A Fleet Of Ships

A side blog for me to post my fanfiction and writing stuff. Very self indulgent. I will occasionally do requests for drabbles and one shots, open to anything with reasonable exceptions. Any art is not mine. Multiple fandoms now I guess.

[anotherstoryanotherchapter]

This was it, the doctors told him. It made him furious. He wanted to scream at them, but there was something so final in Lysithea's eyes. She'd been expecting this for forever.

So he stays quiet, and grips her hand. Her hold is so weak now. He feels like any more pressure would break her frail bones. "...We had a good run," he jokes, tinged with desperation, because there was nothing else he could do.

Lysithea nodded, expression far away. She turns her head to look at him and swallows despite the dryness of her throat. It takes so much effort. Who knew dying would be so difficult? "You were always the brightest thing in my life, did you know that?"

Cyril blinks rapidly, and she can see the wetness he's trying to hold back for her sake. "Yeah. I love you, of course you'd make me brighter."

Her smile is fond, full of old memories, but trembling at the edges, so, so tired. "Kiss me?" she whispers, tender like all the other times she had asked the same of him, like it was just another day.

He chokes on a sob and leaned forward, holding her face, slotting their mouths together like they had been for years. He wonders if she can feel his wedding ring on her skin. She always used to complain that the metal was cold.

Cyril is still kissing her when she flatlines. Her face is wet, he notices, but he can't tell who's tears they are.

[anotherstoryanotherchapter]

"Will you ever be

able to love me again?"

He asked once

when he briefly comes back.

I cannot say

that I never stopped.

I cannot say I always have.

But he was losing control,

and I was losing him

so fast.

Too fast.

When he no longer 

looked with human eyes,

I tried to hate him

for so long.

But I couldn't.

But I couldn't.

But I couldn't.

Some days he comes back

and talks like nothing is wrong.

Some days he isn't there

and I must fear if

he will ever return again.

Some days I think he doesn't 

even remember my name.

Who does he see

in those moments?

I wonder.

Myself or a ghost 

made in my image?

He frightens me

but I love him still.

I wonder if he's able 

to feel that way anymore.

[anotherstoryanotherchapter]

Stay (or, I made myself cry over an OC)

@paraminia this hurt me deeply

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"Stay with me, a little longer."

Fléur at first thought she must be dreaming. Maybe there was something in the incense that the priests had lit throughout the cathedral. If not the words themselves, the tone certainly seemed to suggest that she was in a state of muddled reality.

Hubert von Vestra did not request company. He did not get lonely. Nor did the young Marquis ever dare to sound so forlorn when he stated constantly that he would never show such weakness. Yet there he sat on a pew, head hung low, looking like he could be praying or crying- Fléur knew he refused to do either. But there was an undeniable pleading in the tension gripping his shoulders, in the way he clenched his jaw.

Fléur sits beside him, and she stays.

////

"Stay with me, a little longer."

This time Fléur expects it. Over the last few months it was a common request for him to make of her. Fléur had no reason to refuse him, even less so when she caught a glimpse of the times his eyes would soften as he watched her. 

They hadn't a name for this odd sort of dance, not quite a courtship, not quite an affair, but Hubert did not seem bothered by the risk of a scandal. He acted the part of a suitor, but silently, secretive, slipping her gifts and stealing moments when they came across each other in empty halls. He would extend his hand toward her and speak his usual phrase as always.

Fléur takes his hand, and she stays.

////

"Stay with me, a little longer."

Muffled now, slurred and lazy with sleep. His arm shifted over her waist, rubbing circles on her bare hip with his thumb as he drew her in closer. His heartbeat is solid and real beneath his chest, but she tried to resist.

The sun had not yet risen, but she had woken early to make an attempt to return to her own room, her own bed. As she always did after their nights together, to keep from arousing suspicion and to protect what privacy they had left about the nature of their relationship. But she should have known, when he spoke that first word, that she would be unable to refuse this man anything.

Fléur cuddles into his warmth, and she stays.

////

"Stay with me, a little longer."

Hubert's voice is choked, wet and raspy from the blood bubbling out of his mouth. She had his head carefully in her lap, trying to assess the damage of the arrow in his chest, trying to keep him breathing, keep him calm- keep herself calm.

