victory_road | [closed] February Catch All

"Yeah, yeah. I am."

The longer he's awake, the easier it is to take in the sort of details that ground him in this life. There's a faint floral scent in the air thanks to Inda, one that mixes pleasantly with cologne -- fresher than he might have imagined. And then, of course, there's the weight of the ring on his finger. The cold metal is a comfort, a reminder that he isn't alone.

And then it's blotted out by grief once more, as he realizes how little it actually means. Where once he might have thought to say something comforting to Felix, he simply buries himself further into Felix's embrace. His heart aches, his chest feels as if it might burst open. Perhaps that might be a mercy, right now he can hardly fathom continuing forward like this.

Felix can't process much for a while beyond clinging to Sylvain like his life depends on it, breathing him in, feeling the warmth and strength of the arms around him. Slowly, he becomes aware of a few things. Like the fact that Sylvain hasn't had anything else to say, hasn't even asked how long he's been out. Didn't wake him with a kiss or a teasing word like he usually would, or even any words at all.

He doesn't know how long it takes before he carefully pries himself away from Sylvain only enough to look him in the eye. Goddess, he missed looking into those eyes. But something's wrong.

"Sylvain...it's been over a week. Talk to me. What do you remember?"

To say "everything" would be a cliche. Felix wouldn't even know how to define "everything," anyway. He's certainly farther ahead than most anyone else has mentioned before. He recalls the bloody battles of Gronder, of Fhirdiad and Deirdru. And of course, the taking of Enbarr.

"The war is over." His voice is quiet -- speaking softly is the only thing he can do to keep his voice from shaking. "We won. Dimitri's coronation was -- " His brows furrow. Tomorrow is the word he wants to say, but obviously that's not the case here.

"He was about to become king."

It should be a reason to celebrate. They had been successful. They had all lived to see a new day, the start of a new future. But Sylvain's future had always been written. Even with the optimism that might come from Dimitri's rule, it wouldn't change what was waiting for him back in Gautier.

"Once he was King... I was going to go--" His voice catches. Felix might get the wrong idea with home -- that wasn't how they had defined it. "I was going to become Margrave. My father was going to give his title over to me as soon as I returned to Gautier."

The war is over. Those words burn like brands in Felix's mind. The war is over. Sylvain's further along than any of them, now. They won the war. Dimitri's getting coronated.

So why are Sylvain's eyes filled with despair?

When he has his answer, Felix recoils as though the words are a weapon. "What? Why?"

Why, Felix asks, and Sylvain so desperately wants to answer. But his throat locks down, tight and painful. He can hardly breathe around the lump that forms there. He can only stare at Felix's shocked form, agony quickly twisting his expression into something assuredly heartbreaking.

Finally, he manages something -- brief and staggered though the words are.

"We-- Didn't remember."

The time between the question and the reply feels like years of watching Sylvain crumple. If the last answer felt like a blow, this one feels like an abyss opening up under their feet. He stares at Sylvain with naked terror, the kind of thing Felix would never admit to, much less let anyone see, under normal circumstances.

"...we didn't remember." They knew it would be a possibility, but the reality of it never really hit him before. And yet-- "But why didn't I...why did we let that happen? Even if I didn't remember, I..." He scowls, but it's horribly unconvincing. It looks like panic. It is panic. "I'd still love you. I always have. Why would I let you go?"

The last question comes out as a strangled whisper.

"Felix." Sylvain's voice is soft, and not just from the grief weighing on his shoulders. He leans back far enough to level a look at him, one that might have looked teasing if it weren't for the grief so evident in his gaze.

In this world, they'd had magical circumstances to force their hands. They'd been forced together into a realm of innocence, after all. Simply customs like Mistletoe weren't exactly prevalent in Faerghus, and even if they were, they wouldn't have had time for them outside of the war. There were no creatures to expose their secrets to one another. It was up to them to bear the weight of baring their emotions.

And neither of them were ever any good at that.

"I never told you how I felt. Not about you, or about being Margrave, or about my future. You... had no reason to think anything would be any different than it was."

...of course. Of course neither of them ever said anything. Like the utter fools they are. Felix should know better--five years of war hadn't loosened their tongues, why would a few extra months make a difference?

