won't stop running 'til we reach the sun

happy valentine's day :))
tried something new and did sylvain-centric pov, i hope it came across well enough!
this is a modern setting, and set vaguely in college/university in a modern fodlan although it's not really expounded on. i focused more on character and dialogue in general, and it's more of like a linear timeline of little moments. and i took some liberties with characterization, considering it's a modern setting...so it's something a little more lighthearted and self-indulgent than what i'd usually do
Note: gave it an M to be sure because there's mention of sex/reference to it, and there's a bit where it happens but it's not rlly graphic. also because of a brief reference to child abuse.
(title is from woodland by the paper kites)
4/26/2024: made some edits! not anything too significant, but enough to warrant mentioning in the notes, i think. just basically cleaned up the fic a little and altered one or two minor details, so if it looks a bit different that's why ^^

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

The whole thing starts because Sylvain calls a bluff on an impulse.

“Are you still serious about moving out?” Ingrid asks Sylvain, phone in hand. She stands in the doorway to his room, and she looks like she’s expecting him to laugh it off.

He takes a moment to remember what she’s talking about. He was more half-serious than really serious when he made the comment, to be honest. He could laugh it off.

“Yeah,” Sylvain says. Ingrid stares him down for a moment, blank-faced. Sylvain waits.

“Alright,” She finally replies, bringing her phone back up. “Because Dimitri says he knows someone looking for a new roommate.”

“Who,” Sylvain asks.

“That’s what I—never mind, he just replied. Claude? Claude von Riegan.”

“Okay, haven’t heard of him but if Dimitri’s vouching for him, then sure.”

“I’ve had a class with him before. . .kind of reminded me of you at the time, actually.” Ingrid says absentmindedly, tapping away on her phone screen. Sylvain, interest piqued, tilts his head.

“Oh?”

—————

First impressions last with you forever, they say. Or, well, at least his mother used to—Sylvain had to hear that line a million times for every fundraiser or business meeting or commercial filming, whatever crapshoot his parents decided to bring him to next. Of course, Sylvain has always taken her advice to heart. He spent his childhood being as obnoxious as possible and flying low on everyone’s radar. He spends most of his adult life doing the same.

The first time Sylvain sees this Claude von Riegan, it’s eight in the morning and the sun is behind him. From a seat at the outdoor table he's chosen, Sylvain catches a glimpse of a nice smile, green eyes and the sharp glint of a gold earring before he has to blink and look away.

“Oh, sorry,” Claude laughs good-naturedly, holding out his hand to shake. He moves out from under the full force of the sun, pulling out a chair. “Was my roguishly beautiful visage too much for your eyes?”

So this is what Ingrid meant, Sylvain thinks. She might have undersold Claude a bit—Sylvain is aware that if he’d been the one to drop a line like that, it wouldn’t be the same. There’s something different about it, but he can’t quite put a finger on it. He feels a little on edge, but he plays along anyway because this is the first meeting and he has an image to uphold.

Sylvain grins, jokes back, “If I said yes, would you let me have another chance to appreciate it?”

Claude snorts, shakes his head; the first thing Sylvain notices is that the smile he shoots back doesn’t quite touch his eyes. Like he’s got shutters drawn over them.

They remain that way for the rest of the conversation and when Claude shows him the apartment. There’s sort of a detached air to him, like he’d put up invisible screens around him. Sylvain vaguely feels like he’s being kept at arm’s length, although he did stand right next to him the whole time.

And maybe that was a bad sign, but clearly the guy has a nice sense of humor, he’s laid-back, the apartment itself is cozy and well-kept—Sylvain is desperate enough to throw his chips in.

—————

6:01 PM

Sylvain

ok, im all moved in, unpacked and everything. thanks for the help bringing the stuff guys

Felix

don’t mention it

your roommate seems decent

if you ever want to switch let me know

Ingrid

felix! >:|

Felix

all ingrid ever does is eat us out of home and house i’m sick of buying MY food and MY snacks and coming home only to find that my stash has been emptied.

your roommate actually cooks i saw the inside of his fridge

Ingrid

i always replace it!

Felix

not at my time of need

Dimitri

Sylvain, you’re always welcome. I’m glad you and Claude get along well! I hope you two make a happy home, I wish you all the best

Felix

you make it sound like they’re getting married

Sylvain

well ;)) can’t say i’d mind. u all saw what he looked like right

Felix

sylvain.

Dimitri

Sylvain.

Ingrid

sylvain he’s your roommate do not mess this up.

Sylvain

I’M JOKING

im joking cant u guys take a joke

Dimitri

Honestly, I’m not sure even you can charm Claude, either way. He’s something else.

Sylvain

okay now i’m offended

you’re on

Felix

congratulations you fucking goat you’ve ruined it on day one of no sylvain now he’ll be back before the month is over

Dimitri

Goat?

Sylvain

please, like you guys don’t want all of this back ;))

Felix

not really

Ingrid

Sylvain

;(

—————

The last time Sylvain had roomed with someone he didn’t know was freshman year—it was alright. The guy had been quiet, and kept his space clean. Sylvain had felt a little awkward talking to him sometimes, but it was good, all things considered. Truthfully, it was Sylvain who’d been the problematic roommate.

Then he’d helped Ingrid and Felix find a place once they’d come to Garreg Mach, and moved in with them. Dimitri had opted to live apart from them in his own fancy place a little ways off campus with his stepsister, and Ingrid and Sylvain pretended that Felix and Dimitri weren’t still at odds. Felix pretended Dimitri didn’t exist, unless it was to talk shit. Dimitri pretended that Felix wasn’t pretending that he didn’t exist. Everything was fine. It worked. Most of the time.

Except when it didn’t.

Either way, Sylvain was going through with it—maybe he’d move back in after the contract was up, maybe he wouldn’t. It all depended on this Claude guy and how well they’d mesh together, he guessed.

—————

Claude was fine.

He mostly kept to himself, and more often than not stuck in his room when he wasn’t out. The only times he and Sylvain crossed paths so far was in the kitchen or going to the bathroom. He kept up a friendly pretense—smiling or throwing out a quick “hey”, although something about it rubbed Sylvain the wrong way sometimes.

There was something, in general—it wasn’t good nor bad, it was just—something.