She thought she might be crying, but she's too preoccupied to check. He'd survive, he would, Hubert had taken worse, and she knew it had missed anything vital. The healers were coming, the battle was over. The war is over. They had won. He doesn't look scared of death.

Fléur kisses his red-stained lips, and she stays.

////

"Stay with me, a little longer."

He sounded more wobbly now, fainter, but no less like the Hubert she had met in her youth. She felt him take her hand and kiss it, dry lipped, right above her wedding ring. She smiles faintly in his direction, but she can't find her words.

They are old now, grey haired and long lived, with legacies that their children and grandchildren will carry on. She had never expected to get this far just by staying, loyally, unforgettably, at his side, but there is only so much staying she could do in her life.

Fléur sits on the other side, and she waits for him.

[anotherstoryanotherchapter]

@moeblob pls accept this humble offering from a fan. Its not much but ily

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They didn't get a lot of sun in Faerghus.

That wasn't to say they didn't get any, but most days in the north you could almost guarantee complete cloud cover. Always cloudy, always dreary. Felix had grown used to it over the years. It was home, after all.

Felix tore his eyes away from the grey blanket in the morning sky beyond his window. He let his hands reach down and sift easily through the waves of bright orange hair cascading over the bed.

Ferdinand murmured but didn't wake, snuggling contently into Felix's side. He huffed in amusement, curling his hair around his fingers. He didn't know how Ferdinand managed to keep it so smooth. Orange like fire, orange like the sun. Bright like the man who bore it.

Felix sunk back under the covers, uncharacteristically lazy, or perhaps just clinging to the warmth of the moment when no one else could see.

Yeah, they didn't get a lot of sun in Faerghus.

But Felix? Nowadays, he got plenty.

[anotherstoryanotherchapter]

It was so odd, Lorenz thinks, to feel so small in front of someone you towered over. Yet here he is, lost and doe-eyed like he was once again a child learning how to take his first steps, like the world was new again.

It was not a pleasant feeling. It was fearful and confusing, the proverbial rug yanked from beneath his feet and now he was left tumbling within a maze of his own thoughts.

Claude, at least, was patient as he waited for Lorenz to figure out what he wanted to say. If nothing else, Claude had always been patient, Lorenz had to give him that. He was capable of biding his time for days, weeks, months, all with that easy smile.

"...I don't want to become him."

"You won't." Claude reached up and pressed his hand to the back of Lorenz's neck, warm and steady. He pulled him down to press their foreheads together- some sort of ritual, perhaps, something from his homeland.

The touch is comforting, intimate in a way that Lorenz had never felt before, brought so close that he could see flecks of hazel in Claude's green eyes. His breath caught in his throat.

"You can be better," Claude continued. "You will be better. Promise me to rise above what came before. Promise yourself. You can do it. I've seen you do it."

The tone in Claude's voice was trust, something earned and exceedingly rare, unconditional in that moment. To put so much faith in him, unwavering, Claude has given everything to him.

The realization, the closeness, makes Lorenz's stomach twist in this funny way he couldn't really put a name to. "How can you be so sure?" he breaths.

"Because I trust you," Claude replies, releasing him. His touch lingers, palm placed against the side of Lorenz's throat, feeling the pulse beneath. Four words, so simple, yet the weight behind them is something that falls over Lorenz's shoulders like a warm blanket.

He reaches up and lays his hand over the Riegan's. "Claude," he whispers.

"...Yeah?"

"Can you say it again?"

Claude's smile softens, more genuinely, less purposely disarming. "I trust you. No strings attached. No expectations. I trust you. Do you trust me?"

"I would not be here if I didn't."

"Good. Then stop doubting yourself. Have faith in us both."

Claude took his hand away, and where his fingers had been tingled. Lorenz swallows carefully. "I'll try. Thank you."

[anotherstoryanotherchapter]

There was a sort of betrayal that one could never really describe until one had experienced it. It starts as a chill, the realization, the denial, every bit of blood going cold like ice. Then an anger, something deep and welling in one's chest, spreading as an ache through every bone until you are boiling with anguish.

Lorenz's hands are shaking as he deciphers more of his father's penmanship, as sharp and cutting as the man behind them. The ink was immortal guilt, written in pride, not atonement, and bile burned at the back of Lorenz's throat.

