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Dimitri is too far gone to remember, but Glenn died nine years ago today. Sylvain’s sure Ingrid remembers, but he’s also sure that she’d rather be alone, dedicating herself even further to living the way he did - like a true knight. It’s busy around the monastery, and Sylvain doesn’t get a chance to slip away and go to Felix until it’s well past sunset.
Felix isn’t in any of his usual haunts, so it’s some time before Sylvain makes the trek up to the third floor of the monastery and finds him there, sitting on the ledge of the balcony and looking out over the grounds. If he hears Sylvain, he makes no indication of it, and so Sylvain sits down next to him without a word passing between them.
They sit in silence, their legs swinging over the ledge. Felix’s face is expressionless, and he stares straight ahead, as if Sylvain’s not even there.
Finally, Felix speaks, although he still does not move. “Do you miss him?” His profile is striking in the low light provided by the moon, but Sylvain knows better than to comment on it.
Sylvain lets the silence hang between them a little longer before answering. In truth, he doesn’t remember Glenn very well. He remembers the sound of his laugh, so similar to Felix’s, and how he’d come to visit Sylvain in the infirmary after Miklan had pushed him into that well. He’d sat down next to him and said that he was sorry he didn’t have a better brother, and then he’d read him a bedtime story until Sylvain had fallen asleep. He was too old for such things - he was barely younger than Glenn - and they’d never talked about it afterwards, but it had been nice, to feel taken care of for a moment.
“I don’t know,” Sylvain says instead, “he was your brother.”
Felix scowls, annoyance written in every line of his face. For someone so abrasive, Felix is crap at hiding his emotions. He’s never had any reason to, and it’s written all over his face. “I’m well aware,” Felix snaps, “but that’s not what I asked.”
Sylvain closes his eyes and tips his head backwards, toward the sky. He exhales, trying to get some of the weight to leave his chest. It doesn’t work. “Yeah, I know.” Felix is quiet then, and Sylvain feels shitty for not providing a better answer. Finally, he opens his eyes, leaning forward and resting his chin in his hand. He smiles at Felix, who seems determined not to look at him. “Do you want to know the truth?”
Felix’s mouth thins, “That’s all I ever want.”
Liar. Felix had seen the truth behind Dimitri and it had destroyed him. Someday he’ll see the truth behind Sylvain and that’ll destroy him too. Thank god Ingrid doesn’t seem to have something rotten at her center. Maybe her and Felix have a shot of getting out of this mess alive. “When we got the news, my first thought was that I was glad it wasn’t you.” He remembers the moment so vividly - all he has to do is close his eyes and he’s back in the estate, watching the expression on his father’s face and Miklan’s small, secret smile. And of course, at the center of the memory is Sylvain, almost dizzy with the relief that he’d felt flood into his body like poison: thank the goddess it wasn’t Felix.
Felix closes his eyes, the moonlight highlighting each individual eyelash. He has longer eyelashes than most girls Sylvain has slept with, but that’s not the sort of comment that would go over well. “I’ve never told anyone this,” he says.
For once, Sylvain does the sensible thing and shuts the hell up.
Felix inhales shakily, his fingers curling into the fabric of his pants. Sylvain watches his grip turn his knuckles white and thinks about taking his hand. “But when they told us that Glenn was dead, I was glad it wasn’t Dimitri.”
Sylvain can’t imagine Felix holding onto this secret for so long. They all have these things festering inside of them: he was wrong, none of them are going to be able to get through this. He’s silent for too long, probably, but there aren’t words that can soothe this hurt: Felix’s love for Dimitri is an ouroboros that he’ll never be able to straighten out. For all that he loves puzzles, Felix and Dimitri are beyond solving. “Oh,” he says, his voice insignificant against the vastness of the night sky.
Felix closes his eyes, and for a moment he looks like the little boy Sylvain used to know, who cried if you looked at him wrong. Then the moment is gone, his tears locked up wherever he’s been keeping them for the past nine years. “I was a fool. Instead I lost both of them.”
“Dimitri’s still here,” Sylvain says, resisting the urge to reach out and cover Felix’s hand with his own. It’s selfish - Felix doesn’t need his touch to ground him, but Sylvain still wants it, with a dull ache that presses down on his sternum.
Felix laughs, harsh and bitter, “Is he? The beast that lurks in the cathedral is barely alive.”
“You don’t want Dimitri to have died in the tragedy,” Sylvain replies.
Felix squeezes his eyes shut, his grip on his legs somehow tightening even more. He looks beautiful, even through the pain he’s undoubtedly causing himself. “I wish I did.”
Sylvain doesn’t try to hold Felix, but he moves a little closer, pressing their shoulders together. Touching Felix is like touching a cat: you have to coax him into it, and then as soon as you have there’s no getting rid of him. A whole-body shudder goes through Felix, and he makes a soft, choked-up noise in the back of his throat. It’s the sound of someone trying desperately not to cry, and Sylvain finds himself torn between ignoring it or comforting Felix.
“I didn’t cry after he died,” Felix says. “I wanted to. I tried to. But it was like I had forgotten how.”
Sylvain turns the thought over in his head. “I cried when Miklan died - when we killed him,” he says. He’d locked himself in his room after, waving off the other’s concerns, and then sat there in the dark with the Lance of Ruin pulsing white-gold in the corner, sobbing.
Felix nods as though that’s a reasonable reaction, then shifts, gently laying his head on Sylvain’s shoulder. Sylvain turns his head into his hair and closes his eyes, inhaling through his nose. Felix’s hair smells like the lavender soap Ingrid uses, which means he’s been stealing it again. “Why?”
Sylvain shrugs the shoulder that Felix isn’t laying on, even though he knows that Felix can’t see it. “I don’t know. It felt like the thing to do.”
Felix stays quiet, expecting more.
Sylvain sighs, trying to let some of the ache in his chest evaporate along with it. “I don’t know,” he repeats, trying to sort through his thoughts. He can understand it, but it’s a mangled ball of yarn, incomprehensible to anyone who isn’t him. “It wasn’t his fault.”
“It was,” Felix interjects. “He sentenced himself to death the second he hurt you.”
“He was born without a crest,” Sylvain says, trying to make Felix understand.
“That doesn’t give him the right to be a shitty brother,” Felix replies, his voice steady.
Sylvain thinks Miklan had earned being shitty, at least a little bit. But he knows that Felix will have a fit if he says that, so he stays silent. “After he died,” he says, haltingly, “I realized that nothing was ever going to change.” He’s never put this thought into words before, perhaps not even admitted it to himself before now. “Miklan hated me. I knew that. He was always going to hate me, but I don’t know…” he shakes his head. “There was always a chance that he wouldn’t. Once he was dead, so was that.”
Felix sits up, lifting his head off of Sylvain’s shoulder. “Miklan was a fool, and now he’s dead,” he says, crossing his arms. “Don’t make the same mistakes he did.”
Felix is the fool. Sylvain’s already made the same mistake that all the Gautier men make - wanting what they can’t have. He watches the way the light catches Felix’s cheekbones and smiles, easy as ever. It’s fortunate Felix has never been as good as Ingrid at telling the fake smiles from the real ones. “Course not,” he replies. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”