But overall, it was fine. This was less. . .suffocating, in a sense. Sylvain was doing great. Dimitri was—well, he was out there, being Dimitri and forging his own path. Ingrid and Felix were probably having the time of their lives too, somehow.

—————

7:09 AM

Ingrid

There’s a bit of an issue

—————

“Okay, so this wasn’t what I had in mind when they said they’d want me back soon,” Sylvain groans, tapping furiously on his phone.

“Something wrong?” Claude asks him, looking up from his book.

“My old roommates—Felix and Ingrid, you remember them—have a mold problem,” Sylvain collapses on the sofa next to him, running a hand through his hair. “Felix left a half-empty noodle cup in the kitchen and nobody threw it out because they forgot, and because I used to be the one who cleaned. And now it’s become a mold culture or something. It's spread to the wooden table they left the cup on.”

“Oh.” Claude winces. “My old roommate did something similar once in her room. Well, your room now.”

“Really? Shit.”

“Yeah, she whined about it for days.”

“Your old roommate sounds. . .um, never mind.”

“She’s alright,” Claude snorts, going back to his book. “She was just so damn lazy.”

—————

Claude had a weird way of making you feel close to him while keeping you at arm’s length.

It’s the aura, Sylvain realizes, about a month in. He’s charming.

There’s a lilt to his voice and a perpetual calm and easygoing air that—that Sylvain still has trouble properly emulating, even now. Claude is charming and—well, Sylvain is obnoxious.

He doesn’t know what to do with this information.

—————

5:46 PM

Sylvain

is it weird that i know more about claude’s old roommate than claude himself

Felix

i don’t know

maybe ask him about him

Sylvain

oh i didn’t think of that felix

that’s absolutely brilliant. id hve never thought of that

Felix

have you

Sylvain

—————

Well, now it’s too late for icebreakers. Sylvain doesn’t know how to talk, like honestly talk to people anyway.

Wait.

—————

5:50 PM

Sylvain

heyy dimitri

—————

He’s just like that, Dimitri tells him. Give it time.

—————

Okay, so—Claude thing number two: he knows things he shouldn’t.

Which—actually, if he and Dimitri are good friends, that probably isn’t out of the ordinary. Dimitri has been friends with Sylvain since forever, but it’s still strange to think about yourself being talked about while you’re not there.

Actually, it’s really fucking unnerving.

—————

8:50 PM

Sylvain

You told claude about the harvest festival incident???

You told him I flirted with a man made out of fucking straw?????

Ingrid

Well you DID

I don’t remember if I did, to be honest

Sylvain

it’s supposed to be a SECRET

among us FRIENDS

ingrid how could u

uve tainted claudes view of me

Ingrid

Is it really so important to you what claude thinks

—————

“Ingrid?” Claude asks him, confused. He shifts, looking away. “Um, I don’t really talk to her. . .”

—————

10:04 AM

Sylvain

YOU TOLD CLAUDE ABOUT THE SCARECROW

Dimitri

I’m sorry

—————

No, really.

Everything else aside, there was just—the way Claude looked at him, sometimes. It wasn’t all the time, obviously, but sometimes Claude was just. . .calculating. Like he was trying to figure Sylvain out. Or the way he smiled, eyebrows turned down, when Sylvain tries to put his usual act on.

Sylvain did not like the feeling of being seen through very much.

—————

Sometimes Sylvain feels like there’s a gaping, empty crater in his chest rather than a heart. Or—maybe it’s more like a black hole. He feels like something’s gnawing out from under there; something ugly reaching out and trying to pull everyone in along with it. Some sort of hunger.

He plasters a smile, he pulls the next guy, gal, whoever, in. He spits them out just as quickly.

And then he flips between feeling sorry for himself, feeling sorry for them, feeling sorry and miserable for the whole damn planet because none of it fucking matters anyway.

He knows, objectively, that this isn’t true. But his chest aches and gnaws and claws and all sorts of ugly, shameful things, and it’s easier to stew than to admit that maybe things weren’t bad after all.

So he indulges himself and stews in it. He feels guilty for stewing. He tells himself the things he should believe in. He tells everybody else the things they should hear. Fake it ‘til you make it, he’ll live by it. He’ll tailor himself until it’s real. He’ll fall apart because there are just some parts you can’t reach by yourself, unfortunately. So he’ll try to go and find someone to patch it up with shallow, practiced words from the script in his head and touches that don’t mean shit and lash out and end up falling even farther apart, because apparently—apparently it turns out that you can’t actually slap a bandaid on a gash wound without fucking it up, which is just common sense, really, but Sylvain has already established that he’s an idiot. So, yeah. There it is.

And then he’ll think, well that’s embarrassing, tired from the performance, and he’ll want to roll his eyes at himself so hard his head hurts. And then he’ll take his script again, and tell himself the things he should hear.

And then the planet finishes its revolution and the day begins. Again.

Sometimes he wished the earth would get a move on and spiral into the sun so they could all die already.

—————

It’s pure coincidence that Sylvain ends up in this bathroom in this building, and of course it’s Claude at the sink, washing his hands as Sylvain comes in with hot coffee all over his shirt.

Claude glances at him in the mirror, then blinks and looks behind him.

“Oh, hey.”

“Hey.” Sylvain says, trying not to sound too miserable.

“I don’t see you here this much. Or at all, actually.”

“I was dropping off a paper for Ingrid.”

“Ah.” Claude shakes his hands out, moves to the tissue dispenser. “Doesn’t explain the coffee, though.”

“I, y’know,” Sylvain laughs, humorlessly, “I ran into. . .an old flame. . .who’s still kinda mad.”

“Oh.”

“Well, I got the paper in alright, so that’s a win,” Sylvain says, not-cheerfully. “I have a class in twenty minutes, though.”

Their place is ten minutes away, if you run. Claude nods understandingly.

“You want help?”

“Sure.”

Claude pulls a wad of tissue and nods towards the sink. Sylvain obeys. Claude turns a faucet on and dampens the tissue.

“So, what’d you do?” Claude asks casually, dabbing lightly at the coffee stains on Sylvain’s button up. Sylvain stands close.

