn’t love you?”

Pain, worse than the coughing, worse than the retching, stabs him in the chest, over and over again. This isn’t fair.

“Stop it. Just stop it,” Felix says as hot tears prickle his eyes.

“Just tell me. I’ll get them, I’ll explain, and we can try. They love you, Felix. I’m sure of it. Just—”

“You can’t possibly know that!”

Sylvain’s eyes are wet too and Felix can see how desperate he is to save him, but he can’t be the white knight. Not this time. “They’ll love you. I promise they’ll love you.”

“He doesn’t!” Felix all but yells and the words cut to say. It’s too late when he realizes the mistake he’s made.

Sylvain goes still and he lets go of Felix’s face. “It’s a man…”

Felix covers his mouth with his hand, cursing himself for his idiocy. “Sylvain, don’t—”

“Dimitri? Is it Dimitri?” Sylvain says and his voice cracks.

“Are you insane?” Felix snaps, heat rushing to his face. “No! Goddess, no.”

“Who, then? Just tell me.”

Felix can’t handle how desperate he sounds; it overwhelms him with every word and he wishes he died before Sylvain ever got there. He’s only hurting him with every minute he’s alive. But he can’t ever ever ever say that he’s dying over Sylvain. He won’t do it.

So Felix glares at him, sucking his lips in until he starts coughing again. As he does, Sylvain falls back, sitting on the grass with his long legs splayed in front of him and his head hanging low, defeated.

They don’t speak for several moments and only the rain and Felix’s coughs fill the silence.

“You want to know something funny?” Sylvain says, but there’s not a trace of humor in his voice. “I wish it were me.”

“What?” Felix says.

“If it were me, I could save you,” Sylvain says.

Felix’s stomach drops. He couldn’t have heard that right. There must be a misunderstanding. Sylvain can’t possibly mean what Felix thinks he means.

“What are you talking about?” Felix says, his voice thin.

Sylvain raises his head, a bit of water coming down his cheek but he wipes it away quickly. “And you call me the idiot.”

“Sylvain—”

“I love you. Ever since—I don’t even know. I don’t know but when I found out you had the disease and some ‘incurable love’ I felt like I was dying. I couldn’t sleep because I knew there was someone out there that you—” Sylvain stops, pressing a hand to his chest. And he coughs.

“Sylvain!” Felix says as Sylvain battles with his coughing fit. His shoulders shake with the power of his coughs and when he pulls his hands away from his face, Felix sees a few blooms of baby’s breath there. Felix’s stomach drops. He can’t possibly—

Sylvain inspects his palm and laughs, though there’s no humor . “See? I caught it a couple weeks ago. So, sorry. Guess I’m breaking our promise.”

Felix’s brain goes dark. His heart stops beating. There’s no way. There is no way this is real.

But something pulsates in his chest, something big and powerful, like his sternum has been hit with a hammer made of wind.

His lungs compress and then expand, spreading like wings in his ribcage. Inside him, he feels movement, like the flowers in him are squirming and fighting against the invisible force that’s flushing them out. It’s a clenching pain that makes Felix want to cry out but he doesn’t have the breath to do so. But even still, he’s warm all over and he knows it’s going to be alright.

And he breathes: big and gulping like he’s just broken his head from under the water after ten minutes. He takes in more air, then lets it out, and the simple in and out is so smooth and unobstructed that he wonders if he did die. Was it always this easy to breathe?

Felix touches his chest and even through his armor, his clothes, his binder, his skin and bones, he can tell the flowers are gone. He’s cured. His love is reciprocated.

“Holy shit,” he says, looking at Sylvain with wide eyes. Sylvain too, is stunned, and looking at Felix like he’s an apparition.

“Did you just—are you—?” Sylvain says, but he seems incapable of continuing. Felix, feeling stronger than he ever has, holds Sylvain’s arms.

“It’s you. Me too, I—” Felix starts, but he has to stop. Sylvain’s brown eyes are so open, so clear that it scares him, even now, to say it. But Sylvain is sick like he was sick and he’s not going to let that disease be within him a moment longer. He readies himself, throat burning and hands shaking, then says the words he promised he’d never say—

“I love you.”