Felix has never hated himself before, not really. He's hated things he did, or ways he felt, but he's never hated himself until now. His future self. The Felix who's back in Fodlan, squandering the time he has with Sylvain and ruining both of their lives with his silence. For nothing but his pride.

"I should have." It's still quiet, but rough, a savage hiss. "We were supposed to be together until we died, Sylvain."

He can't take this. After the last nine days, he just can't. His eyes glimmer with gathering tears that he desperately tries to hold back.

"We can't leave here. We can't go home. We won't." He clutches Sylvain close again, clinging as though at any moment either of them might just vanish. After all, either of them easily could.

"I know." Sylvain's voice cracks. Aside from the earlier weeping, a remnant to when he'd believed himself entirely alone, he hasn't cried in front of someone else in ages. It feels shameful to let it happen now, but at least it's in front of Felix. They're best friends, they've seen each other cry before.

And, above all else, Sylvain thinks he's earned the right to mourn this. Even now, with memories of Johto and Fodlan interspersing, he feels his stomach twist. He'd promised to love Felix forever here, yet had forgotten that promise so readily. Even if it hadn't been his fault, it still feels so wrong.

Yet... Just as they've always cried on one another, Felix finds a way to reassure them. Sylvain knows how pointless such a promise is, not when Dedue had slipped from their fingers so easily. But he chooses to believe it all the same. The only other option is pessimism.

"We won't. I won't leave you again." He feels a small rustle between them, followed by a gentle coo. He corrects his statement with a ghost of a smile. "I won't leave either of you."

Felix vividly remembers the day Sylvain didn't wake up and Claude tried to reassure him, the things he said in retaliation--the uncertainty. Realistically, they have no way of knowing whether this promise is something they can keep. It's out of their hands. Sylvain told him once before that he'd never leave, and Felix had promised the same, but neither of those promises stopped this from happening.

But Felix is a goal-oriented man. If there is a way to ensure they never go home again, he will find it. At least now he has something to fight for again. It feels so much more important to him now than fighting for Faerghus ever did.

He takes a deep breath, lets it out. The faint edge in his tone when he speaks again isn't anger, but steel. "I know you won't. If you can help it. And neither will I. ...I'm not stupid. I know that regardless of what we intend, it could happen. But listen to me, Sylvain." His fingers clench on his fiance's shoulders. "I will fight for this. I will fight for us. I will never stop fighting until we can keep our promise forever and no one can stop us."

If anything is comforting, it's the iron in Felix's voice and the strength of his grip. Even if he hadn't ever said it back home, that resolve had been one of the many things to spur Sylvain to keep fighting. It was that and their promise, a lance and shield against whatever came at them.

Yes, there was a chance that either of them would be snatched away in an instant. There was a chance something like this could happen to them again, perhaps even on a more permanent basis. But he's never once bet against Felix, not when it mattered.

If anyone could bend the rules of the universe, it would be Felix Fraldarius.

"I know."

He leans forward, pressing their foreheads together again. His eyes slip closed, then clench tight at the burning sensation that follows. As far as he's concerned, it's been six months since he had last allowed Felix to hold him -- not counting anything in the last few minutes. Considering the weight on his shoulders, he thinks he's earned a few moments of indulgence.

"You've never let me down, Felix."

That much is true.

"And I never will."

That much, Felix can promise without reservation. That whatever's in his power to do, he will do, and nothing will get in his way.

The resolution helps banish the panic. Felix shifts to take Sylvain's face in his hands and press a kiss, gentle but firm, to his lips. "The Felix by your side throughout the war may have been too much of a coward to say so, but he loved you, and I love you."

Sylvain's heart still rabbits away in his chest. His stomach is twisted into knots, and anxiety still worries at his mind. But at least the kiss chases something away. Felix wasn't the only coward, after all -- Sylvain had always felt something for his closest friend. But he'd resigned himself to his fate as the Margrave, and doubted that his feelings -- unrequited, he was certain -- would change anything.

Which means no matter the past or the present, Sylvain can agree on this kiss. It's the sort of thing out of storybooks, to believe that love could save them. But Sylvain lets himself believe for a little while.

"I love you too, Felix. I always will.

