felix hadn’t bothered trying to delude himself / to steel himself / to remain cold and impassive as people presume he is. loathe as he was to admit it near the beginning of this time apart ( how long as too long? the dramatics / romantics would say even mere moments, whereas the realists would say weeks that stretch into a month tests the nerves ) he has grown increasingly restless, unsettled in his skin, something inside of him riotous and frustrated, as if BEGGING TO RETURN WHERE IT BELONGS. it has made him increasingly snappish in his day to day life, with his management of the duchy, putting things back in order where they had fallen into mild disrepair. his manservant dealt with the overall brunt of it ( and had remarked, dryly, that perhaps the duke needed to spend some time, ah, recuperating … what? it’s not as though felix would keep someone so near who couldn’t deal with him ) while he threw himself into his fresh new duties with a unique aggression, teeth bared as if he were going to war all over again.
he had wanted to see sylvain again. had missed him terribly, had even ——— ugh ——— yearned for his presence, a warm hand on his shoulder, lips on his brow. even relentless training wasn’t enough to process this frustration.
and here : he devours the sight of him greedily, the swoop of his hair and the warmth of his eyes and the breadth of his shoulders / his beloved husband.
sylvain runs, of course he does the besotted fool, and felix knows that he speeds up in turn and it should hurt to collide quite so directly with sylvain’s breastplate ( it aches, really, even through the layers that felix wears ) but why should he give a damn about that? oh, he’s certainly annoyed at its presence / because it’s yet another layer that separates them. but still : he throws his arms up and around sylvain’s neck, crushing his body as near as he can, clutching onto the edges of his armor as if through sheer force of will he could doff it and crawl his way nearer.
he tucks his face into sylvain’s neck where he can and breathes / and it’s as though an essential piece of himself slots back into place. a heart beating again in time. i’ve missed you i’ve missed you i’ve missed you.
IT’S OVERWHELMING, this rush of emotion, chest threatening to fracture beneath the weight of it all. sylvain dismantles his walls without even trying, now, with his mere presence. it doesn’t matter who else is in this hall so long as they don’t dare separate them / felix wouldn’t allow it, now.
❝ maudlin fool, ❞ it’s overwhelming / overwhelming / he leans back, against the solidity of sylvain’s arms as he pries one hand from his armor and grips his face, just this side of too tight, and pulls him down into a kiss. there’s an undeniable sense of desperation to it, too brief by half, but there’s something lurching in his heart, unwinding yet tightening in the same breath and he whispers ( mouths, more like ) ❝ i love you, idiot, ❞ against sylvain’s mouth. their own secret, tucked between sylvain’s ribs. who’s really the maudlin fool, here?
sylvain knew the sensation well / the all too unique feeling of finally coming home after eons away from that enveloping comfort — felix holds him close and sylvain swears he was close enough to hear the way his heart sings and sighs for him. it was impossible / near impossible to bring felix any closer and still he tried, pressing him and tucking him close and doing just about anything he could to break everything separating them and just have felix there.
but felix was here, wasn't he? no more did sylvain have to go day in and day out without seeing that unhappy scowl and those piercing eyes and that biting mouth — he holds felix and simply thinks; finally, you're home. i missed you i missed you i missed you.
sylvain matches every starving kiss with the same vigor / uncaring of what the other residents in the building would say or think. no, felix and sylvain had never once cared for the opinions of others and surely weren't about to start now ( just another way they've become so synonymous — two having become one so completely that did anyone really know where sylvain ended and felix began? where winter turned to summer and the flowers remained stiff with permafrost? was there even a sylvain without felix? questions that he hoped to never find the answer to / would rather die than know the answer to. )
❛ insulting me and then declaring your love to me.. how i've missed you, felix. ❜ words spoken into the kiss / sprinkled with a laugh that's sure to agitate felix ( because he can't kiss sylvain if he's laughing ) but that's a risk sylvain was willing to take. he moves back, just a smidge to get another proper look at felix before bending down to kiss the crown of his head, moving to rest his forehead against the others. ❛ how was your journey? are you tired? what about your company? we've prepared meals for everyone in the dining hall. ❜ nurturing nature overtakes him once the initial rush begins to edd away and it's only now that sylvain remembers it wasn't just felix who has made this journey.
it also dawns on him that there was a question that's yet to be asked — but sylvain wasn't sure he'd like the answer. how long will you be staying? it sits heavy on his tongue, loaded and ready to be fired but sylvain.. decided he was much too hungry to speak anything else.