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cavalierious-whim · 1 year

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Sylvain struggles to settle into his role as Margrave and writes a letter to Felix, an olive branch he isn't sure will receive a reply.

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Post-war life is a strange thing.

It isn’t that Sylvain expects it to be easy. Reconstruction is a bittered thing with too few resources and people left to do the heavy lifting. He doesn’t miss war but he isn’t quite equipped to handle the aftermath, either.

This is what he thinks when he looks at Gautier Manor rising high before him. It is in disrepair. Still in one, solid piece, but patched in areas that he doesn’t remember. Boards on the windows, tarps over broken roof tiles to keep out the rain and snow. The steps that lead to the double doors are pitted and chipped.

Sylvain feels as though he’s looking at a ghost. He stands there, staring, a bag slung over his shoulder and his horse pawing at the ground behind him.

“Margrave?” A quiet voice to his right, meek and trembling. The servant girl keeps her head bowed and wrings her hands in front of her apron.

It takes a moment for Sylvain to realize that she is talking to him. Margrave, she’d said, the question rolling off her tongue softly.

Feel wrong. Sylvain shifts awkwardly, dragging a gloved hand through his hair. Winter has not fully settled in, so the air is crisp but still warm enough for only a thick woolen cloak and the barest essentials.

“I’m…” Sylvain stops, words refusing to form because his tongue feels fat in his mouth.

Sylvain is a man who has always cared for himself, mostly ignoring the whims of others. Always told his father to fuck off, slept with both men and women to satisfy the void in himself, and never wrote to his mother despite knowing it’d be good for her.

And now, he’s come back to a home full of ghosts and even his title to haunt him.

“A Margrave is meant to serve his people,” his father once said. The only good advice he ever gave him.

“The work of a Margrave is tiresome and grueling, but you are built for it.” Sylvain never listened to his mother, not even when it counted. He still wouldn’t listen to her now, his own self-deprecation his worst enemy.

He very nearly didn’t come back home.

But he did because if there’s anything Sylvain does not do, it’s let things sit stagnant and unresolved. Besides, the people here have done nothing to warrant an absent lord. They’ve done their best to get by in the midst of war and famine. Even the girl that stands next to him seems strong despite her thin frame.

“We are Gautiers,” was another thing his mother once said. “We are the people of the bitter north winds, hardened by our lives here and made better for it.”

“What is your name?” asks Sylvain.

The servant keeps her head down. “I’m—”

“No, look at me.” He isn’t unkind. He says it quietly, carefully, even, like he’s addressing a hatchling not yet out of the nest.

When the girl looks at him, though, Sylvain finds not a hatchling. Her eyes are sharp, glinting with measured and underhanded intelligence. Like a magpie, he thinks, in the way that she regards him as though he’s a text to be dissected.

“Rhesa, Lord Margrave,” she replies.

“Well, Miss Rhesa—” She starts at that, her head tilting ever-so-slightly. “I can’t promise that I’ll be a good Margrave, but I’ll be a better one than my father.”

She snorts. Tries and fails to hide it behind a carefully placed cough. It is funny—truly it is, but it is funny to them for different reasons.

For Sylvain, it’s a hope and mostly a dream, but he makes no promises because he’s never been a good man. And the one person who helps him, who makes all the difference in the world, has fucked off to Seiros knows where because playing a mercenary is easier than being a lord.

Felix is the man that forces Sylvain to face his ugly parts, but without him there, Sylvain is bound to fall back into his old habits.

“Keep me on my toes,” he says to Rhesa. “That’s an order.”

Rhesa gives him a once-over and an amused glance. “Is that permission to speak candidly when I see fit?”

Sylvain barks a laugh. “Yes, I suppose that it is.”

“Well then, Lord Margrave, you’re already off to a good start.”

He is lost without Felix. But, as Sylvain trails behind Rhesa to the manor he thinks that he might remember how to survive in the cold.

“We Gautiers never forget. We are born of the permafrost and ice runs in our veins.”

Sylvain wants to think that maybe his mother would be proud.

Truth be told, everything goes pretty well until Sreng hears of a new Margrave and sends a party to investigate the border.

They do not launch an attack. The party is small and all they do is reconnaissance, riding the edge of one end of the border to the other, taking note of rumors and stories of just what kind of man Sylvain is. The rumors must be dismal. Sylvain knows that his reputation precedes him, even here in the far corner of Faerghus.

One morning, he is surprised by a letter.

Rhesa doesn’t bother knocking before she slips into his office. She’s loud, heavy-soled shoes loud against the floor instead of the dainty sneakers his father would have expected her to wear. Rhesa doesn’t bow her head. She doesn’t present him the letter, laid flat on a silver platter, bowing politely as she holds it out.

She dumps it onto his desk next to the rest of his paperwork before crossing her arms. “It’s from Sreng,” she says curtly.

Sylvain looks up from his current headache. Accounting reports from sheep farms to the south. He rubs the tension from his eyes, turning to the new letter instead. “You opened this,” he says, thumbing the edge of where the envelope has been sliced open.

Rhesa sniffs but doesn’t apologize. “Would you rather be poisoned?”

“What? No?”

“The last time they sent a letter to the Margrave, it was dipped in something that made him bedridden for two weeks.”

Sylvain’s lips part. He tilts his head, considering this. “I—well, I had no idea. Mother never mentioned—”

“And why would she have?” Rhesa snorts. “You were off playing hero with the would-be king of Faerghus. Of course, she didn’t distract you with something like that.”