“Y’know,” Sylvain mumbles, tapping at the edge of the sink and glancing at the mirror. It looked strangely intimate, how Claude pulled at Sylvain’s shirt and the way they were standing. “There was a bit of a misunderstanding, she thought we were serious, I. . .thought another thing. . .”

Claude hums, and glances up—there it is again. The look.

“We don’t need to get into all that,” Sylvain finishes.

It isn’t even the first time he’s felt that kind of stare on him.

“Yeah, I figure,” Claude shrugs, continuing to try getting the stains out.

“Got me all figured out, don’t you,” Sylvain says, and it really doesn’t come out as lightly as he intended it to. Claude blinks, looking up at him.

“Not at all.”

“Doesn’t look that way.”

“How does it look?”

“I don’t know yet,” Sylvain says. “Different, I guess.”

“Different.”

There’s something else in the air, now.

Claude scrubs a little too hard. Sylvain stares into his eyes, trying to see past them.

The door swings open.

Both of them stiffen and look towards the entrance. The guy looks startled.

“Uh, sorry?” He says, awkwardly.

“Thanks for the help,” Sylvain mutters, stepping back.

“No problem,” Claude says lightly, crumpling up the tissues and turning away.

Sylvain spins on his heel and walks away, pulling his phone out to check how much time he has.

—————

2:11 PM

Sylvain

if i fuck him will the tension go away

Felix

is this your big solution to everything i don’t even know who the fuck you’re talking about but I can tell you right now that that hs never worked and it never will. youre insatiable

Sylvain

everytime i think “felix cant possibly get any meaner” you do it blows my mind it really does

—————

The vision Sylvain conjures of a tension-filled cohabitation, filled with cold stares and that weird electric charge until he goes running back to his old life with his tail between his legs, shameful—is abruptly shattered by Claude himself, surprisingly.

They run into each other in the kitchen, and Sylvain tries to act casual, fussing with the arrangement of plastic containers on the dining table. Claude busies himself with rummaging through the cupboards and opens the fridge. This lasts for half a minute.

“Hey,” Claude speaks up suddenly. Sylvain turns, and Claude looks like he's bracing himself, hands shoved in his pockets. “I just want to say I’m sorry. I, ah, I’m told I can be nosy sometimes. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

“It’s okay,” Sylvain says, automatically.

Claude looks like he wants to say something but nods, smiling. It doesn’t touch his eyes, like usual. “Alright.”

He leaves, empty-handed, to go back to his room. And that’s that, apparently.

Huh.

—————

They’re way better after that, to Sylvain’s pleasant surprise.

—————

After one too many times getting distracted by his phone, Sylvain decides to move his work out of his room and try writing on the kitchen table for a change in scenery. He puts his music on shuffle and puts his phone face down on the table.

He starts typing, tiredly skimming through the references and trying to string together a coherent essay. He bangs through it somehow and ends up with a draft that looks workable enough.

Claude comes in to look through the fridge at some point, and Sylvain realizes it’s around noon already.

“What’s the song?” Claude asks idly, as he heats up food.

“You don’t know this one?” Sylvain turns the volume up a little louder. “Human.”

“I’ve heard it but I never really listened to it,” Claude frowns, as he hears the beginning of the chorus, "are we human or are we dancer?" sounding from the speakers. He tilts his head. “But now that I am—what does it mean?”

—————

Claude presses up against Sylvain's side a little as he peers at the laptop.

“We could always just google it,” Sylvain says, pulling up a new tab and starting to type. “Plenty of people have probably wondered.”

“Wait,” Claude gestures for him to stop. “I want to try guessing it first. I can figure this out.”

Sylvain looks at him, and Claude has that look in his eyes again. Except—now that it’s directed at something like this, it looks different. Claude scrolls through the lyrics carefully, looking way too serious. Sylvain tries to keep a straight face, and his gaze off of Claude's. It's easier said than done.

—————

They end up talking for hours, and Sylvain doesn’t even notice until it starts looking dark outside. He’s surprised to note that he actually had fun—Claude’s theories were so in depth and he poured so much thought into it that it was a little ridiculous, but Sylvain couldn’t help being pulled into it anyway. They went on all sorts of tangents, sometimes completely unrelated to the topic until Claude would circle back around.

He couldn’t remember talking this much with one person and actually enjoying it this much.

“So basically I think they’re singing about detaching themselves from humanity, I guess.” Claude says, thoughtfully. “The second verse particularly, the whole, ‘pay my respects to grace and virtue, condolences to good’, all that. He’s letting go? That’s it, isn’t it?”

“Checks out.” Sylvain nods, trying not to look too amused. “Do you want to look now?”

Claude watches as he types into the search bar.

“Wikipedia,” Sylvain sighs, clicking the link.

“Scroll down, it’s probably under lyrics.”

Sylvain clicks arrow to drop down the contents. They both scan over the words.

“A quote from. . .‘raising a generation of dancers, afraid to take one step out of line’.” Sylvain reads. “That’s what it’s based on.”

“Oh.” Sylvain looks over, expecting Claude to look disappointed. In reality, he looks like he’s already thinking again. “That’s nice, actually. I’ll have to rethink it.”

“I’d love to hear it,” Sylvain says, closing the tab and glancing outside.

“Really?” Claude looks surprised. “I thought you saw me weird.”

“When did I call you weird?”

“I mean, different.”

“Different isn’t bad,” Sylvain says. “And—that’s really not what I meant.”

“Oh. I thought—Okay.” Claude glances out the window. He looks back at Sylvain, with a smile. “Hey, do you want to order out?”

—————

7:01 PM

Sylvain

do u guys know any songs that have lyrics you don’t understand

Felix

most of the top 40 and the shit on the radio

Sylvain

u know what i mean, felix

and don’t pull that shit with me i know u and ingrid jam out to taylor swift i had to endure that for years

Ingrid

taylor swift is good! her new album especially.

Felix

what’s it for anyways

Sylvain

nothing

—————

A couple days later, Sylvain is making his way to the kitchen, brought in by the aroma of pancakes and something that smells salty and delicious. He stops in his tracks, however, lingering by the doorway when he hears singing.

It’s more like murmuring, really, but Claude—well, Claude sounds—great, Sylvain decides, after a minute of racking his sleep-addled brain. He sounds great.