He thinks of Raphael, big smiling Raphael, who not once had spoken a bad word about him. He thinks of Claude, of the weight pressed unwillingly upon him by the death, the murder, of a man he never got to meet. He thinks of Lysithea's candle, half burnt already from all she had suffered.

He thinks of his father, and how many years he spent loving the man-shaped thing that had sired him. The same one that had turned his back to the Alliance for the promise of power.

He thinks about the letters, unsent, like sick trophies, in his hands. He thinks about what he now knows.

Will his father think of them, too, should he fall during this war, upon the edgeless sword that he has chosen to live with? Will he beg forgiveness in his final moments of despair, should he be cut down?

Despair and die, Lorenz thinks, blood boiling.

Despair and die.

[anotherstoryanotherchapter]

"Our existance should not be our sin," Edelgard begins, and then she falters, ever so slightly, into a silence of memories. She turns the dagger over in her hands, again, and again, watching the metal of the blade ripple in the evening light with absent eyes. "...To make our heaven from this hell, we must be ready to pluck the wings of angels. Even after they have fallen."

-Edelgard, a Momentary Lament

[anotherstoryanotherchapter]

@madampringle come get y'all juice

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"No one's around to care, you know," Lysithea mumbled around a mouthful of cake. "I can do what I want."

Lorenz stared at Lysithea with an expression slowly morphing between disgusted horror and morbid fascination. "A sin committed with no witnesses is still a sin," he hissed to her between clenched teeth, despite the fact that, as she had so casually declared, they were entirely alone in the common room.

Lysithea rolled her eyes. "Eating with my hands is not a sin, Lorenz. Don't be such a baby. This cake is too good to waste and I didn't have time to grab a fork! What did you expect?"

"I expected a young lady such as yourself would have the sense to act with proper manners!" He shivered as Lysithea responded by dragging her index finger through the icing on one side and licking it off.

"No," Lysithea replied simply. Then she continued, huffing, sucking the last of the buttercream away, "You're too uptight, Lorenz. I thought we were making process in getting the stick out of you-know-where. Surely even you can make an exception for something as divine as this cake!"

He snorted. "Hardly."

Lysithea gasped so deeply and with so much indignation that one would think Lorenz had insulted her family rather than a baked good.

Lorenz jerked when she shoved the platter in his direction.

"Try some," she commanded.

"What? No."

"Lorenz, you will never truly understand me unless you try this cake right now."

He bristled, turning up his nose with a proud sniff. "I would never. I have no fork."

She just arched an eyebrow.

It took him far longer to clue in to what she was hinting at than he would ever admit. His mouth opened, scandalized, but no words came out. He looks from the cake to her and back again. "...Please tell me you are not serious."

"I'm not gonna tell anyone. But you need to try this cake."

He released a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a sigh. "No, Lysithea."

"Please?"

"No."

"Please?"

Lorenz felt his resolve begin to crumble. For someone who so often insisted that she was not to be treated as a child, she certainly had perfected that big-eyed pouting face. "If," he muttered through clenched teeth, "If I do this, will you please at least try to be less impolite?"

"Cross my heart and hope to die, now dig in, Gloucester."

Lorenz took a deep breath, struggling not to make a face. Then he delicated pressed two fingers into an untouched area of the cake. His nose wrinkled. It was moist- mushy, really, and he frowned at how hard it was not to drop the chunk of cake onto the surface of the table.

As quickly as he could he practically threw the cake into his mouth and chewed. It was sweet, certainly delicious, and he made a surprised hum at how good it in fact was. He supposed he should have trusted Lysithea's judgement on such matters. He wouldn't lower himself as to lick the frosting off his fingertips like her, though. He had handkerchiefs for that.

Lysithea was grinning smugly at him. "Well? That wasn't so hard, was it?"

"The cake is lovely, though I stand by the fact that eating with one's hands is a nasty habit."

Lysithea tilted her head. "So does that mean you don't want anymore? I can give you that whole side."

Lorenz hesitated, the last strand of his pride beginning to fray. "How dare you prey upon my sweet tooth like this."

"That's not an answer."

"Well...a-as long as no one is around, I suppose no one will know...right?"