Sylvain’s eyes widen and his breath catches. He brings his hand to his chest again and Felix gives him space as he watches the same change happen in Sylvain that happened to him. Sylvain grunts like he’s been punched, but then takes a big gasping breath.

“Felix,” he says in a breathy rush. Even in this muggy rain, he seems to be bathed in light.

Felix is too overwhelmed to do anything. He just got the use of his lungs back but they’ve stopped working again.

“Damn, forgot what it was like to breathe,” Sylvain says, his breathing loud and steady. “How did you keep this up for months?”

“Sylvain,” Felix says and he doesn’t even really know why he calls for him. Perhaps he just wants to know what the shape of his name feels like on his lips after...knowing what he knows.

If the evidence wasn’t right in front of him, he wouldn’t be able to believe it, but he can’t deny his lungs. Or the way Sylvain is looking at him—open and full of wonder, like Felix covered in rain, mud, and vomit is the best thing he’s ever seen.

“Hey,” Sylvain says and shifts himself back so they're both kneeling knee to knee. His hand sneaks to the back of Felix’s neck and gently, he presses their foreheads together. Felix can feel how red his cheeks are. “I told you so.”

Felix scoffs. “What are you on about?”

“I said that whoever it was, they would definitely love you back and I was right.”

“Shut up!” Felix says and pushes Sylvain’s face away with his palm. Sylvain laughs and takes the offending hand in his with a tender pressure. His eyes lid and he’s looking directly at Felix’s lips. Felix can’t breathe all over again.

“Can I kiss you?” Sylvain says and he’s closer than he was before. It would be easy, really. All Felix would have to do is look up and pitch himself a bit forward…

But.

Felix leans back. “I’m not kissing you with my vomit breath.”

“I don’t really mind.”

“I do. It’s our first one.”

Sylvain laughs again. “You trying to treasure me or something? I’m kind of embarrassed.”

He’s kidding, but Felix can see the blush forming on his cheeks. Sylvain blushing because of him? Felix already loves the way that feels. He’ll have to figure out how to do it more often.

He stands and, for all the good it’ll do, he dusts off his pants and offers his hand to Sylvain. “How’s your wound? I bet you opened it up again, fool.”

“You know, that’s not my favorite term of endearment. How about ‘love’?” Sylvain says, taking Felix’s hand and pulling himself up.

“Over my dead body,” Felix says and checks Sylvain’s injury. “You did open it up again.”

“Whoops.”

Felix scowls at him and takes his hand, leading him back to their party. “C’mon, we gotta get you to Mercedes.”

“Whatever you say,” Sylvain says and he intertwines their fingers as they walk. Felix stops short and looks down at their hands, dumbstruck.

“Is this okay?” Sylvain says, sensing his apprehension.

Goddess, he can’t even look at Sylvain or he’s going to implode. This is all such uncharted territory. He hasn’t indulged in imagining what it would be like to be with Sylvain since he was basically a child. He couldn’t allow himself to; it was far too dangerous. But now...now it’s not. And he’s not sure how to deal with it.

But for now, he guesses he can start with holding Sylvain’s hand.

Felix tugs Sylvain’s hand as they head back to the others. “It’s fine.”

He doesn’t have to look back at Sylvain to know he’s smiling.

The others know as soon as they see them. Well, most of them do anyway. It takes an uncontrollable giggle from Mercedes for the Boar to understand what happened, but the professor takes mercy on them and announces, “Leave them alone. It’s their business.”

Felix doesn’t miss that damn smug look on their face, though, and he swears he’s going to beat them in a duel if it’s the last thing he does.

The march back to Garreg Mach takes too long, half because Felix didn’t want to hold hands with Sylvain in front of the others but he’s itching to do it again and half because he’s both excited and terrified by what all this means the next time they’re alone together. He’s not really worried about being “good” or anything, but the newness, the inevitable awkward transition of being best friends to something more. He’s wanted this so badly for so long, but that doesn’t mean he has any idea how to navigate it.