“I wouldn’t have come home.” He says it bitterly, tongue twisted by the distaste for his father that curdles his gut.

Rhesa’s expression softens and her next words are quiet. “Yes, I know. You would have just wanted to know, yes.”

Sylvain actually isn’t sure. He sits there, elbows against his desk, fingers steepled and brow furrowed as he thinks. He and his father were wholly hostile with each other, and for many reasons. Knowing he’d spent some time sick wouldn’t have changed a damn thing.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, Lord Margrave, it’s that we don’t always get the things that I want. Do you think I prefer to be here, doing as you ask?”

He laughs at that, a soft chuckle. Keep me on my toes, he’d asked her. Nothing could have prepared him for how perfectly Rhesa settled into her role. She’s quick-witted and sharp-tongued. Over the weeks he’s come to appreciate her blunt honesty, whether he wants it or not.

“No,” he finally says.

“And yet, here I am, caring for your sorry ass. I deserve a raise.”

“Yes.” He means it. Rhesa can hear his genuine tone and she sighs, hackles dropping. “Are you going to read the letter or not?”

“Oh, so it’s interesting?”

“Probably the most interesting thing to walk through those front doors in a decade.”

Sylvain pulls the letter from the envelope and spreads out the thick, uneven parchment paper. “‘To he who sits on a would-be throne of his making—’” Sylvain pauses, choking back a laugh. “Wow, what an entrance. Does this clansman think I run a monarchy here?”

“Your father certainly thought he did.”

Right. It isn’t a surprise that they think he’s more like his old man than not. The stories about him that circulate certainly don’t help. The fact that Sreng hasn’t attacked the border since he came back means they’re curious enough to stall their advance, but Sylvain isn’t a fool to think that’ll last.

“What does he want?”

“He—” Sylvain skims the letter and then rears back, surprised. “Er, she—”

“She?”

“‘I’m unsure that we can come to an agreement but maybe you’re more of a man than your predecessor. Time will tell.’”

“That sounds ominous,” drawls Rhesa.

“It’s signed Ulla, Twenty-Ninth Chief Clan Dahl.” Sylvain raises his brows. “That’s a title. And I thought mine was long.”

Rhesa sits on the edge of his desk, uncaring that it’s improper. “And so, what? They want to visit?”

“She expects me to come to her, actually. Make peace, or so this letter says. She doesn’t seem very confident about it though. I think she’s mostly curious.” Rhesa’s nose scrunches at that. Sylvain’s mouth tenses and he leans back in his chair. “Hey, now, I take offense to that look.”

It’s gone the moment Rhesa rights herself, back onto her feet, and ready to go back to her chores for the day. “If I may say—”

“You always do, whether I want you to or not.”

Her expression thins, curdling slightly. Rhesa huffs and continues. “I was going to express concern for you visiting yourself. We have no extra men here, so I know that is your plan.”

She’s right. It’s too much of a risk. Sylvain has no progeny he’s aware of and it would be utterly stupid to march into enemy territory alone. If this was the war, the answer would be simple: he’d do what was needed, no matter the cost.

But the war is over. It isn’t so easy to turn back the clock and think before those times. Matters during reconstruction are handled differently, with a sort of tenderness that Sylvain isn’t sure he holds. His hands are too rough, too soiled, tainted black with the bitter darkness in his soul.

It’s a learning process. Sylvain spends every day telling himself that he’s more than what he thinks he is but he’s alone this far north, even with the friendship he’s found in Rhesa. The others walk on eggshells around him. He has no family left.

“I… there’s someone I could…”

Ingrid sent a letter unexpectedly a few weeks back, citing that she’d shared a meal with him. Told Sylvain exactly where to find him and demanded that he clean up his damn mess.

“A pen and paper, Sir?”

Sylvain’s already pulling out a fresh sheet of parchment. “He won’t answer,” he murmurs, dipping a quill into his inkwell. He shakes it slightly, letting the extra slip off before penning a rather blunt letter.

Felix won’t want platitudes. Insults have always been his language of choice.

The letter goes entirely unanswered until Sylvain wakes up one morning, nearly a month later, to a glass of cold water being dumped over his head.

He yelps, jolting up in the bed. It’s the beginning of winter, so the room is bone-cold and his sheets are now soaked. Sylvain shivers, curses, and jumps from the bed, feet smarting against the frozen stone floor. “Fuck, fuck. Rhesa—”

It is not Rhesa. Felix stands opposite him, covered in furs, a mug in his hand. Rhesa stands in the doorway behind him, hiding a grin behind her palm, choking back a laugh.

Sylvain stares. Stands there like an awkward vulture, curled in on himself, shoulders hanging as he wonders, What the absolute fuck.

Felix knows that look. He snorts and his stiff stance loosens, like a cat shaking itself out. “You’ve always been a lazy lout.”

“I’m not—lazy?”

“It’s midday.” Felix’s voice is prim. Matter-of-fact as always, the words crawling from his mouth as though it pains him to speak.

“I’m the Margrave. I can—”

“Do what you want, no doubt,” cuts in Felix, finishing before him. “Didn’t you come here to make a difference? To be something more than your old man? Instead, I find you lazing in bed into the late morning. Not a damn thing’s changed.”

Rhesa still watches from the doorway, eyebrows drawn high on her forehead. The look she hides behind her hand is one of both shock and amusement.

“Felix—” starts Sylvain with a wince.

“I’m the fool, of course. I should’ve known better.”

“Why are you even here?”