Singing as low as he is, and considering that it’s the morning, Claude’s voice has a rasp to it. The edges of that voice somehow reaches into Sylvain and makes him feel—something. At a certain point in the chorus he reverts to humming it, and—well. It’s just as. . .great.

Claude has earbuds in and his back to the doorway. Sylvain stands there for about ten seconds while enduring the tidal waves of uncertainty and confusion, and then shuffles back to his room.

—————

6:11 AM

Sylvain

hey have u ever heard claude sing

Dimitri

Um. I suppose?

He hums sometimes. I don’t really notice

Sylvain

do u think claude is a good singer

Dimitri

He sounds

Well, like Claude singing. He’s not bad. I’m not sure how to say it

He sounds like Claude but singing

Why, what do you think?

Sylvain

same

thanks

—————

Claude but singing. That was obviously accurate but too vague. It didn’t feel like it appropriately encompassed his thoughts. Maybe he was imagining things.

Claude but singing.

That didn’t sound like enough. Sylvain would have to think on it.

—————

Sylvain closes the door behind him with his shoulder, cradling paper bags in his arms. He stops in his tracks as soon as he glances towards the couch.

“Well,” He starts, slipping into a practiced smile. “Hello there.”

“No.” The ginger says immediately. The blue haired girl smiles nervously, shooting her a glance.

“So what’s a bunch of lovely ladies doing—“

“Hey, Mari,” Claude says, walking in from the kitchen. He’s holding soda cans. “They were out of strawberry at the store, so I only have the blue ones, I forgot to—“

He spots Sylvain.

“Oh, you’re back early,” Claude says.

“Class got cancelled,” Sylvain lifts the paper bags slightly. “I got groceries and stuff.”

“Oh, okay. Uh—Guys, this is the roommate I told you about. Sylvain, this is Marianne and Leonie.”

Claude gestures to the blue-haired girl first, then the ginger-haired one. Marianne does a cute little awkward wave. Leonie nods at him, still looking a little miffed. Sylvain flaps one of his hands at them.

“Hold on,” Claude tells him, setting down the cans on the table. He walks over and Sylvain lets him take one of the bags.

“Uh, sorry, I didn’t tell you I had friends coming over,” Claude says to him as they set the bags down in the kitchen.

“That’s alright,” Sylvain says, “I’ll stay out of your hair after I get this sorted, no problem.”

“Thanks,” Claude gives him a small smile.

—————

Sylvain mostly stays in his room, hearing the occasional burst of loud, hearty laughter—Leonie, judging by the sound—but other from that, the three were quiet.

At around six, someone knocks on his door. Sylvain calls out a “come in”, lifting his head from his pillow and squinting at the sudden burst of light as the door opens.

“Hey,” Claude says, peeking in. He smiles. “We’ve got dinner. You wanna join?”

—————

He learns that Leonie was actually close to his year, and that actually—

“You thought I was a boy or something,” Leonie says, biting into her pizza. “I used to be. . .eh—“ she makes a so-so gesture with her free hand, “about that, because I was having—well, issues, but yeah. I’m okay now. Although after I said you didn’t treat me like all the other girls in our class you went overboard and started talking about sunflowers and whatever, which was annoying. And also kinda weird. And it took you a while to stop.”

“Er, sorry.” Sylvain says, only vaguely remembering. Most of the latter half of his first year and his entire second year is blocked off in his head, not only because more than half of it is too humiliating to revisit, but also because he’d spent that part drinking and partying so much that everything was hazy.

“Well, I’m not gonna say it was okay, because it annoyed the crap out of me,” Leonie snorts. “But you seem to be okay now, and Claude’s fine with you enough to live with you, so I guess I’ll give you a pass. For now.”

“Cool,” Sylvain says, genuinely relieved. Leonie’s arms, not to mention the way she just carried herself in general, looks like she could probably kill him twice over without breaking a sweat if she wanted to.

“Sylvain’s been okay,” Claude shrugs. “He’s neater than Hilda.”

Marianne laughs, a little snort into her drink. Claude grins at her.

Sylvain’s caught off guard for a moment. They haven’t lived together very long, and, well—Claude’s never smiled like that. It always looked a little muted on him before. But now—his face lights up and his mouth stretches in a happy, bright smile, no holding back, and dimples appear on both cheeks. It’s—it’s amazing, a little. It’s gone as soon as it comes.

Sylvain wonders how close Claude must be to them if he’s giving out smiles like that.

—————

2:31 PM

Ignatz

hello, it’s Ignatz

from art appreciation

just checking in to confirm we’re meeting tomorrow?

—————

“I think this one would be a good choice for the paper,” Ignatz gestures toward a big painting on the wall. “I think there’s a story in here.”

Sylvain takes a look. It’s a depiction of a battle at what looks like a church. It looked chaotic; there were dragons and horses in the sky, bloodshed and dead bodies on the floor.

“I think the artist really captured the chaos of battle,” Ignatz was saying. “It feels so real. Like you can just reach out and feel the rich history under the brushstrokes. . .”

Sylvain glances at him. Ignatz looks like he’s about to completely space out.

“It just—pulls you in, you know?” He snaps out of it. “There’s so many details. For example—“

He points to a man in the upper corner. He’s on a white dragon, and is holding the biggest, weirdest bow Sylvain has ever seen in his life.

“I think there’s something between the white dragon and the dark dragon,” Ignatz explains, pointing to another man at the lower corner, almost diagonally opposite from the other man. “There’s a visual contrast. White and dark, the gold and black clothing. The positioning. They’re looking at each other.”

“So, enemies?” Sylvain peers at the painting.

“Maybe,” Ignatz shrugs. “Maybe not. They’re just looking at each other, their weapons are pointed elsewhere. The painting doesn’t looks like it’s framing anyone as an enemy—I mean, like a group. It’s so chaotic you can’t tell, and most people aren’t wearing something specific to a group. Some of these people are kind of colorful, actually. I think that’s interesting—for something that looks so bloody and miserable a subject matter the colors are bright and saturated.”

“Yeah, someone’s wearing purple armor,” Sylvain points. “Was that even possible in the—when was this, anyway?”

“Let me—huh, no year,” Ignatz says, leaning down to look at the card. “The only thing here is IV. Is it the title?”