[anotherstoryanotherchapter]

"Do you ever miss it?"

The question startles Lorenz. He looks down at his husband curiously. Hadn't Claude just been asleep? "I'm afraid I don't understand."

"Do you miss Fódlan?" Claude asks again, sitting up on his side.

Lorenz sets his book aside. "What brought this on?" he murmurs, gently threading his fingers through Claude's messy hair.

Claude tilts his head into Lorenz's palm, signing tenderly. "You left your life behind to follow me here. I guess I'm just feel a little guilty for taking you away from your home."

"Oh, darling," Lorenz chuckled soothingly. "I am home. You're here, aren't you?"

[anotherstoryanotherchapter]

"What's the occasion?"

His words were easygoing, punctuated by the light laughter that Lorenz had spent years falling in love with. But there was a nervous tremor to the corners of Claude's mouth that gave him away, and Lorenz's heart swelled to spot it.

He shifted on the bed with purpose, aware of Claude's eyes tracing the curve of his body as he stretched, catlike. His stocking-clad thighs rubbed together slowly as he fakes a pretty lipsticked pout. "Need I a reason to treat my husband? You've been working so hard the past month."

Lorenz watched Claude swallow thickly as he delicately swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. "Besides, I've been so lonely. It gets so very dull when one must find pleasure in an empty bed." He presses his front to his husband, peering down with a wicked gleam.

Claude opens his mouth to speak but nothing comes out. It earns him a low chuckle that reverberated down his spine and collected hot and heavy in his gut.

"Surprised?" Lorenz teases, gazing at him through his lashes. With a lazy sigh, he took Claude's hands and placed them on his waist where he could feel the velvety surface of the corset sitting snugly over his curves.

"Not often you catch me off guard, darling."

Lorenz decided to count that as a win.

He backs Claude against the wall, palms pressed firmly against his chest. Once he had Claude pinned Lorenz settled gracefully to his knees, pulling at the laces of Claude's pants with his teeth.

"W-Woah, hey..." Claude's gloved fingers threaded through his hair. He looked up to see an awkward smile. "As hot as this is, I think that much lipstick down there might cause problems."

Lorenz tilted his head, arching one delicate eyebrow. "Well. If that's the case," he purred, tugging on Claude to pull him down. "How about I ruin it at the top so there's none left for the main event?"

"Yeah," Claude squeaks, "that works."

[anotherstoryanotherchapter]

"You know, looking back, I can't remember if I ever heard him say it," Lorenz admitted, voice straining to force the words passed trembling lips.

Claude shifted in his seat, leaning forward, eyes soft. "Do you not think he loves you?"

"I don't know." Lorenz tightened his grip on his teacup. The amber liquid inside rippled but had long since lost its comforting heat. "There was a time when I told myself that he must. There was a time when I wanted him to love me, and I wanted to love him, but..."

"But it wasn't enough?" Claude guessed, barely speaking above a whisper. He spoke as though he feared any sudden movement or sound might break Lorenz from this rare state of vulnerability.

"But it wasn't enough," Lorenz agreed with a sigh, and he lifted his tepid tea to his lips despite the ugly bitter taste that crawled across his tongue. "Was it selfish?"

"To want love?" Claude tilts his head. The sun caught on the gold piercing he always wore, sending light dappling over his jaw and the tan skin of his throat. "I don't think so. We all want love in one way or another."

"I was a fool."

"You were a child," Claude corrects. "He was your father. Don't blame yourself for something that's natural."

A smile, gentle and shaky, pulls at the corner of his lips. "...Thank you, Claude."

"Any time." Claude grins back, bright as the sun. All of him, always so wonderously bright.

Maybe, Lorenz thinks, I can find love in a different way.

Maybe, he thinks, I can find it at his side.

[anotherstoryanotherchapter]

A gift for @paraminia ft their oc, Fleur! I love this lil dorito gremlin

____________________________________

The tea is too hot. She can't drink it. She keeps her hands around the cup instead, letting the warm tingle distract her.

"She sent another letter," Hubert tells her, calmly. He had no cup. He had never been one for tea.

"I know."

"I burned it."

"Thanks."

Hubert inhaled slowly, and she watched his movements, the way he leaned back. "Why do you not speak to her?"