Felix rolls his eyes and growls with impatience. “Your letter,” he snaps. “That’s why—midday, Sylvain! Isn’t there somewhere you’re supposed to be in two days’ time? I pushed my horse to get here early because I knew you’d need help, but I didn’t think I’d have my work cut out for me.”

The letter, one penned in Sylvain’s neat penmanship. He’d nearly forgotten.

Felix, I know you owe me nothing, but I need your help, Sylvain wrote. To anyone else, Felix would deny it. Even if everyone knew, even if they still know he’d come to Sylvain’s rescue, Felix will insist until his dying days it wasn’t for him.

“I’m not here for you,” says Felix, as if on cue. So stubborn. Sylvain nearly laughs at the utter predictability. “In any case. Get dressed and meet me in the kitchen. There isn’t time to plan.”

“Plan?” asks Sylvain, finally righting himself and sitting on the edge of the mattress. It’s hard to look proper wearing nothing but his night clothes and he pulls at his sleeve nervously.

Felix sneers at him. “Don’t be daft.” He turns on his heel to leave. “Ten minutes,” he finishes, punctuating his words with a rude gesture that leaves Rhesa snickering in stitches.

“Sir—”

“Don’t start.”

Rhesa chuckles as Sylvain shrugs out of his dressing gown. Ten minutes means five with Felix. Sylvain doesn’t have time to dodge her well-intentioned and teasing jabs.

“I was surprised, you know. He was somewhat presentable there, but—” Sylvain howls with laughter. Felix is never presentable. Rhesa clucks her tongue before continuing. “You should have seen him when he rode in. I made him at least clean his boots.”

“I’m sure he loved that.”

“About as much as he loved the way that I wouldn’t let him in at first. That’s the Duke of Fraldarius?”

Sylvain is still laughing as he slips on a clean shirt. “In the flesh.”

Rhesa rounds him, buttoning up the front with quick and deft hands. “Well, I can’t say that I’m surprised. It takes a strange man to love another, I suppose.”

Sylvain freezes against her. His heart thuds in his throat. “I—” He knows he can’t lie. About anything else, sure, keen, well-cultivated words tumbling from his mouth like perfectly composed verse, but with Felix. “I’m not…”

There’s a look that Rhesa gives him. Something stern and stoic, a little bit cross-eyed, her lips tugged into a severe frown. But then it softens and she sighs. “That’s how it is, isn’t it? The ones we want to make it work with are always the hardest.”

“Like you’d know.”

Rhesa shrugs.

Sylvain finishes dressing in the quiet, the brush of Rhesa’s fingers the only sound as they slide over soft wool. “It isn’t my place—”

“Yeah, it isn’t.”

“—but you told me to keep you on your toes.”

Sylvain shoots Rhesa a pointed look. “This isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

A smile curls across her face. She reaches out and straightens the lapels of his waistcoat. “I am only doing my job, Sir.”

“I don’t pay you to tease me.”

“No, but you do pay me to take care of you.” She pats Sylvain’s chest with friendly affection. “I’ve heard the stories, of course. Rumors of a mighty romance between a Margrave and a Duke. When love is that strong it’s hard to hide. At first glance, it was hard to imagine. He looks rather like a drowned cat and you have… well, taste, at least.”

Sylvain scoffs. “Flattering.”

“But watching the two of you… Love isn’t just about romance, you know, it’s also everything in between. It’s knowing a person, both the good parts and bad. That man—” Rhesa points to the door. “We all know your bad parts but he’s the only one to look at you like they mean nothing.”

Sylvain feels her words deep in his gut. “I… he’s… It’s complicated.”

Rhesa snorts in a silly, pig-like way. “Yes, well, complicated means that it can still get sorted out.”

“It’ll be better for everyone else if you settle shit here at the border,” is the first thing Felix says when Sylvain appears in the kitchen a half-hour later. He’s annoyed, tapping his boot against the tile floor. Sylvain took a half-hour thanks to Rhesa’s unwanted advice. “This woman—”

“Ulla,” supplies Sylvain, settling in at the table and going for a piece of toast. He slathers butter and jam across it messily, and Felix watches in disgust.

“Right.” Felix’s voice is so flat, it’s damn-near bored. “UIla. Are you sure this isn’t a ploy to get you alone and do some damage?”

“Well, that’s why I wrote to you, isn’t it? I’m not so stupid to ride into Sreng alone.”

“You have men.”

“I do not.”

Felix’s gaze narrows and his head tilts. “What?”

“When Father died.” Sylvain shrugs nonchalantly even though it still stings. “Most of the household left. What’s less than a skeleton crew? Either way—”

“That’s why you called me here? Because you scared everyone off?”

Sylvain frowns, offended. “I’ll have you know—they left before I arrived.” Rhesa leans in to pour him fresh coffee, not even bothering to hide her laughter. “Don’t you nag me too.”

“I said nothing, Lord Margrave.”

Felix regards her with a cool glance. “She talks to you like you’re a bug underneath her shoe.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get a handle on her.”

“No, I like her.”

Oh. Both Sylvain and Rhesa pause, surprised by the off-handed compliment.

Felix turns back to his food, shoveling in a few bites like he’s a man starved. Judging by his thin shape, he is, just this side of hungry. He was wandering, said Ingrid in her letter. You know how he does, bothering others and forgetting about himself.

Rhesa bows, a neat little curtsey that is certainly mocking. “Why thank you, Your grace.”

Felix’s expression sours. “I’ll stop liking you if you keep calling me that.”