Sylvain looks around and spots someone. He nudges Ignatz and nods to the person. The man looked like a typical staff member at a museum—turtleneck, small glasses, hands clasped behind his back and a stern face, with an ID hanging around his neck.

“Excuse me,” Ignatz had asked, politely.

“Yes?” The man turns, and then jolts in shock. Ignatz recoils with a hasty “sorry!”, and Sylvain blinks at him. “No, it’s alright, I was just—thinking.”

“Ah, I’m sorry to interrupt then,” Ignatz says sheepishly.

“We were just wondering from what time period this painting was from,” Sylvain explains, gesturing behind them.

“Oh. Oh, that one.” The staff member clears his throat. “Curious choice of work. Er.”

“The card doesn’t say the year,” Ignatz pushes his glasses up his nose nervously.

“Ah, yes, it’s from the early 1100s. I’ve only recently taken it out of storage, I’ll update the card to add more information soon.”

“Oh, okay. I just thought it was—it has this realistic air to it,” Ignatz says, smiling. “It feels like there’s a lot of history in it. That’s—wow, nearly a thousand years. That’s amazing.”

“Ah, yes, the artist. . .” The man adjusts his glasses, nodding at the painting. “According to sources, the artist was also a war veteran, so. . .”

“Oh, that’s fascinating,” Ignatz’ eyebrows raise. “So do you know if it was based on something real or. . .? I wonder why they put dragons and pegasi in it, then. It looks like something out of a fantasy book, but it feels so real.”

“Ah, we can never say for sure. I suppose it’s up to the viewer to interpret the artist’s choices.”

“Yes, of course, you’re right.” Ignatz agrees. “Thank you, um. . .”

“Seth—“ The man awkwardly lengthens the ‘th’. “Seth.”

Sylvain and Ignatz glance at each other.

“Um, thanks, Seth,” Sylvain says.

“You’re welcome. I will take my leave. Good day.” Seth says tersely. He turns and walks away sharply, running a hand over his cropped grass-green hair.

“I get the feeling he didn’t like us very much,” Ignatz says.

—————

“Hey, how was it?”

Claude’s eyes are focused on his phone screen.

“Kind of weird, this museum guy was—“

“Is it Seth?” Claude looks up, knowingly.

“You know him?”

“I’m interested in the history here, and everyone says he’s the most knowledgeable—so naturally I sought him out.” Claude shrugs. “I think he’s getting used to me. He acted like I was a ghost the first time I walked up to him.”

Sylvain hums, unintentionally catching a glimpse of his phone screen as he passes behind the couch. He’s playing chess. Claude taps at an undo button, then again. The computer eats his knight. He hits undo again, and moves.

Sylvain folds his arms across the back of the couch and points at his bishop. Claude freezes up.

“Sorry,” Sylvain says, sheepishly, “You looked like you were having trouble. Look, if you move the bishop here. . .”

He taps at a square.

“There.” He leans back.

“You play chess?” Claude asks.

“Sometimes. I’m not that good.”

Claude gives him an unreadable stare.

—————

8:34 PM

Felix

are you busy

Sylvain

yeah, actually

i’m playing chess with claude on the phone so

Felix

on the phone

Sylvain

yeah there’s an app

Felix

don’t you live together

Sylvain

we’re both too lazy to get out of our beds and he sent me the first move so yeah

wait let me do something he’ll spend forever thinking about this one lmao

okay i’m back what’s up

Felix

there’s this girl in my class

Sylvain

WAIT FUCK HE ATE MY QUEEN

WAIT WHAT

—————

Sylvain falls asleep in the middle of a rematch.

—————

Claude’s eyes are unnaturally bright.

The sheets rustle as Sylvain crawls up over him. Claude gasps, quietly. His head tilts back as his eyes slip shut, baring the expanse of his neck. There’s a pretty flush blooming on his chest, on his cheeks, the tips of his ears.

He looks like some sort of painting. Sylvain almost doesn’t want to touch.

It’s soft and nice, but Sylvain can’t help but feel like everything is muted. Everything is too bright, vivid, blurry—almost like they’re moving underwater.

Claude chokes on a moan, turning his face sideways into the pillow. He pushes up on his shoulders and elbows, arching his back into a perfect curve. Sylvain feels warmth trickle over his skin like honey. It's a slow, viscous, pleasant crawl.

Then Claude’s eyes flutter open, and he looks at Sylvain.

There’s something there—or more like there’s nothing. His eyes are bright, clear as emeralds. There’s nothing underneath.

—————

Sylvain wakes up.

—————

“Morning,” Claude yawns, his eyes scrunching shut as he covers his mouth. Once his eyes are open again, he startles. “Do you need something?”

Sylvain blinks, satisfied, and looks away. “Um, no, I was thinking. Good morning.”

He doesn’t meet Claude’s eyes again for the rest of the morning out of embarrassment.

—————

The green in his eyes kind of reminded Sylvain of the deep sea. That was it—Claude’s eyes were usually dark in the sense that it was—not clear, Sylvain knew that much. Claude always vaguely looked like he was thinking.

Sylvain lets himself remember the phantom sensations and feelings, but it’s fleeting. He finds himself wishing he could follow to wherever it was, when Claude retreated into his head. Just to see.

—————

8:32 AM

Annette

sylvain!!

Sylvain

yeah?

oh hey annette i haven’t seen u and ur cute face in forever how’s it going ;)

Annette

sjdjjdhdb do NOT with me right now sylvain i swear >_<

Sylvain

okay jeez what’s got u all bothered cutie

Annette

JSBCJDJDB I AM SO MAD AT THIS GUY!!! SO MAD!!! i feel badsnfn

Sylvain

hey do u need me to beat up anyone?

are u safe? where are u? i can pick u up just send me the address

Annette

what?? oh no no it’s nothing like that there’s just this really rude guy in my class and earlier he KDJSJDJB id ont wanna talk about it but i promise it’s not like that hes just MEAN and EVIL :((((

Sylvain

aw hey ur an amazing and wonderful girl dont listen to him

Annette

u dont even know what happened or what he even said ugh

but whatevrr ANYWAY i just wanna get my mind off him so i was talking w mercie and?? she said she was thinking itd be really fun to play laser tag cause shes never tried it but we need people!!! so we’re thinking of asking u and dimitri and ur friends, and mercie knows this guy hubert and hisbfriends so itll be us versus them i guess??

i just wanna shoot people with laser guns

its okay if u dont tho

Sylvain

hey no i’d love to ;)) aw that sounds fun. ill ask dimitri and the others. how many are u thinking

Annette

yay!! thank u ^.^

as many as u want!!! just ask whoever ud wanna come the more the merrier

—————

“Oh, you didn’t tell me it was Annette,” Claude says when they meet Annette and Mercedes outside the mall.