Once they’re back, Felix is exhausted in every sense of the word. His bones ache and by the time they’re at the gates he can barely string a coherent thought together.

Byleth dismisses them and Felix can’t help but look right to Sylvain. He smiles at Felix and dismounts his horse, then tugs her forward by the reins.

“I’ve got to get Duchess to her stable…” he says, the “but” hanging in the air. Neither of them catches it.

“Yes, well, that’s…” Felix scratches at the back of his neck. “That’s fine.”

“You look tired.”

“You look worse.”

Sylvain laughs and pets Duchess’ nose. “Fair enough. But still, go get cleaned up and get some rest. We’ll talk tomorrow, okay?”

Felix shouldn’t be surprised; Sylvain is still nursing a wound and they both look like they’ve been run over by carriages, but he’s disappointed. And a little relieved. Why can’t his emotions just choose something?

Felix scoffs. “You’re the one with a hole in his side. I don’t need you to coddle me.”

“Not even a little?”

“Tomorrow is fine,” Felix says, ignoring him. “It’s late as is.”

“Right,” Sylvain says and Felix’s isn’t sure, but he thinks he catches a little disappointment in his voice too.

They stare at each other for a long moment and Felix wonders if they’re both just waiting for the other to change their mind. But if they do, neither of them voices it.

“Goodnight,” Felix says.

“‘Night.”

And Felix turns away, but each step to his room feels like he’s being yanked in the opposite direction. To where Sylvain is.

The bath is heavenly, so at least there’s that. Felix loses about ten pounds of grime and his muscles sorely need the magic of hot water. It’d all be very relaxing if his heart wasn’t a racing mess every time he thinks of Sylvain, of what he said, of how he feels.

He tries to put a lid on these thoughts. Tomorrow, he tells himself. We have all the time in the world now.

Well, easier said than fucking done. He’s a wreck. As Felix changes and gets ready for bed, his thoughts flood with Sylvain. He thinks of Sylvain’s long fingers and the way they held the back of his neck. He thinks of the shape of his lips and the way they parted just so when he thought they were going to kiss. He thinks of how they both found out they’re in love yet they were both too scared to touch each other. Or maybe that was just Felix.

Either way, it’s like all those oppressed hopes and wishes are flooding out now and he has no chance of putting them back. He changes and sees brown eyes. He takes out his bun and sees hair the color of marigolds. He lies in bed and imagines an arm wrapped around him.

It takes all of three seconds to know he’s never going to be able to sleep like this. He tosses and turns, tired beyond belief but wide awake. What a fool he was. He denied a kiss from Sylvain over some bad breath? What is he, a princess?

Grunting, he turns himself over so that he’s facing his wall and he suddenly remembers that this is the wall he shares with Sylvain. He touches the stones with a gentle hand. He’s right there. He’s right there.

Abruptly, he stands from his bed and begins pacing barefoot along the blue carpet. Maybe he should just wake Sylvain up and reaffirm some things. No. Sylvain is injured. He needs his rest. But also he’s suffered far greater injuries and Mercedes healed him so he’ll be sore at worst—but maybe he’d find it annoying and want him to leave—

When the fuck has Felix ever given a damn if Sylvain’s annoyed? This is pure cowardice and Felix Hugo Fraldarius is not a coward.

He leaves his room and knocks on Sylvain’s door.

There’s a gap of silence that makes Felix’s heartbeat thud in his ears, but he stands his ground. He counts the seconds it takes for Sylvain to get up and open the door, each one feeling like a lifetime, but he only gets to five when the knob turns.

And when Felix sees Sylvain’s face, he knows right away that he wasn’t sleeping either.

“Felix?” he says, hair clean and mussed, his nightshirt rumpled and loose, his defined collar bone peeking from the v-cut of it. Felix is at his limit.