“Oh, leave her alone. She’s just doing her job.” Sylvain shoos her away and Rhesa leaves, giving him the same teasing bow. “Back to the matter at hand.”

“How’d you manage to get one of their Chiefs to write to you?”

“I didn’t. She reached out to me personally. It was odd—”

Felix’s mouth purses. “It stinks. She’s planning something.”

Normally, Sylvain would agree, but so far Ulla hasn’t done much other than watch. There’s been ample opportunity to launch an attack. “We’re barren here at the Manor. If she came on us, we wouldn’t be able to fight her off. She knows that.”

Felix hums, drumming his fingers against the word kitchen table. It’s less fancy than the dining room and a little more like home. They’re so used to roughing it that the glitz and glam of a proper dining set puts Sylvain’s teeth on edge. It’s warmer in the kitchen. Homier. Reminds him a little of Mercie, and other friends Sylvain’s surprised he misses.

“Marriage?” asks Sylvain.

It would make sense. Peace treaties are often drafted through a lens of land sharing and cultural exchange. The idea of it is awful but he could put together a dowry—

“You aren’t actually considering that, are you?” Felix’s face says it all—it’s an idea he despises.

“Why would you care? Aren’t you going to fuck off again once this is said and done?”

“Sylvain.”

“Ingrid told me, you know.” Sylvain’s tone is a little too proper. He pulls back, steeling himself for Felix’s ire because this is a conversation that is often started and never finished. What are we and where do we go? Sylvain’s been wondering for over a decade by this point. “You’ve been wandering around. The Meandering Swordsman—”

“It’s not as though there’s anything at Fraldarius Estate for me. We don’t guard the border.”

It’s a useless argument. They both know it, so they fall stagnant and turn back to their food. Sylvain munches at his toast and Felix pours another cup of coffee.

“It’s a two-day ride to their camp. She just wants to talk. Go with me and when we come back, you can do whatever you want. I won’t care.”

Felix’s expression is unreadable. He waits, almost as if he wants Sylvain to say something else but when he doesn’t, Felix just sighs. “Alright then.” He pauses, rubbing at the table again. “My horse. I pushed her too hard. She’s in no shape to ride.”

“That leaves you two options, then. You ride with me, or you walk.”

Ah, thinks Sylvain when Felix’s lip curls. There’s that annoyed look I love so much.

Felix chooses to ride with him which is both a blessing and a curse.

“You smell better, at least,” teases Sylvain, mouth near Felix’s ear as he leans over his shoulder. “Did Rhesa make you bathe?”

“I’ve been on the road for weeks. Do you think I like being dirty?”

“I think, given the opportunity, you’d live in your absolute funk for years—especially if it kept people away from you.” Felix’s silence in return speaks volumes, leaving Sylvain laughing into his neck. And maybe—just maybe—Sylvain thinks he relaxes just slightly, giving into the lighthearted teasing.

It’s a step backward. War was shit but Sylvain liked that it brought them close. He and Felix shared tents, food, and even cots, and blankets. Wandering hands, too-soft touches that Felix will deny if ever asked. But it happened, they happened.

Sylvain misses it.

Felix squirms.

It’s half a day into their travel and he won’t stop moving, sliding over the saddle, stimulating parts of Sylvain that he thought were dried out and useless. It’s just been him and his hand since the end of the war—and barely that.

The only other time they’ve ever shared a horse was after a battle one day where Sylvain was nearly dead. Felix found him in the nick of time, threw him over the back of Sylvain’s horse, and settled into the saddle before riding like the wind back to camp.

A close call. Too close.

This though—

Felix squirms, wriggling in his lap just so. Heat settles in Sylvain’s gut. This is too close, as well, Sylvain practically plastered against his back, arms loose around Felix’s waist to reach the reins. His forearms brush against Felix’s cloak, cinching his torso.

“Felix—”

“I can’t get comfortable. What kind of saddle is this?”

It isn’t built for two. Sylvain’s about to quip that when Felix shifts, slipping back over the hard leather of the saddle, ass meeting Sylvain’s groin.

They both freeze. Sylvain’s fingers tighten around the reins, pulling them taut. Even Felix is on high alert, cheeks flush. Oh, this is bad.

“Sylvain,” starts Felix. Even. Measured. “Are you—”

Sylvain’s definitely half-hard in his trousers. Has been for an embarrassing amount of time. “Can you blame me? Felix, you’re… and we’re—”

Well, they’re something. The what is up in the air, but there’s enough history for Sylvain’s dick to harden at the thought of the man, let alone his ass within reaching distance.

“You know how it is,” finishes Sylvain. He ignores the ache of his cock, willing his erection to go away. It only throbs harder.

Felix’s throat bobs as he swallows. His mouth parts but he’s slow to respond. “I—Yes. That’s—Sylvain.”

Sylvain didn’t realize one of his hands dropped the leather strap to rest against Felix’s thigh instead. Palm, flat against the lithe muscle, gloved fingers digging into the thick material of Felix’s trousers. “Sorry,” murmurs Sylvain. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to. It just… look, I’ll—”

He moves to pull away but Felix’s hand is quicker, snapping out to wrap around Sylvain’s wrist. He holds Sylvain’s hand there. The movement is subtle, instinctual, as he pulls Sylvain’s hand to his trousers instead.