“Claude!” Annette hugs him. Claude chuckles and wraps an arm around her shoulders briefly before letting go. “I didn’t know you knew Sylvain.”

“We’re roommates,” Sylvain volunteers the information.

“Oh, I thought you lived with Felix and Ingrid,” Mercedes says. Sylvain starts to shift uncomfortably, but she smiles and continues before he can get into it. “We haven’t talked in a while, Sylvain. We should catch up sometime.”

Sylvain snorts, offers her a half-hearted smirk. “Over a candlelit dinner, milady?”

Mercedes simply gives him a smile. “Sure, sure. I know you need to.”

Does she mean the dinner itself or the—Sylvain feels chilly, all of a sudden.

Claude looks between them curiously. Sylvain realizes that he is stuck with the two people in the world who can stare holes into him.

“Sylvain! Annette!” Dimitri calls, approaching. “H—”

“You!” Annette screeches suddenly.

Behind Dimitri, Felix freezes up. Sylvain has never seen him caught off guard like that before. It’s actually kind of hilarious; Felix’s mouth drops open and his eyes widen in a comical expression. He has half a mind to take out his phone and snap a picture as a keepsake.

—————

“What did you do to the poor girl?” Ingrid whispers to Felix as they walk together.

“Nothing, I just—“ Felix shuts his mouth. Looking ahead of them, Sylvain sees Annette snap her head forward hastily. She starts to chatter to Claude and Mercedes. “Nothing. I didn’t do anything.”

“Okay,” Ingrid says. “I’ll get it out of you later.”

Felix exhales through his nose irritably.

—————

“Greetings!” The man, with a fake plastic helmet over his head, saluted them. He had one of those voices that sounded perpetually cheery. “Welcome to the Garreg Mach Space Station! I am the Gatekeeper. Please, pick your weapons from the racks. Three teams, correct?”

“We’ll take red,” Edelgard calls out.

“Blue, then,” Dimitri says, picking up a plastic laser gun off the rack.

“Guess that leaves us with green,” Claude says, shrugging as he walks over. Sylvain sees Ignatz do a tiny fist pump to himself behind Claude. Leonie says something about being carrot-themed. Raphael asks if anyone wants to get dinner afterwards.

Sylvain picks up a gun and slips into the vest. He looks up just as Ingrid, blank-faced, points hers at him and starts clicking the trigger.

“Augh!” Sylvain groans exaggeratedly, his knees buckling as he fakes falling to his knees. He clutches at his chest, “I’ve—been—I’ve never thought that it’d end this way. . .At least it’s by the hands of a beautiful woman. . .”

Ingrid was starting to giggle but stops by the time he finishes his sentence. She punches him in the arm.

“Goddess, do you ever listen to yourself?” She snorts.

“Mudkip,” Dimitri says, squinting at his gun’s display. “What does that mean?”

“Oh!” The Gatekeeper says, “I forgot, sorry. Everyone, your weapons have assigned codenames to them. At the end of the round, the top players will be shown on the leaderboards outside.”

“Pokemon,” Hilda says, checking her gun. Claude had introduced her to him earlier—the infamous old roommate. “Cute. I’ve got—wait, ugh, what?”

Claude peers over her shoulder and laughs loudly, throwing his head back. His laugh sounds—

Sylvain blinks and looks away, checking his gun’s display.

“I’m Vulpix,” Sylvain grins, tilting his own display towards Felix.

“Meowth,” Felix says flatly, staring at his display. Sylvain snorts.

—————

They’d already drawn lots before, and had three teams prepared. Somehow, Sylvain, Felix, Ingrid, and Dimitri had all ended up together along with Annette, Mercedes, and Ashe. The one outlier was—

“You’re a fool to think I would betray Edelgard just because of a mere draw lot. ” Hubert says.

“Why does he talk like that?” Felix asks.

“Well—we already agreed that the draw lot would decide the teams, and Edelgard agreed to it as well,” Dimitri says. “I don’t think she’d see it as a betrayal.”

“Look,” Sylvain interrupts, “Alright, so you won’t attack the. . .”

“Black Eagle Strike Force,” Hubert fills in.

“Yeah.” Sylvain says, and mentally apologizes to Claude. “How about Claude’s team?”

Hubert smirks, hefting up his laser gun. “So at least one of you has the brain cells to compromise.”

—————

“I will not go easy on you today!” Dimitri yells.

“We’ll do whatever it takes to win!” Edelgard’s voice sounds out from somewhere ahead of them.

The alarm sounds.

“GET EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM,” Dimitri bellows. On the other side of the arena, somewhere to the right, Sylvain can hear Caspar yowling and Petra yelling out a battle cry.

Felix lifts up his gun and aims it towards Dimitri, his finger clicking the trigger repeatedly.

“Felix,” Dimitri says, blinking at him.

“Just checking,” Felix says, tersely.

Sylvain catches a glimpse of Dimitri's gaze turning upwards to the ceiling tiredly before he turns away.

“Forward!” Dimitri calls.

“Dimitri, man, maybe we shouldn’t yell out what we’re doing,” Sylvain says.

Clicking sounds.

“Annie, you’re going to break the gun,” Mercedes says.

“It’s no fair, I started this because I wanted to vent about Felix,” Annette whines, laser gun still pointed at Felix. “Now I have to fight with him. . .”

“It doesn’t work unless you hold the gun with both hands,” Felix tells her, showing her how he’s holding his own. “They showed us in the instruction video.”

“Quiet, villain!” Annette hisses, jabbing her gun in his direction.

“Guys, let’s go already,” Ingrid says.

“I want you all to take note that Claude von Riegan and his team have been completely silent since going in,” Hubert drawls.