"None of your business," Fleur snaps back, and she doesn't let herself feel bad. He's a Vestra, she tells herself, he can take it.

Hubert only arches an eyebrow. His silent expressions had perturbed her at first, but she was growing accustomed.

"Was that all you wanted?" she asks after a moment. "To tell me Mother Dearest sent another plea to guilt me?"

"You do not care for her." It wasn't a question. If they weren't having this discussion his voice would have sent a pleasant shiver down her spine.

"No," she says curtly.

"She is your mother. Why don't you?"

"That means nothing," she hisses. "Can I go now?"

"When you answer my question."

Fleur groans, slumping back in her chair. "Why is it such a big deal?"

"You arrived her and cut off all contact with your family. It is natural to be suspicious. Have you always hated your mother so?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"I hate her now. She's a witch. But..." Her grip tightens on the cup. She stares at her reflection in the ripples across the liquid's surface. "There was a time when I wanted her to love me. I wanted to love her. I just don't know if I did."

"Hm." Hubert leans forward again, chin propped up by the back of one hand. "How unfortunate."

"I don't want your fucking pity." Her face tightens with her scowl.

Hubert chuckled at her, the son of a bitch. "No one mentioned pity. My, Claude was right. You are a tiger."

"Excuse me?"

"Small but fierce. Aggressive when provoked, aloof when calm."

Her arm lurched. Hubert jerked back as a cup of hot tea soaked the front of his jacket. "Fuck off, Vestra. I'm not interested in playing your games."

"Then don't. I've gotten enough information from you for today. Though I would advise you to rein in that temper."

"I would advise you to keep your fat nose outta other people's business," she growls.

"...You turn to anger to cope, is that it?" Hubert seems entirely unbothered by the scalding water all down his front. "You don't know how to process your emotions so you throw a fit."

Fleur throws the cup down in response. It shatters noisily against the table. "Don't you dare start trying to psycho-analyze me. I'm not your doll! I'm no one's little plaything!"

"Of course you aren't," Hubert muses. He rises to his feet. "Then, I shall leave you. Clean your mess when you leave."

He has no qualms, no hesitation about leaving her alone there. He just does it. The man must lack a soul. Fleur is jealous.

Fleur leaves the disaster she caused, in the end. Who cares if she got in trouble? The more people hated her, the easier it was to forget them, after all.

Mother Dearest taught her that one.

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The silence was deafening. Sylvain didn't like it. Felix wasn't social but he was never quiet like this, not on the training ground, not when he could be making his swords sing.

Sylvain wished he would yell. Scream. Insult him. Anything but this awful guilty silence. The Goddess seemed to answer his prayer, though exactly the opposite of how he wanted.

"What was that, out there?"

Deathly calm, voice soft and even. Felix's expression was blank as paper. He didn't emote, made no move to punctuate the question in anyway, but Sylvain flinched nonetheless.

"Don't ignore me," Felix continues, with the slightest bit of force this time. "I asked a simple question."

"Felix, this isn't the first time I've gotten hurt," Sylvain began, only to be silenced when Felix raised a hand to stop him.

Felix lowers his arm again, chest rising slowly as he moved forward, closing the distance between them. It was easy to see how his fingers trembled now, how stiff ever muscle in his body was. "That wasn't what I asked."

"Then I don't understand the question."

Now Felix bristled, like he wanted to snap back, but he took another breath. It was exceedingly rare to see him grasp for control like this. Any other time the swordsman would have laid into him with the sharp tongue and furious words he was known for. "You've never just thrown yourself in front of an axe before. This wasn't a fight. You knew it would hit you."

Sylvain shrugged, hissing at the searing pain that tore up his side from the movement. He forced his usual smile. "It was me or His Highness. Figured I was less valuable in the long run. Protecting His Highness seems a good way to go out to me."

Felix slaps him, and hard, too, so blindingly fast that Sylvain only realized what happened when the sting starts to crawl along the length of his jaw. Sylvain blinks, too in shock to say much.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Felix spits. "A good way to go out?" And oh, oh, that's fear in his eyes, in his face, and Sylvain remembers all too late, but he can't take it back. "So as long as you die properly I guess it's fine to throw your life away!"