“Oh,” breathes Sylvain. “Well. That’s—”

“Familiar,” mutters Felix. “Gods, it’s—I didn’t want to fall back into these habits so easily, but—”

“It’s hard not to.” Sylvain drops his chin to rest against Felix’s shoulder. “Honestly, I feel more stressed than I ever did during the war. It’s because I don’t know what to do with myself. But with you—”

“Are you going to keep yapping? Or are you going to take care of the problem?”

That surprises Sylvain. “Felix,” he says, voice tipping into something sultry, “we’re on a horse.”

“So the years of talk about your riding skills mean nothing, then? Put your hand where your mouth is.”

Sylvain puts his hand elsewhere. Takes little effort and no time to undo the front of Felix’s trousers, wrapping his fingers around his cock. A soft sound falls from Felix’s mouth, and shit, Sylvain’s missed this.

“My glove—”

“You’ll get frostbite.”

“I’d rather feel your cock.”

“The glove is fine.”

Sylvain keeps his eyes on the icy path, letting the lilt of their horse’s gait drive them. All the while, he strokes Felix’s cock, sighing at the familiar heft of it against his palm. Precome already dribbles at the tip, leaking down the side. Sylvain sweeps his thumb through it.

“How long were you hiding this?”

“I wasn’t—”

“Is this why you were squirming?”

“No.”

Oh, it is. He can tell by the way Felix’s body goes taut, pulled straight as a bowstring, tight with tension. Sylvain chuckles, squeezing his cock tighter as he jerks it. “Oh, that’s cute.”

“Idiot,” snaps Felix. “Imbecile. You—this is your fault.”

Sylvain hums at that, moving his hand lazily. His own cock twitches in his trousers, desperate to be relieved, but he’s enjoying this too much. Felix tries to keep quiet but a moan slips loose. Delicious. Sylvain feels his gut swoon at the soft whimper.

“Shh. Can’t spook the horse.”

“Fuck you,” bites out Felix. “Fuck you, and—oh.”

“Like that?” A twist of his fingers around the tip of his dick. His thumb settles underneath the crown, tracing the vein on the underside. “I haven’t forgotten what you like.”

As if he could. The sight of Felix in his bed is seared into his brain. It keeps Sylvain company on cold and lonely nights or bath times or the sheets in his bed. Anywhere, really. He shoves his nose into Felix’s nape, inhaling. Sweat and soap. Crisp, brisk winter. Felix.

Sylvain moves his hand faster, using Felix’s precome to slick his hand. Still a little dry but he knows that Felix likes the friction. His hips move, bucking ever so slightly into Sylvain’s hand, chasing the heated touch of his glove.

“I’m—”

“Are you close?” Sylvain kisses the juncture of his jaw, right where it meets his neck. “So quick. Mhmh, I would be too.”

“Get on with it.” Felix’s voice is pinched. “I don’t want to hear you prattle.”

“You want to come?”

“Yes.”

Sylvain laughs and moves his hand faster, stroking his cock with a well-practiced touch. Felix whines, wiggling in the saddle. His hips move, meeting every downstroke of Sylvain’s fingers with an aborted thrust. It takes no time until he’s spilling into Sylvain’s hand with a groan.

“There’s a good boy,” says Sylvain into his ear. He wipes his hand on the rag in his saddlebag.

“Shut up,” is Felix’s acerbic reply. Still, he shudders, still coasting the high of his orgasm.

Afterward, they fall quiet. Felix closes his trousers and the horse continues on, entirely unaware. Sylvain's chest is pressed to Felix’s back. His cock is still hard against Felix’s ass, aching with the need for release.

But Sylvain behaves. Takes hold of the reins properly and wills himself to just hold Felix close.

Felix doesn’t push him off.

Later, when the moon is high and the fire dulls to burning embers, Felix slips into Sylvain’s cot.

“You can tell me to leave,” he says in a hush.

Sylvain pulls Felix close, an arm around his middle, hand pressed flat against his stomach. He smells like outside when Sylvain leans in close, nuzzling the back of his neck. “You’re cold.”

“Yeah.” A pause. Sylvain yelps slightly when Felix presses his cold, socked feet against his shins. “Earlier…”

“Earlier?”

“You—” Felix “You didn’t… It was just me.”

Oh. Sylvain chuckles and kisses the base of his neck. “It’s fine. I know I teased you but I did as I wanted. I’m perfectly fine like this.”

“And if I’m not?”

Sylvain stills. “Do you regret—”

Felix’s response is immediate. “No.” Another pauses as he rubs his face, embarrassed. “I want… You said you missed this. I do too. I didn’t… I know that I’m not good with words, but this—this is something that we do well. Being just us.”

“Us,” murmurs Sylvain. “Against the world, right? I think we said something like that when we were kids.”

Us against the world. They’ll have to pry us apart.

It’s funny what time can do to a friendship and how love can pull two people apart. But it can bring them together. War was complicated but losing themselves in each other helped them through the hard times.

Still.

“You left,” says Sylvain into the hair at the base of Felix’s neck. His hair is loose, around his shoulders. Sylvain drags a hand through it, petting the silky strands.

“I didn’t know what to do. With my father gone and the Dukedom… I just—” Felix grunts. “There isn’t use in talking about this.”

“Felix—”

Felix moves, sitting up and turning to lean over Sylvain. “Your hand isn’t enough. Sylvain, I—I missed this. I missed you.” He hovers there, over Sylvain. Drags a hand down his chest, fingers dipping into the open collar of his shirt.

Sylvain’s tongue is thick in his throat. There are a thousand things he could say, but what spills from his mouth comes unexpectedly. “I love you.”