Felix nods, clutching those words tightly to his heart. He wills them across the barriers between worlds, wishing he could go knock some sense into his other self.

But he's spent nine days feeling sorry for himself and constantly worrying, and he's sick of it. Sylvain's awake now, and for now, that's all that matters. The future is back where it belongs, on the other side of dreams, and figuring out how his fight begins can wait a few hours. He can hold tight to what he has here.

Figuratively and literally. He shifts into a more comfortable position for wrapping Sylvain up in his arms again, less desperate this time, and makes sure to leave room for Inda, too.

"I missed you." It's quiet. "Inda did, too. She gave me my birthday gift. I read your letter."

Between them, Inda lets out a small coo. She still has her face pressed firmly against Sylvain's stomach, her little "hands" clutching tightly at his shirt. She tilts her head up just long enough to peer up at Felix, to check on her Papa, before burying back in once more.

It takes Sylvain a moment to remember what Felix is talking about. When he parses it together, his cheeks flush faintly, and a smile -- small but genuine -- forms on his face. He nestles up to Felix, Inda with him as careful as possible.

"You must have thought it was so sappy, huh?"

Felix pats Inda's leaves gently. "It was sappy. It was the sappiest thing I've ever seen in my life." He smiles a little, too. "But thank you anyway. That hat is ridiculous, and I look ridiculous in it." ...which is an admission that he put it on and looked in the mirror at least once. Dammit. "...I'm grateful for all of it."

And, as Sylvain has already sort of noticed, the bedsheets smell faintly of his cologne. Because Felix has been a complete mess for over a week.

"You should read that letter, too. Not now, but today. I want you to remember everything you wrote." Maybe, he thinks, the reminder of hope and love and true family will help.

"You'll never believe what Dimitri gave me for my birthday."

"Ridiculous?" There's still a layer of solemnity in Sylvain's voice, but for a moment, he chases it away with the sound of mock offense. He holds a hand over his chest, looking fully scandalized. The other hand attempts to block, well, where Inda's ears should have been, at least.

"Are you calling our plant baby ridiculous? Can you believe this, Inda?"

That amusement quickly fades away, though something of a smile lingers in its stead. He nods in agreement -- truthfully, he can hardly remember what he'd put in the letter at this point. It would be good to re-read it.

"What did Dima get you?"

Felix snorts quietly and lightly kicks Sylvain for his foolishness. "I'm calling you ridiculous. Don't listen to this idiot, Inda, he's putting words in my mouth."

He's glad he doesn't have to fight Sylvain on reading the letter; he'd half-anticipated he might. At the question, he shakes his head. "Guess."

Sylvain has no idea what would cause such an enthusiastic reaction in Felix. Well, he has a few ideas, but none of them are things that he would particularly delighted in telling Sylvain about -- at least not without Sylvain badgering him endlessly.

In the end, he recalls one of the conversations they'd had as an army. He throws it out as a random guess.

"A dagger?"

"A dagger. After all the torture you put him through over it." Felix shakes his head. "He's unbelievable."

But it's fond. He loves the dagger.

"Oh. And Jinx showed me how to make physical copies of photographs. I...took some pictures. Of things you missed while you were asleep. So I could show them to you."

He reluctantly leans away from Sylvain for just a second so he can pull open the drawer in the bedside table and take out a little pile of photos. He immediately returns to exactly where he was, handing the pile to Sylvain.

A lot of the pictures are of Inda and/or Varley, or one or both of them with Felix (Felicity also taught him how to take selfies). A few are of Felix by himself; most of those are from a perspective low to the ground, because Inda took them. There are pictures of them ice skating, having tea, training with others of Felix's and Sylvain's Pokemon, sitting by the window in the early morning light, cuddling up together under the blankets...there's a series of seven selfies, one taken each morning, of just Felix with a sleeping Sylvain. They have a quiet, solemn air to them, but they're also the softest pictures of the bunch.

There's also one of all of Felix's birthday presents gathered on the table, and one each of Felix having tea with Dimitri, Claude, and Annette. There are a few of nothing but various sights around Ecruteak, or the setting sun, or an untouched expanse of freshly fallen snow just before dawn.