Sylvain touched his cheek, cupped his palm around the reddening area. "Calm down. I'm not dead."

"But you could have been! You expected to be! It's like you had no will to live at all!"

"Did I ever?" Sylvain chuckles softly. It's the sort of humor that would normally get a scoff or snort from Felix, but today all he got was a panicked jerk of his head.

"Sylvain--" Broken, catching on the vowels. Felix's voice cracked with a sort of grief that Sylvain hasn't heard since Glenn.

"A joke," he quickly told him. "Just a joke, Felix, I swear."

"It wasn't funny. You aren't half as funny as you think you are, saying shit like that."

They lapse back into silence. Sylvain can see his shoulders shaking under his coat, despite how he tries to stop it. "I'm sorry, Felix. I didn't mean to scare you."

"I know."

"I care about you."

"I know," Felix repeats.

"I won't leave you," he adds.

"I know," utters Felix a third time, clenching his fists at his side.

Sylvain opens his mouth once more, then decides against it. He didn't need to add that he loved him. Felix already knew that perfectly well, too.

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Mercedes's voice was shrill in his ears when they finally began to stop ringing. His vision cleared slowly, and the screaming, wicked voices faded into the background. His chest heaved, once, twice, before he became aware of the dainty palms pressed against his sternum.

Mercerdes is calling his name, head hanging. "Dimitri, he's dead, you killed him, calm down. Please. You're hurting me..." One of his hands is soaked with blood and gripping her wrist painfully tight.

He releases her frantically, eye locked on the red stains smeared on her forearm and the dark bruises blossoming under her fair skin. Bile rose in the back of his throat. Oh goddess, what had he done?

There was a body on the floor of the Cathedral, he realized. Not one of his men. The spy's head had been crushed like an apple. Had he done that? Why couldn't he remember?

"Mercedes," he rasped. "I'm sorry. I never meant to harm you. I-I truly never meant..."

"I'm fine," she sniffles, but there are tears in her pale eyes, and most horrifically, Dimitri could see fear. "I'm glad you came back to your senses."

Dimitri stares at his bloodsoaked hand in shame. "...I frightened you. You are scared of me."

She tries to shake her head.

"I can see it in your eyes. Please do not lie to me. I warned you I was a monster. Deny it all you wish, but now you have seen..."

Her trembling fingers grip at his cloak. "N-No! You aren't a monster, Dimitri, you just defended yourself. He was an assassin. You're just...like a cornered animal, you were frightened!"

He takes two frantic steps back out of her reach. There's a tremor in his hands and in his voice. An animal...A beast, craving blood. He stared at the bruises he had put on the young woman. "Dedue," he calls out in a panic. Then again, louder, "Dedue!"

"I am here, Your Highness," Dedue answered. Of course he was there. He was never far. "What is it that you need?"

"Guard her," he ordered brokenly. He shifts his gaze to Mercedes's face, and his expression is so very human now, like a frightened child. "I am not to touch her again. You are to stop me if I try."

Dedue, for a moment, looks almost like he wants to protest. But he bows obediently in the end. "...As you wish."

Dimitri didn't look back when he left. All he heard behind him was the start of a quiet sob. A beast shouldn't be allowed around people, he thinks. His heart aches.

[anotherstoryanotherchapter]

Felix was annoyed. More than usual. When Sylvain had offered to take him out drinking for a night, he had prayed it wouldn't, though entirely expected that it would, end this way.

"This way" being with a serving girl in Sylvain's lap, giggling fakely as Sylvain slid his hands teasingly beneath her skirts. Felix tolerated it for as long as it took to finish his latest drink. Then he slammed his empty mug down, huffing bitterly, and his stool screeched on the wooden floor as he shoved himself away from the bar. He snatches up his coat as he stands, and that's when Sylvain decides to take notice of him.

"Felix, hey, where are you going?" And he almost whines- goddess, how pathetic.

Felix scoffs at his offended pout. "Away from this disaster. To bed. Have fun with your newest flame." He shoves passed a few other patrons, ignoring Sylvain calling his name.

Screw him. He always did this. It seemed like they couldn't have single conversation recently without Sylvain gushing about his conquests. What was with his adoration of women? Felix couldn't see the appeal.