Felix worms his way inside and Sylvain lets him, backing up a bit. But only a bit. Felix presses the door closed with the weight of his body, his eyes zeroed in on Sylvain’s. It probably looks like he’s about to challenge him to a duel, if Felix hazards a guess at what his face is doing.

“I brushed my teeth,” Felix says.

Sylvain takes the smallest step towards him, leaning down. “Did you?”

Felix lunges at him and Sylvain lunges right back; Felix’s arms wrap tight around Sylvain’s neck as he presses his lips to Sylvain’s. They’re supple and pliant at his touch, and a small noise escapes from the back of Felix’s throat. Sylvain’s arms are similarly wrapped around Felix’s waist and the giant oaf leans his weight against Felix until they’re braced against the door.

Despite all their hesitation before, there’s none to be found now that they’re here. Sylvain’s hand slips under Felix’s nightshirt and his palm splays over his bare lower back, burning him. Felix nips his bottom lip in retaliation and Sylvain melts against him; he’s so warm, Felix thinks he might be running a fever.

Sylvain is gentler than Felix is, politely swiping the tip of his tongue against Felix’s lip to kiss him deeper. Felix doesn’t deny him. He’s not sure he can deny Sylvain anything ever again. He’s completely ruined from here on out, behoven to no king except the man in his arms. Sylvain—his childhood friend, his best friend, and his...his something more. Felix never expected that kissing Sylvain would live up to the idea he had built up in his mind over the years and he certainly never expected those expectations to be surpassed by the real thing. But they are.

Sylvain slows them down a bit, his kisses going from fervant to more direct, appreciative, like he’s trying to commit this feeling to memory. It’s embarrassing and scary, but Felix keeps up with it. He’s never been one to volunteer to be vulnerable, but for Sylvain, he’ll try. Because as scary as it is, it’s also good. Felix has had his fair share of random flings, of stolen kisses behind stable doors, but never, not once, had they ever meant anything. Kissing Sylvain like this...it’s scary. But it’s scary because it matters.

They seperate and Felix feels Sylvain’s breath on his lips. Sylvain’s a sight—his cheeks are red, his eyes lidded, and his lips satisfyingly swollen. Felix wants to kiss him all over again.

Instead, Sylvain’s hand floats to Felix’s cheek and he holds it like it’s the most precious ore in the world. Felix grips the front of Sylvain’s shirt with both of his hands and looks Sylvain dead in the eye. It’s scarier than kissing him; Sylvain’s got this look in his eye—this gentle, soft look—that makes Felix want to run, but he won’t. Not anymore.

Sylvain’s thumb traces his cheek bone.

“You love me?” Sylvain says in a small voice and Felix thinks Sylvain might be the one who’s most terrified. He’s not teasing Felix or asking for him to say it again, but asking if this is real. If Felix’s feelings are real.

Felix hates himself for letting there be any room for doubt.

“Do you remember the day we found out Glenn died?” Felix says and Sylvain arches an eyebrow. It’s not exactly the most romantic follow up to Sylvain’s question but—”Just hear me out. I ran away to the woods and hacked at a tree until my hands were bloody.”

“I remember,” Sylvain says.

“When you found me, you didn’t say a damn thing about how noble his death was or tell me I had to go back because I had a duty as the heir of House Fraldarius. You were just there.”

“Felix—”

“I didn’t know at the time but that was when I—” Felix clears his throat, his face hot. Sylvain’s eyebrows disappear into his hair. “You’ve always been like that. Kind. There when we need you. I love that about you.” Felix takes in a bracing breath. “I love you. I love you so much I got sick over it. So, don’t start—” a lump lodges itself in Felix’s throat. This is hard. Harder than he could have imagined. “Don’t start doubting me.”

For a long moment, Sylvain goes very still and Felix can’t make out the expression on his face. Carefully, like he thinks Felix is made of glass, he wraps his arms around Felix’s shoulders and presses his cheek to the top of Felix’s head. A little stunned himself, Felix hesitates for a second before returning the embrace.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever truly believe you,” Sylvain whispers. Felix’s heart twists painfully. “Or, at least, I won’t stop wondering when you’re going to realize you could do better than me.”