Felix snorts, his expression crinkling. “I know.” Then he dips low, crossing the distance, and it’s like falling back in time.

Sweet, staggering kisses. Heated touches and the soft slide of fabric as they shuck their clothing off. It’s too cold to get undressed, but it’s enough, opening Sylvain’s shirt and tossing their pants to the side. Felix’s skin is searing hot against Sylvain as he straddles his hips.

The thing is that Sylvain doesn’t need to hear Felix say those words back. Sylvain knows it and feels it in the way that Felix presses against him. In calloused fingers that drag down his bicep and across his chest. Nails that dig into his chest hair, scratching through it.

The way that he kisses him, all tongue and lips, and how he slots their hips together. Sylvain’s already hard, cock twitching as it leaks against his stomach. Felix’s hand is frozen, icy against his heated length.

“Sylvain,” he mutters against his mouth. Sylvain bucks into his hand with a whine. “Sylvain,” repeats Felix, kissing the sharp line of his jaw next.

It’s too soft but perfect. War isn’t lingering at their backs, ready to strike. They don’t have to be quick and quiet, they can drag this out and do as they wish, which they do.

One finger first, pressed into searing hot heat.

“The fucking saddle oil,” hisses Felix, as if they haven’t used it before. “Fuck.”

“Easy does it,” says Sylvain, laughing against Felix’s throat. Felix hangs over him, rutting back against his hand. “Slow down, for fuck’s sake.”

“Goddess, you’re—oh, that’s—”

Sylvain fucks him lazily on several fingers until Felix is a sweaty mess, chest heaving and cheeks pinched pink. He’s flush down to his sternum, reddened skin on display in the split of Felix’s shirt.

When Felix finally slides onto his cock, it’s too tight. Sylvain looks skyward and counts the stars. His nostrils flare as he tries not to immediately bust. So, so good.

And Felix—the way he hangs over him, the tips of his fingers pressed into the meat of Sylvain’s chest. How he immediately moves, rolling his hips, trying to force Sylvain’s cock deeper. Takes him at the right angle and then he’s seeing stars, crying out as they push and pull at each other.

It’s quick. Lasts barely moments, Sylvain holding Felix tightly around the hips as he’s ridden. He pulls Felix into every thrust, back arching up from the ground. The slick slap of skin. Felix’s soft, biting curses. Sylvain tumbles over the edge first, coming into Felix’s ass, and painting his insides white.

Felix drops his hips, grinding against him. Fucks his cock into his own palm until he’s spending himself all over Sylvain’s abs.

Sylvain laughs, wiping the sweat from his brow. “No better than fumbling teenagers having their first roll in the hay.”

“Surely better than that.”

“What, is it bad otherwise?”

“What? No?” Felix looks offended.

Sylvain laughs again, his smile warm and affectionate. He pulls Felix’s hand to his mouth for a kiss. “Thank you,” he says.

“For fucking you?” Felix scoffs.

“For coming back to me.”

Felix is quiet as he slips off his cock. Minimal clean-up, wiping at themselves with a dirty, soiled shirt. Felix pulls on a fresh top and slips back into the cot, slotting against his side.

“I didn’t come here for you,” he says, just as he always does.

“Yeah, I know. You came for yourself.” Sylvain presses a kiss on his forehead and Felix sighs.

They don’t talk much after that, they just count the stars in the sky together until their eyes are drooping. It’s the best sleep Sylvain has had in a year.

Sylvain and Felix find the Srengese Clan of Dahl two days from Gautier Manor, just at the border.

They are led into the center of the camp where a cookfire is blazing and meat is slow roasting as it's turned on spits. Sylvain’s back is sore from their late-night romp on the hard ground—and then a second in the morning. Felix let him fuck his thighs, still half asleep and dozing before spilling himself into Sylvain’s awaiting palm.

“Is this your husband?” Ulla asks it without judgment despite expecting an entourage, not two tired men and day-old clothing. She is a serious-looking woman, tall and muscular. Her dark hair is pulled into a thick braid that rests over her shoulder. Green eyes bore into Sylvain, dazzling with intellect.

“Not yet,” says Sylvain cheekily. Felix hisses, shoving an elbow right into his ribs. “Ow—fuck—”

Ulla bursts into laughter. Then, she extends a hand. “Humor,” she says. “I can’t say I expected that from you.” Sylvain shakes her hand firmly, wincing slightly at her tight grip. “Now, tell me about your husband.”

“I’m not—”

“Yet,” cuts in Ulla with a wink.

Felix, for all his snark, does the unthinkable—he doesn’t correct her. He just rolls his eyes and lets the idea sit. “Your mother’s ring,” he says, turning to Sylvain. “That’s what I want—the plain band. It won’t get in the way of a sword.”

Sylvain has only a moment to be stunned before Ulla drags them over to the fire pit, shoving them down. Later, he thinks. Later, I’ll—

Felix sits next to him uncontested. He knocks their knees together, leaving them together for a grounding touch. They meet gazes for a tender moment. Ulla watches but says nothing as she spoons a savory stew into a bowl.

Sylvain finds that he doesn’t have a care in the world. His chest is light. Giddy.

Yeah, later.

#fe3h #sylvix #Sylvain/felix #fe3h fanfic #fe3h fanfiction #smut

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cavalierious-whim · 2 years

Text

After seeing Sylvain risk himself on the battlefield, Felix gives him some tough love.

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Sylvain wears a full set of armor on the field, head to toe in shining steel, face entirely covered—and Felix still sees him.