As if on cue, the lights on Dimitri, Annette, Mercedes and Ashe’s vests die in quick succession.

“Wh—hey!” Annette exclaims, jolting backward and looking around wildly.

“Take cover!” Ashe yelps, diving behind one of the cushiony walls around the arena.

Sylvain’s lights die before he can follow Ashe, and he looks up behind him to follow the sound of a laugh that's cut off halfway through. Claude grins at him playfully from the upper platform, gives him a quick wave and ducks out of sight.

“Shot through the heart,” Sylvain mutters, feeling a strange burst of warmth in his chest. Maybe laser light beams just did that, Sylvain tells himself.

“Sylvain!” Felix snaps, grabbing him by the collar and pulling him behind a wall. “We’re going to lose!”

“Okay, new plan!” Dimitri yells, and Sylvain sees him charging up the ramp to get to the upper platform, clutching his plastic gun to his chest like an army general. Ingrid runs after him. “Just shoot! Just shoot!”

“That’s a terrible plan,” Sylvain says, as Felix hauls him by the shirt to follow. “But it sounds fun so okay!”

—————

It's the most chaotic fifteen minutes Sylvain's ever been through.

—————

Every once in a while, Sylvain’s vest would turn off quite suddenly. He’d look around and—he swears he catches a flash of neon green and a cheeky grin every time.

—————

“Wait, how am I supposed to—“ Dimitri pales as his lights die, his hands stilling around the gun he was fiddling with, “Oh no. Did I break it?”

Sylvain, considering that it was Dimitri, leans over to check. “Nah, you’re g—“

The lights on his own vest blink out.

“Too slow, suckers!” Caspar cackles, as he ran past them, raising his laser gun above his head. “HEY EDELGARD! I GOT BOTH OF ‘EM!”

“Excellent, Caspar!” Edelgard wriggles out of one of the tubes along the bottom of the wall, connected to the other parts of the arena.

“How does she still look dignified doing that?” Ingrid asks incredulously, a few strands of hair lying askew over her face. “Not a hair out of place.”

“It’s Edelgard.” Sylvain shrugs.

Edelgard smiles smugly at Dimitri. “Today, victory is ours, brother.”

Dimitri, lips pursed, raised his gun and uselessly clicked it at her retreating back irritably.

“Twenty more seconds,” Ingrid tells him, then sprints when the lights on her vest come on, “I’ll go after them!”

—————

In the presence of any member from the Black Eagle Strike Force, Hubert suddenly becomes a free target. He nods and holds his alarmed teammate in place by the arm as Linhardt aims and shoots Annette and him both, walking at a normal pace.

—————

“It’s been fun, Claude. . .” Hilda says, dropping her gun as she lays sprawled out on the ground.

“You should’ve retreated,” Claude calls as he jumps over her to run. Marianne calls out an “I’m sorry Hilda!” as she tails him, jumping over Hilda as well.

Hilda groans.

“Get up!” Ferdinand calls. “Your lights are on.”

“No way, I’m beat,” Hilda says, getting comfortable. “You’ll win for me, won’t you, Ferdie?”

“Man, we got both Linhardt and this girl, we really drew the short straw.” Caspar says as he jogs past Ferdinand.

—————

Ashe accidentally runs headfirst into Caspar and knocks him to the ground. Despite Ashe’s stuttered apologies, Caspar interprets it as a challenge. They are called out on the P.A. five seconds later by the Gatekeeper, an announcement stating that the two players by the west wall must cease rolling around on the ground or they will be escorted from the premises.

—————

Leonie successfully shoots Felix in the back every time they end up in the same area, whooping every time she hits him. Felix never hits her once. At some point, he throws his gun in a blind fit of frustration—forgetting it’s attached to his belt—and trips himself. Leonie doubles over and laughs her head off while Felix calls her a coward. Bernadetta gets them both.

—————

Mercedes accidentally hits walls face first while running down ramps. Sylvain does his best to pull her back when he catches her running down one.

—————

Despite that, she does have the best aim on their team, after Ashe. He gets caught in the crossfire between her and Dorothea, and has to retreat into the nearest safe space.

Sylvain wriggles through the opening and comes face to face with—

“Oh, hi,” Claude says. The lights on his vest are off.

“Hi,” Sylvain says, frozen. “So. . .come here often?”

Claude rolls his eyes and grins. “Not much, you?”

There are twenty, thirty seconds between the shut down and revival. Sylvain does not know how much time he has left. He has to act. This is his chance to get Claude back. His mind races wildly.

“Oh, this is a one-time thing, hey—are you from outer space?”

“Don’t say—“

“Because your ass is out of—“

Pained, Claude reaches up and slaps his hand over Sylvain’s mouth just as their vests light up. Checkmate. He lifts up the plastic gun and wildly presses the trigger repeatedly.

The lights on Claude’s vest do not die.

“Cute,” Claude snorts. He drops his hand, raises his gun, presses it flat against Sylvain’s chest in one motion and clicks. “Your aim is terrible.”

“Worth a shot.” Sylvain grumbles.

Claude snickers, “Hey, if you win I’ll give you a prize.”

—————

The Lions do not win.

—————

They all gather outside to peer at the rankings. Predictably, “Vulpix” is at rock bottom.

“You were least accurate and also the player with the lowest points,” Ashe says disbelievingly. “I mean, I suppose that makes sense if you were inaccurate, but. . .”

“When he plays darts everyone has to take cover,” Felix says.

“I’m not that bad.”

“How do you think I got this?” Dimitri asks Ashe, solemnly pointing at his eyepatch. He chuckles. Ashe stares, wide-eyed. “Wait, I’m just joking, Sylvain didn’t actually hit me with a dar—“

—————

There’s one winner for both leaderboards, in contrast to Sylvain’s pitiful performance. MAGIKARP, the red letters read, stark against the black.

“Who was Magikarp?” Felix demands.

“Bernadetta,” Edelgard exclaims proudly, grabbing onto her hand and squeezing. “Congratulations.”

Bernadetta makes a strangled noise in the back of her throat. Felix strides over and starts asking about her “footwork” and “strategy”.

—————

Afterwards, Claude asks if anyone wants to go eat at a nearby pizza parlor. Edelgard agrees quickly.