Felix settles in to snuggle up against Sylvain and hold him close while he looks over the pictures.

"A dagger," he repeats. He looks almost sad as he says it. But Felix's enthusiasm is infectious. Did Dimitri even remember the significance? Did he understand who he'd given the dagger to before? It felt... wrong to harbor this knowledge when no one else did.

Still, he forces a smile to his lips eventually. It isn't even false, either. It's made Felix happy, and if there was a chance that Dimitri did remember all of that... he'd clearly made his peace with it. He could accept that much.

He doesn't say anything else after that, He simply settles in with his arm looped around Felix's waist. The pictures are spread across his lap carefully. He goes through each one by one. Seeing them doesn't quite take away all of the pain flickering in his gaze, but it does lessen it. To see the devotion of not only Felix, but the team he had painstakingly raised... It's comforting.

Finally, he glances up, studying Felix's face. He tucks one of the pictures of the two of them away for himself, before picking up his own gear and holding it out.

"We should take one now that I'm awake, right?"

Felix blinks at that reaction. It's not what he expected. Sure, Sylvain's in no mood to laugh, but this seems strangely...melancholy? He suddenly remembers Dimitri's overreaction the last time he mentioned the dagger thing. ...something isn't right, here. He frowns, but doesn't ask--not yet. Now isn't the time. Right now, he needs to help Sylvain remember this life. This future. He'll find out what's going on later.

Felix looks up when Sylvain does, meeting his eyes for once. But he can't tell what it is Sylvain's looking for. Or looking at. "What?"

Then he smiles faintly. "Yes. Go ahead, you take it." Sylvain's arms are longer, and thus better for taking selfies--not that Felix would ever admit that. He stays right where he is--pressed close to Sylvain with arms wrapped around him, head resting on his shoulder, loose hair spilling across his chest--as he looks up into the camera.

"You looked so sad in these," he says. He holds one of the ones he'd pilfered up, showing it to Felix. When he's certain that Felix has gotten a good look, he holds the photo out, positioning it beside his face. He looks between the photo to the living, breathing man in front of him.

It's not perfect. But he can at least tell that Felix is doing a little better.

"All the more reason to take a better picture." He shifts back toward Felix, nestling in until their foreheads are pressed together. He adjusts his hand, making sure that they're both in the frame. Once he's certain that Felix has made all necessary preparations for himself, he presses the button to snap a photo.

Oh. Felix has looked at the photos before, of course, but he wasn't paying much attention to what sort of look he had on his face in them. This time, he can see what Sylvain means. "I was sad."

The faint smile is back again for the picture, though it's not a conscious effort. Just the knowledge that Sylvain wants a better memory to keep. Felix wants one, too. In fact, he wants more than one. He wants thousands of them. He wants to be able to fill a dozen of those books with pictures of them across a whole lifetime.

Once Sylvain is finished taking the photo, Felix reaches out to take his left hand and hold it, running his thumb over the ring that Sylvain wears. He wants to ask a question, but it doesn't come out as a question.

"Sylvain...after all this, you'd better still want to marry me."

He tries to keep his voice steady. He's not sure how well he succeeds.

Even if he knows he had no control over the situation, there's still a level of guilt that settles over Sylvain. Even worse, he knows that his guilt is over something ridiculous. Looking at the photo, he almost feels guilty for having simply slept for nine days, leaving his loved ones to agonize over him. Even if they all know the truth, that he'd spent six months fighting for his life, the photo didn't, and wouldn't, ever show that.

He closes his eyes and breathes out a sigh once the picture is taken. His grip around Felix tightens. He knows that if he apologizes out loud, he'll get an earful from Felix. He'll just have to hope that the tiny squeeze will be enough to settle his troubled mind.

The attention to that ring draws him from his thoughts. He glances down to their hands, before looking Felix in the eye. Truthfully, he hadn't thought about it. And now that it has been brought up, he can see why Felix would have his doubts. If it didn't mean anything back home, what would the point have been.

Still, he turns his hand over and threads his fingers between Felix's.

"Of course I still want to marry you." Even if he knows his misery is impossible to avoid, he knows it can't hurt to be as happy as he can now. After all, it wasn't like he'd remember what all he'd left behind.

[closed] February Catch All

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