He can tell, even without Sylvain’s damned face on display. The way that he stands there, stiff-backed, shoulders slightly curled in. The curse of being tall, said Sylvain once. He’s lost his horse but it doesn’t matter; Sylvain’s a menace on the battlefield, be it on a mount or not. He holds a lance tightly in his fingers, ready to strike out at a second’s notice.

It is recognition born of years by each other’s sides. Felix’s gaze follows Sylvain as though he is a magnet, never once losing sight of him. He favors his right leg ever so slightly; injured, but not enough to keep him from being rooted directly in the fray.

Felix needs to get to his side. Sylvain’s irritatingly stubborn—even more so when it comes to his innate drive to fight until the bitter end. They’d made a promise as children to only die together, but Sylvain does a shitty job trying to uphold his end of it.

“Shit,” mutters Felix, his feet quick across the ground. He has a blade in one hand, and electricity crackles in the other. He jumps over bodies, and his eyes sting blurry with sweat and grime. None of that matters—the only thing that does is getting to Sylvain, and making sure that he doesn’t kill himself.

Easier said than done. Sylvain moves just as quickly, his lance arcing around as he swings it wildly. Bone and sinew is sliced through, blood sprays, and Sylvain roars in delight as he moves on to the next.

Felix gets it. They feel alive in moments like this. Their blood pumps in their veins, and rushes in their ears. Hearts beat wildly, a delicate rhythm that thuds in their throats. It isn’t easy to ignore. Felix would admit that he’s likely addicted to the feeling of it.

But, for someone like Sylvain who has so little to live for, the battlefield is only an excuse to be reckless. If he dies out here, then it’s nothing but a good riddance, in his mind.

“Idiot!” growls Felix, throwing his sword out to block an arrow. It pings against the metal and falls lifelessly to the ground. “Get your head out of that blasted iron, and back onto the field!”

Sylvain’s head turns as he pauses, lance held aloft. “Felix?”

“I always have to save your ass, don’t I? For fuck’s sake.”

“Felix.” Sylvain’s voice is muffled and warped by the metal. He says nothing else, too awkward to fight with Felix in the middle of a battle. Another arrow whizzes by, and they both dart to the side.

“Later,” says Sylvain, crouched as low as he can get in his armor. “Yell at me later, okay?”

Felix is belly against the ground, his cheek squished into the mud. He growls, but relents, waving Sylvain off dismissively. “Don’t get your ass killed.”

Sylvain gives him a mock salute and then he’s off, diving back into the thick of it. Felix sits up, his gaze still trained on that well-known form. His heart lurches, and his gut yearns.

Pathetic, he thinks.

He doesn’t mean Sylvain.

When later comes, Sylvain is leaning over a washbasin, splashing water at his face. His tent is cramped, despite the high-quality of it, and he hunches over to keep from skimming his head.

Felix stomps right in, the flap slapping shut behind him.

Sylvain jumps in surprise, knocking back against the wooden cabinet of the washbasin. “Felix—”

Felix crosses the threshold and sinks to his knees before him, hands immediately gripping at his thighs. Sylvain’s changed clothes, but still stinks of sweat and the battlefield. Felix doesn’t care, pawing at the front of his trousers.

“Felix—”

“I’m angry,” he finally says. Felix’s fingers work nimbly as they undo the roughspun linen. “Risking yourself out on the field like that. What if you’d gotten injured? Or worse?”

Felix looks up and watches as Sylvain swallows, his throat bobbing. “I’d—Oh.”

His cock falls out as Felix pulls his trousers down the swell of his ass. Felix’s touch is immediate as his fingers curl loosely around the length of it, giving it a quick jerk. Sylvain moans, his dick already half hard, thick in his palm.

“You cannot expect me to be okay with losing you,” says Felix quietly. His hand is harsh, though, squeezing Sylvain’s cock tightly as it slides over it.

“I’m—Felix, I’m not trying to die—”

“You aren’t?” Felix noses along his length, nipping at the vein there. “You seem to walk through your days with a death wish, and I’m tired of watching it.”

“I’m not, I’m—Fuck, Felix—”

Felix licks around the crown of his dick, lapping at the precome that dribbles from the tip. Sylvain moans, slapping a hand against the washbasin as he tries to steady himself.

“Cruel of you,” says Felix, the salty tang lingering on his tongue, “to make me think of it—of losing you. Of losing this.” He squeezes the base of his cock to make his point, pulling a groan right from Sylvain’s mouth.

“Goddess, you aren’t going to lose me. I made a promise, right? Just the two of us until the end? Fuck Felix, I love you.” Sylvain’s voice cracks at that, punctuated with a whine as Felix’s hand slides over his cock slickly.

Felix sighs. “Yes, I know that.” And he does—he does. Sylvain is the sort of person who loves fully and entirely, which is why he’s managed to wear down Felix’s craggy, rusted heart.

Sylvain brushes his bangs back with a soothing touch. “I know that you were only scared for me.” His hand slides over his cheek to cup it. “I’ll always come back to you, Felix.”

“I just don’t want it to be in a pine box.”

Sylvain chuckles, even though it isn’t a joke. He strokes his thumb over the arch of Felix’s cheekbone, the touch lingering. Felix waits, but he knows that Sylvain won’t promise anything else. He can’t, not when they’re neck deep in a war that does nothing but drag on and worsen.

Felix should say that he loves him back, but he’s never been good with words, only his actions. So he wraps his mouth around Sylvain’s cock instead, suckling around the head. He slips down further, taking more between his lips, his tongue sliding across the bottom of his length.