...Perhaps the boar was still awake, he mused. A chance to beat up Dimitri might get rid of the rolling in his stomach. Or perhaps he'd taken too much ale. He had always been a bit of a lightweight, if he were being honest. No, he was fine, he told himself. He hadn't drank that much.

"Felix!" Sylvain's voice was suddenly far too close and far too loud. The sudden grip on his wrist made him jerk defensively. "Slow down, will you? What's gotten into you?"

He wretched his arm from Sylvain's grasp, perhaps a little harder than necessary. Sylvain looked hurt, and Felix stuggled to maintain his glare through the haze of booze and the knot of sudden guilt that tightened in his throat.

"...Felix?" Sylvain tries again, in a softer tone.

He folds his arms across his chest. He looks down sheepishly. "Why'd you follow me?"

Sylvain gave him a look like the answer should have been obvious. He had this way of raising his eyebrow and smiling that always made him look so stupidly innocent. Felix hated how weak it made him. "Because you're my friend, and you just ditched me at a tavern for no reason? I paid your tab, by the way. You're welcome."

Felix feels his fingers dig into his biceps through his sleeves. "You were paying anyway, you said."

"True. So want to explain to me what that was back there?"

"You promised me you'd get your act together!" he blurted, face warm with embarrassment. "And then just when I thought you might want to spend time with me, you go and pull the first willing girl onto your knee! Did you even think how I might-" He cut himself off, clamping his lips together tightly.

Sylvain knew him, though. It was already too late. There was a long pause, almost too long. It was enough to have Felix shifting his weight from one foot to the other nervously. When Sylvain finally spoke again, his voice wrapped around Felix like a blanket- the same warm, gentle tone he'd used when they reaffirmed their promise. It sent Felix's heart going wild in his chest.

"How you might...what? Feel?" Sylvain's grin slackened into an expression of tender curiosity. "Felix, were you...jealous?"

"No!" he snapped.

Sylvain sighed, rubbing the back of his head. "You say that, but we both know I know you better than that. I'm sorry I ignored you, okay?"

Felix refused to even let himself feel like crying. That was what a child would do. He is not going to cry over a stupid crush. "No. This always happens. Can't you just put your next quick fuck out of your head for one night, or is my company just never enough for you?"

"...You are jealous," Sylvain accused, and this time it come out as a sort of breathy whisper, like he'd had a sort of divine epiphany.

He clamed up again. Suddenly the dirt at his feet was entirely more interesting than anything they had been saying prior. He was tipsy, that was all. It was making him loose-lipped.

"Felix," The way he said his name was honeyed. Felix had heard that in his dreams too many times to count. "Why didn't you tell me?"

He gazed back up, only with his eyes. "Tell you what?" His cheeks bloomed red.

Sylvain took a step forward, then another, into his personal space. He raised his hands, dragging him along his shoulders and up his neck. His palms cupped Felix's face, thumbs tracing absently over his cheeks. "...Am I reading too much into his? And none of your dismissive sarcasm. Not now. Tell me, Felix."

"No," he admitted weakly, "you aren't."

"You like me."

"I like you," he repeated with a nod.

"You too?" Sylvain shook his head with a chuckle. "How long, for you?"

"Too long."

"But-"

"Sylvain, please, you're so close right now that I'm about to either explode or beat the shit out of you." He stands on his toe to push himself closer. "We...can figure out all the details and reasoning later. I don't want to think of any of that. Just kiss me already."

Sylvain, ever the charmer, is happy to oblige.

[anotherstoryanotherchapter]

The numbness never went away.

Not in his arm where the dagger had cut into muscle.

Not in his chest where his very heartbeat felt cold.

Not in his head when the voices came back to plague him.

She is gone, he tries to tell the ghosts.

They are gone, he tries to tell the phantoms.

They do not listen.

They scream louder.

You are alone, he tries to tell himself.

You are alone, he realizes.

You are never alone, the voices remind him.

[anotherstoryanotherchapter]

There is blood upon the chessboard.

There is blood upon her hands.

One by one her pieces have fallen.

He is the last to die for her.

Her loyal servant.

Her closest confidante.

The Queen stands alone now.

She does not speak for the man who loved her before all others.

She does not offer her tears.

There is blood upon his lips that called her name.

Her knight has fallen.