“You’re so damn frustrating. I don’t want better, I want you. It’s incurable, remember?” Felix snaps and the butterflies in his stomach are quickly being switched out with annoyance. What exactly does he have to do to prove it to him?

Sylvain chuckles and Felix can feel the vibrations of it against him. “You’re the frustrating one. How am I supposed to argue with logic like that?”

“You could stop arguing and kiss me again for starters.”

“Good idea,” Sylvain says and before Felix knows what’s happening, he’s up in the air.

“What are you—” Felix says. Sylvain is holding him bridal style, but as quickly as he lifted Felix in the air, he’s already being laid down on his bed. Even more suddenly, Sylvain hovers over him, his arms braced on either side of Felix’s head. Felix is willing to bet his Dukedom that he’s probably bright red all the way down to his chest.

“You’re really cute when you blush,” Sylvain says and goddess, fuck this guy.

Felix snarls at him. “You don’t have to comment on it.”

Sylvain leans in and presses his lips right next to Felix’s ear. “I think I do.”

Sylvain presses a light kiss to the ear in question and Felix’s is all out of witty retorts. Sylvain kisses his jaw next, then presses another to his pulse point where he’s sure to feel it thrumming rapidly. He pulls away and studies Felix’s face with such a tender expression, Felix might just die.

“W-what?” Felix says, feeling exposed.

“I was just thinking,” Sylvain says, coiling some of Felix’s loose hair around his finger. “I don’t think it was just one moment for me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“When I fell in love with you.”

Felix can’t take it anymore; he covers his face with both palms. “Why must you speak?”

“Aw, c’mon,” Sylvain says, pulling Felix’s hands from his face. “I want to say this.”

Felix grunts and rolls his eyes, but it still sounds fond despite his best efforts. “If you must.”

Sylvain takes one of Felix’s hands in his. “I just...want you to know.”

He looks as terrified as Felix felt a few minutes ago—vulnerable and stripped bare, trying to convey something he just recently found the words to.

“I’m listening,” Felix says, squeezing Sylvain’s hand.

Sylvain shifts so he’s sitting, removing the weight from his one arm and traces Felix’s knuckles with his thumb. “I don’t think it’s ever been cut and dry for me. I always knew you were special to me, but I’ve always been so caught up in my own shit that I couldn’t see it for what it was. All I knew was that I could trust what you said. You’ve never once told me something because you thought that’s what I wanted to hear. You’re honest and that’s—that’s everything.” Moonlight from the window hits Sylvain’s face, casting him blue. Felix tries as hard as he can to commit this to memory. He wants to carve Sylvain’s words into his heart so he can read them over and over again. “You...ever since we were kids, you were underneath my skin. And you stayed there. Do you remember that couple of years where we hardly saw each other? Right before we came here?”

Felix swallows thickly and nods.

“I knew you were avoiding me. I didn’t know why, I just figured you were sick of me and I couldn’t bring myself to ask. But it was killing me. I wanted to talk to you every day, I wanted to apologize for whatever it was I’d done, but I’m a coward. I couldn’t say a thing to you and I didn’t know why it mattered so much that I couldn’t—”

“Sylvain—”

“Let me finish, please,” Sylvain says. Felix can’t say no to that so he squeezes Sylvain’s hand a little tighter. “And then we came here and you were in my life again. And it was so good to see you every day, just to talk to you, to have meals together. Every time you got mad at me or turned away, it hurt and I didn’t get it, so I just chased after some—” He sighs. “You know what I did. I don’t think I started to understand until we had that big fight and I saw you coughing up flowers.”

Something in Sylvain’s eyes changes, darkening and looking far away. Felix reaches out with his free hand to smooth the wrinkle in his brow. Sylvain spares him a small smile and continues. “I was terrified, y’know? When I saw you, I thought I was the one with flowers in his lungs. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t concentrate, I couldn’t think about anything other than how to help you. It was all I could do to get to class, but even that felt like a waste of time.”