“Fuck,” hisses Sylvain, his hand moving to wrap around the back of Felix’s head, fingers curling into his hair. He tugs, just enough to sting at the scalp.

Felix groans around him, relishing in the heft of Sylvain’s cock, thick and long in his throat. He suckles at him, sliding down deeper, taking him nearly to the root.

“Goddess.” Those fingers in Felix’s hair tug sharper, and Sylvain moans, his hips bucking slightly. “Felix, can I—Please, let me.”

Felix pulls off him and kisses the tip. “Please what? Are you that desperate to fuck my mouth?” His eyes flick towards the flap of Sylvain’s tent. “You aren’t known for being quiet. Can you be a good boy for me?”

Sylvain whines at that, smoothing his thumb across the seam of Felix’s mouth. “Yes,” he says, “I can be quiet.”

Felix knows that he’ll struggle to do so, but that’s part of the fun. Sylvain is so rarely honest with himself unless it’s dick out for Felix’s pleasure, so he’s about to take all that he can get. “Go on, then.”

Sylvain’s thumb slips between his lips, tugging his mouth open. Felix indulges, opening wide, and Sylvain feeds his cock right back in. Deeper and deeper, until he can’t anymore, the tip of it nudging at the back of Felix’s throat.

Felix moans around him, breath caught. He takes in the feel and the warmth of him. The smell and the sweat that glistens on his skin. Sylvain’s thighs tense underneath Felix’s hands as his nails dig in.

“So good,” says Sylvain, “Goddess, you always feel so good.”

He holds Felix gently, cupping his chin between both palms. Sylvain pulls his hips back until just the tip of his cock is left just past Felix’s lips, and then he fucks back in gingerly. Felix widens his mouth, accepting the drag of his length across his tongue eagerly.

It is familiar. Felix is hard in his trousers and shoves a hand against himself for friction, groaning as he ruts against his palm. Sylvain watches him like a hawk, his breath hitching at the sight of him.

Felix knows that he must already look like a mess. He drools from his mouth around Sylvain’s cock, choking slightly with every slick press into his throat. Felix drowns in the taste of him, in the smell of him. He pulls at Sylvain’s legs, nails digging in until he knows they’ll leave marks.

“I’m—Felix, fuck—Hah.” Sylvain curses softly, brushing back his bangs, just staring and staring. “I’m here, I’m not going anywhere.”

Felix whines. Sylvain’s cock is overwhelming, and Felix tells himself that’s why tears begin to leak at the corner of his eyes. It’s because he’s a ruddy mess, not because he’s sinking into the feel of Sylvain, relishing in the fact that he made it back in one piece.

Sylvain is close. Felix can tell in the way that his thighs tighten under his fingers, and with the stuttering thrusts into his mouth. “Felix, I’m—Oh, goddess, I’m close.”

Felix was right, of course. Sylvain is terrible at being quiet, even when fucking his mouth in the middle of their campground. Sylvain whimpers and moans, eyes slipping closed as he just sinks into Felix’s mouth, over and over again.

Not that he can say much. Felix moans too, drunk on the heady taste of him, and the way that Sylvain’s dick twitches on his tongue. He grinds his hand against the front of his own trousers, his cock trapped painfully behind the tight fabric.

Sylvain comes suddenly, spending right into Felix’s mouth. Felix nearly chokes, despite expecting it. He swallows everything down, not wanting to waste a drop. It’s salty and bitter, but it’s Sylvain. He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive—

“Fuck,” murmurs Sylvain as he slips his cock from Felix’s mouth. Felix thumbs at his lips, catching whatever’s leftover, swallowing it down. “Goddess, that’s almost worse. Watching you do that.”

And then, his gaze lowers, seeing where Felix is still hard in his trousers. Felix sighs, his cock aching, twitching behind the linen.

Sylvain’s hand finds his cheek again. “Come on, let’s get you washed up and into the cot, okay?”

“Sylvain—” Felix’s acerbic tone is back, sharp like the edge of his blade.

“Come on, let me take care of you.”

Felix lets Sylvain pull him to his feet. He lets him sponge over his face with decently clean water, and scrub the grime from his cheeks and hair. And later, in Sylvain’s cot, Felix lets him wring his cock dry, fingers warm around it as he just strokes and strokes.

In the aftermath, Felix falls quiet, breathing heavily as he comes back down from the high of his orgasm.

Sylvain lays on his side and watches him, dragging his fingers down the length of Felix’s side. “I didn’t mean to worry you,” he says.

Felix scoffs. “You never do, do you? I suppose that’s part of your charm.”

“All I ever think about out there, is you.” Sylvain leans forward, pressing a kiss against Felix’s shoulder. “I mean it when I say that I will always come back.”

“I know,” says Felix quietly. He rolls over and punches Sylvain lightly against the chest. But then, he presses his hand there, feeling the strong beat of his heart. “Truly, I know that.”

Sylvain hums at that. “Come here.”

Felix lets himself be gathered close and presses his cheek to Sylvain’s chest. Listens to the steady thud, thud, his eyes slipping closed as he lets out a long sigh. There are no more words, just Sylvain’s fingers combing through his hair.

A nice moment of peace after a brutal day. Sylvain still smells like sweat and death, and Felix is no better. But, for the time being, this is their own little world. There’s nothing beyond the quiet of Sylvain’s tent.

Felix smiles against his skin.

#fire emblem three houses fanfiction #sylvix #sylvain/felix #fe3h fanfic

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