Sylvix Week Day 4: Video Games & Tabletop AU
Not for the first time, Felix was having second thoughts about moving in with Sylvain this year. Sylvain’s bag flew over the side of the couch and then landed with a solid thud on the floor.
“I hate D&D!” Sylvain said, and then walked into their bedroom and slammed the door.
Felix stared at his kinesiology assignment and weighed working on it over figuring out what the hell happened with his boyfriend. Sylvain won out and he closed his laptop before heading to their room.
Sylvain was dramatically flounced on the bed, his head nestled into one of the pillows, sulking while he scrolled on his phone.
“Nerd convention didn’t work out?” Felix asked.
“Don’t mock my pain,” Sylvain said. Then he lifted his head and assessed Felix in a way that he was sure he wasn’t going to like. “You don’t have anything next Friday, right?”
“Why?” Felix asked, warily.
“Because I’ve spent the last six months carefully orchestrating and plotting the perfect campaign and our fucking rogue dropped out.”
Felix tried to parse any of those words as coherent, but failed. “What?”
Sylvain, spirits lifted, sat up. “I’ll build your entire character sheet! You can have a sword. Two swords. Six swords! I’ll even get you up to the level the party is at.”
“I’m not joining your D&D game,” Felix said. He wasn’t even entirely sure he knew what the fuck it even stood for.
“Please,” Sylvain begged. He looked pathetic on his knees like that on the bed, pouting still. “At least until the campaign ends. It’ll be like three weeks, tops!”
Sylvain annoyingly interpreted that as an agreement.
It was longer than three weeks, but Felix didn’t hate it. The swashbuckling rogue character Sylvain made him had interesting stats and it seemed like half group approached things as a role-play exercise (Dorothea, their Glamour bard and Ferdinand, their Paladin) and the other half liked figuring out the puzzles (Lysithea, their Great Old One warlock and Ashe, their Life Cleric). (Mercedes, their Berserker Barbarian seemed to be a wildcard.)
Felix mostly dicked around on his phone until a fight broke out (usually caused by Ferdinand rolling really badly on his deception or persuasion checks). Then he listened while Sylvain started descriptions of all the fighters in their area, really getting into it with hand gestures and dramatic tension. He did different voices for the Goblins, Fiends, and Fey they ended up bargaining or fighting with.
“We’re going into a time skip this Friday,” Sylvain said, absently like it was no big deal, later when Felix was attempting to watch an MMA fight.
“In the game, right?” Felix asked.
“Yeah,” Sylvain said. “And… I mean I could find someone else to tap in, if you wanted to—you know stop.”
“Let me think about it,” Felix said.
Sylvain nodded, a little too enthusiastically.
“I want to build my own character,” Felix said. “Do I have to be a rogue?”
“No,” Sylvain said, smiling. “We’re all picking new characters, you can be whatever you want? You want me to help you build it?”
“No,” Felix said. “The website works.” He sighed as he saw Sylvain’s smile slip. “But, I guess if you wanted to help, it wouldn’t kill me.”
“You’re so romantic,” Sylvain said, cheerfully. He kissed Felix’s cheek as they made their way to the computer.
Felix made a Monk, which was apparently a controversial choice or whatever, but he had fun building them up and keeping track of the different Ki points. He didn’t mind the role-play part, he actually enjoyed watching everyone else do it—but he felt more comfortable with a character that didn’t have a high CHA stat everyone relied on.
He didn’t mind hanging out with everyone on Friday nights, even if a few months later Lysithea’s coursework overwhelmed her so she had to drop and Dorothea’s work schedule started getting in the way. Then Mercedes asked if her brother could join and Felix asked Annette if she wanted to join in.
The group shifted a few more times throughout the year but mostly stayed the same and in the end Felix just liked watching Sylvain be interested in something. He’d goof off in class, but he’d spend hours carefully painting figure models with Ignatz or working on plotting out his campaign with Bernadetta.
When he and Sylvain had moved in together, someone on the fencing team told him he’d get sick of spending so much time with him—but it was the opposite. Felix liked spending time with Sylvain every Friday night and his new group of friends with annoying in-jokes ridiculously complex backstories.
“Annette said she might want to try DMing,” Felix said, one night while they cleaned up from hosting a non-official party gathering.
“Why didn’t she say anything to me?” Sylvain asked.
“She doesn’t want to step on your toes.”
“Ah but you love stepping on ‘em,” Sylvain said with a stupid grin. Felix flicked soapy water at him. “That’d be great actually. I never get to play. I’ll text her and let her know I can help her get started—oh she’d love the starter kit and you haven’t played it yet.”
Sylvain wandered off to find his phone, already murmuring out loud what character he wanted to create for himself and Felix watched him, fondly as he spat out an essay long text at Annette.