“And one night, a couple weeks ago, it clicked. I was reading about the disease, hit another dead end, and got so pissed I threw the book against the wall when I thought ‘I just got him back. I don’t want anything to take him away from me,’” Sylvain says. Felix grits his teeth and begs his heart to slow down.

Sylvain’s fingers find their way into Felix’s hair again. “I had this one little thought and it was all over. I finally got that I’d been in love with you for years and as soon as I got the message, I started coughing up flowers.” Sylvain laughs, brief and dark. “I thought I was being punished.

“I’m in deep with you, Felix. Really. But I’m selfish. I think you deserve to know how selfish I am. I only ever think of myself. I wanted to save you because of what it would have cost me. You’re too valuable for me to give up. I love you selfishly.”

Sylvain goes quiet, his confession out in the air and filling the room with tension. His head hangs low like he’s waiting for Felix’s judgement.

Idiot, Felix thinks.

“When it comes to me,” Felix says. “Be as selfish as you want.”

“Felix—”

Felix sits up so he can be eye level with Sylvain and so he can feel the full extent of his glare. “Do you think my feelings have been anything but selfish? As if I haven’t spent half of my life just wanting you all to myself?”

Sylvain stares at him wide-eyed, but he doesn’t try to interrupt again.

“Did you ever stop to consider why I avoided you for two years? It’s because every other day I saw you with a new girl and I was trying to keep myself from getting crushed. You have no idea the power you held over me, even then,” Felix says, his upper lip curled. “I avoided you for my sake, with no regard for how you felt. I knew what I was doing. I knew you’d be hurt and confused by it, but I didn’t care. So you only wanted to save me for yourself; who cares? At least you weren’t hurting others to get what you wanted.”

Felix feels himself tremble with a sudden surge of disgust with himself. All those years, when Sylvain had done nothing to him but date, Felix mercilessly cut him out without a care in the world for how it would affect Sylvain. How can he ask to be loved by someone after that?

Sylvain reaches out and cups Felix’s face between his palms. “I think I did, though,” he says and then kisses Felix’s forehead. “I’m sorry I’ve been so oblivious. From now on, I’m all yours. Promise.”

Felix’s cheeks go hot again and he looks away from Sylvain’s gaze. “I’m sorry, too. For avoiding you. And everything else.”

Sylvain shifts closer until their foreheads are pressed together and the tips of their noises just brush. It’s clear, even at this angle, that Sylvain’s gained back that mischievous glint in his eye. “Guess you’ll have to make it up to me.”

The corner of Felix’s mouth tugs into a smirk. “Guess so.”

Sylvain hums and kisses Felix full on the mouth, slowly guiding him back down to the bed. Felix lets him as his hand makes its way to Sylvain’s jaw and he marvels at how it moves beneath his fingers. Felix can hardly stand how good it feels, how right it is to have Sylvain in his arms.

“Stay here tonight?” Sylvain asks, when they break to catch their breaths.

“Yeah,” Felix says before he bites Sylvain’s bottom lip again. Sylvain responds with a low moan in the back of his throat and gives as good as he gets, every place he touches sending goosebumps along Felix’s skin.

It’s a while before they can stop. Each kiss feels like the first—new and electric—but eventually, the fatigue from the day catches up to them. They see it in each other at the same moment and wordlessly, they work their way underneath Sylvain’s covers.

Sylvain wraps his arms around Felix’s waist and Felix leans against him. He’s so warm and it makes Felix settle, go still and relaxed. Maybe this is what people mean by happiness. Maybe happiness is knowing you’re exactly where you should be, even if it’s for just a moment.

There will be strife. There’s unrest growing every day in Fódlan and Felix has no disillusion that he’ll know peace for his whole life but…

But for now, he has it—happiness. He’ll treasure it and find as many of these moments with Sylvain as he can. If he finds themselves lost in darkness, this is something he can use to light the way.

Felix’s eyelids grow heavy. He slips into a gentle sleep, his breath deep and easy, as Sylvain holds him tight.