Chapter Text
Sylvain only shuts up when he has a dick in his mouth.
He’s mesmerizing, Felix thinks but does not say as he stares down at Sylvain making choked, helpless, eager noises around his cock. A tear leaks from an unfocused eye as Felix presses in a little closer, a little deeper, biting back a moan at the warmth engulfing him. Sylvain whines but then urges him on, swallowing back as if in anticipation, reaching steady hands up to leave stinging tracks on Felix’s thighs.
It’ll bruise, he thinks, and moans soft in a way that’s not quite as involuntary as he tries to pretend. His flush would light up his cheeks if they weren’t already pink from exertion and arousal and the overwhelming sight of Sylvain looking up at him, somehow exuding smugness even with his mouth pressed nearly to Felix’s balls and his eyes wide in discomfort and want and his untouched dick standing painfully hard.
Sylvain doesn’t have to talk to speak to Felix, not after a childhood of friendship and then a war spent stepping carefully in each other’s blind spots like lovesick, antagonistic shadows. Like the ghosts that Dimitri still mutters to, when he thinks no one can hear; like the staved-off starvation in Ingrid’s eyes even in the middle of a feast; like the heavy expectation that Felix feels reaching out from every memory of his father. Like a swordmaster who hacks apart training dummies until his arms are sore and his mind is too numb to string together condemnations. Like a cavalier who smiles and flirts and uses until no one can tell where his heart begins or ends.
“Shut up,” he says harsher than he intends, although Sylvain has still said nothing. He winds a hand through red hair for good measure, yanking back and then pushing forward, fucking himself into Sylvain’s mouth and biting down on his own whimpers. The only answer is the rumble of a laugh that he barely hears but sees in the crinkle of Sylvain’s eyes and feels through through the shift of Sylvain’s throat on his dick and, even more acutely, in the ache of his chest.
For an instant the distant sounds of cheering and laughter invade the comfortable darkness of the room, the victory celebration continuing late into the night. Felix grits his teeth as it fades and widens his eyes against the unbidden image of Dimitri snapping the necks of his former classmates, stepping through a gore-filled room to ascend a bloody throne, waving to ten thousand cheering commoners who celebrate him only for murdering the right person.
The silence is broken by Sylvain’s whine, genuinely distressed this time, as Felix notices that his hand is clenched far too hard in Sylvain’s hair. He lets go as though burned, a few red strands sticking to sweaty fingers as he nudges him back. Carefully, Felix reminds himself. Gentle always seems beyond reach, but careful should be achievable. Has to be, he thinks, staring down at Sylvain’s grimaced panting and his own leaking erection, unsure which one is sending shivers of loss and need through the base of his spine.
It isn’t achievable, he knows, not today. He should have known that when Sylvain coaxed him into a dance at the victory celebration and smiled his rare, sincere smile and gently tugged Felix back to the room he’d claimed in a distant wing of the imperial castle. He should have known, did know that a stolen bed in a stolen city was the wrong place to do this. But he’d been weak, selfish, lured by the thought of a night spent with his guard down and by his useless heart’s traitor reaction to Sylvain’s trusting smile.
“Sorry.” It’s loud in the emptiness, leaden against the broken rhythm of Sylvain’s panting, completely inadequate. He tries again, forcing himself to meet Sylvain’s unguardedly wary gaze. “The shouting keeps reminding me of our last battle,” he not-quite lies. And finally, in a rush of words that appear before he can consider them, “I shouldn’t have come here. It was a mistake. I’m sorry.”
While the words still hang in the air Felix watches Sylvain’s expression change, his reflexive unguarded uncertainty smoothed away into equally reflexive fake cheer.
Sylvain shrugs expansively, smile nearly reaching his eyes, tilting his head in careful ease as though Felix is already forgiven. Felix could pretend it’s sincere; Sylvain clearly wants him to.
“Not like you to say you’re sorry for a little thing like that,” Sylvain says, voice croaking on the first word and rasping in and out on the rest. “Can’t say I blame you for being wound up. All the more reason to let out some stress, right?”
He guides Felix’s hand back to his hair, gently winding calloused fingers into it. “When was the last time, Felix?”
And it’s here, at the sound of his name dripping from Sylvain’s honeyed lips that Felix finally breaks the gaze he’s been determinedly holding. Because Felix knows - sure as he knows that the war is over and his family is dead and his own personal reconstruction is impossible - that Sylvain is hurt and untrusting and limping through life with half a heart, and he still means those last words. The comfort he offers is genuine and concerned, just as his forgiveness is protective and insincere. Sylvain knows that Felix can’t be trusted or forgiven, not here and now. He offers anyway.
“I know you won’t let anyone else this close to you.” Sylvain stops to cough in the middle of the sentence, voice royally fucked up, but the roughness of his vocal cords and his purposely teasing tone do nothing to disguise either his banked fear or his desperate need.
“This is why.” Felix doesn’t see the point of softening his words when Sylvain knows all of his failings. The lust in his blood hasn’t faded, not even a little, but neither has the anger and fear left by years of war. Hands that have killed so many people that the exact number of graves seems irrelevant don’t relearn kindness.
“You should have someone who isn’t going to hear an unexpected noise and disembowel you,” Felix says, voice wry and taut in its honesty.
Sylvain’s head tilts in pretended consternation, smile sharper and brown eyes shrewd. Felix braces himself for whatever is about to leave his mouth, but nothing prepares him for Sylvain’s soft exhale against his skin. He leans forward to press a kiss to the side of his neck and the corner of his mouth and then more, trailing downwards with frail kindness.
He pauses at Felix’s chest, glancing up with a wink and lazily licking over one nipple. He sucks insistently and finally nips, just hard enough to at last draw a gasp out of Felix, who grits his teeth and hovers unsure hands over Sylvain’s shoulders, squeezing amber eyes shut in protest against cruel pleasure and welcome pain. Sylvain laughs, confident that skill and pleasure and exhaustion will keep Felix from leaving.
“Well,” Sylvain breathes between languid kisses, “who should I have instead? A girl who would cut my crest out of my flesh if she could?”
And this time Felix’s eyes fall open, staring hazy at the room around him as his heart stutters. This is pleasant, he tells himself. He could let Sylvain kiss his way back down to his cock, wind his hands into silk sheets he can grip as hard as he likes, let himself be undone by the skillful lips of his friend. He could reach down and jerk Sylvain off after, leave purple marks on his neck that will be impossible to explain away, drink in the praise and eager whimpers Sylvain will surely give despite Felix’s lack of any particular skill at this.
It would be easy, simple, safe.
It would make every other night of his life harder.
Felix considers every word carefully before he speaks this time, tugging Sylvain away to fix him with an inescapable amber stare.
“And I should have someone who doesn’t think of me as a convenient replacement for a love he’ll never find.” There’s stillness as soon as he speaks, and Felix knows there’s no going back.
They both know the words are lies, and they both know the words are earnest. Sylvain’s smile freezes into the thing he uses when he breaks girl’s hearts. Felix hates it.
“Wow,” Sylvain says, “and here I thought you could act like a person for once.”
The words are lies, and they aren’t, and they can’t be unsaid.
Felix pushes Sylvain back once and for all, gathers his clothes, leaves with his shirt still off and his hair undone and a pit of unthawed ice in his heart. He doesn’t linger outside Sylvain’s door.