Of course, with such a large group they end up branching off into smaller ones. Sylvain watches Claude drift close to Marianne and Leonie, chatting with some guy with purple hair. Lysithea von Ordelia, known around campus for being accepted and enrolling at Garreg Mach at a younger age than most, trails behind them as Hilda walks beside her.

“He and Dedue made a good team,” Dimitri says, from beside him.

“Hm? Yeah. He got me so many times,” Sylvain laughs. When he looks back, Dimitri is smiling at him. “Okay, what’s with the look?”

“You seem happy,” Dimitri remarks. “I’m glad.”

—————

“Hey,” Claude taps Sylvain on the shoulder, “I’m heading out, I’ll see you later?”

“Yeah, stay safe,” Sylvain smiles, waves at Leonie and Marianne behind him. “See you.”

Purple Guy tags along on the way out.

“So who’s the purple guy?” Sylvain asks no one in particular, watching them turn around the corner out of sight.

“Um, Lorenz, I think,” Dimitri answers. “I don’t know him that well. He and Claude are close friends.”

“Cool, cool,” Sylvain says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“Speaking of, how are you?” Ingrid asks, swirling her straw. “You don’t talk about Claude much.”

Dimitri coughs awkwardly, glancing at Sylvain and then away. Sylvain chooses to ignore that.

“Well, y’know, he’s. . .cool, he’s great,” He says. “Great guy.”

Suddenly Sylvain has no words. In his mind, he thinks about Claude, and the depths in his eyes, and the way he laughed earlier, and how sometimes he gets the most adorable little dimples when he smiles a certain way—how he looks when he’s playing chess on his phone or how Sylvain can spend hours just talking to him about everything but also nothing, at the same time. The tension that’s still there sometimes, and how sometimes he still feels like Claude is keeping him at arm’s length even after all these months and he just wants—to get closer, somehow. To see.

Except he doesn’t know how to say all this, and if he tried he’d probably get three pairs of eyes on him like he’d sprouted three heads. And now that he’s thinking about it—some strange part of him actually wants to keep it to himself for once. It felt like something private.

“Yeah.” He tacks on.

“That’s good.” Ingrid replies, awkward.

“He is, he’s a good guy,” Dimitri says.

This is painful, Sylvain thinks.

“How about you, Dimitri?”

“I’m fine,” Dimitri answers, “Actually, El is showing me how t—“

“Why am I here,” Felix says, abruptly.

“Felix.” Ingrid purses her mouth.

“Are we really just going to sit here and pretend we aren’t—“ Felix pauses for a beat in thought, his face scrunching, “pretending? What’s the point?”

“There doesn’t have to be a point,” Ingrid says, “We’re here, as friends—“

“Are we?” Felix is looking at Dimitri.

“You tell me.” Dimitri says, lowly, with seemingly all the weight of the world on his shoulders. Sylvain feels that. “You can leave whenever you wish, Felix. I won’t stop you.”

Felix’s jaw clenches and his hands curl into fists, on the table.

Sylvain tries to think of something to break the ice.

“You know, we should all just get therapy,” Sylvain says, half-joking. “Like couples’ therapy but for friends.”

Not good. Sylvain’s laugh trails off, sadly.

“And that was a joke,” He says, pulling his milkshake closer to sip at it.

“Speak for yourself before you go preaching to me,” Felix mutters, still stiff. He glances at Sylvain. “Sorry.”

“No problem, I’m used to your verbal abuse,” Sylvain says around the straw, reaching out to try and ruffle Felix’s hair—his hand gets batted away, lightly. He ignores the pressure of Ingrid’s stare.

It’s tiring, Sylvain thinks. He loves them but whenever they’re together he can’t help but think of a four-way collision, inevitable and steady. He thinks of Dimitri’s huge breakdown a year ago, his own descent into rock bottom around the same time, Ingrid’s—whatever it was, Felix’s disastrous attempts to cut them all off. There’s just too much, and there were memories that Sylvain would probably never be able to forget. Just as much as he knew they’d probably never forget some of the things he'd had a hand in.

They’ll keep pushing, though. Until something cuts through, he guesses.

“So,” He says, plastering his usual grin on, “Felix, about Annette—“

—————

He has a problem. He knows this.

It’s just that—sometimes living didn’t feel real. Sometimes Sylvain looks at himself in the mirror in the morning, brushing his teeth or something normal, and it’ll hit him—it’s all fake. All of it. Everything. It felt like some big cosmic joke, stilted and surreal. He looks at himself and feels like it’s showtime—all the fucking time. He worries that if he takes off the mask, there won’t be anything underneath.

Anyway. Sylvain will be serious. He will take himself more seriously. He makes this incredibly serious promise to himself.

—————

A guy from his class invites him out to drink on Friday. Sylvain says yes.

—————

Predictably, Sylvain gets good and drunk as shit, and he goes home with some girl from the bar who’s equally as drunk.

The sex is okay. Sylvain’s mind is mostly all over the place, and he’s not even fully present until he reaches his peak—it’s not his best, but that’s okay. That part, ideally where your mind blanks and you’re not thinking about anything, everything else fades away and all you know is that it feels good? That’s Sylvain’s happy place. He’d live there if he could.

Unfortunately that part ends as quick as it comes. Sylvain plummets down to a clearer mind and an emptier center. His stomach feels cold and kind of awful as he climbs out of her bed. He needs a shower and his bed.

“Bye,” The girl calls sleepily, after he’s fixed himself up clumsily in the dark, because he never gets undressed while the lights are on. “Give me a call if you ever want to go again.”

“Sure,” Sylvain grunts noncommittally, shrugging on his jacket. He waves without looking over his shoulder as he walks out, still feeling off-balance. He realizes he never got her number about two steps out. He keeps going anyway.

—————

He doesn’t care. Sylvain hasn’t cared in years. He doesn’t, not about anything other than what makes him happy and feels good, because that’s what life is about, isn’t it? That’s what everyone wants. To be happy. That’s just what Sylvain wants too. Everything else—everything else is just—

Sylvain tries to find an appropriate sentiment for it as he trudges back in the cold, the chill biting deep into his center.

—————

It’s two or three in the morning, so it’s weird that the lights are on when Sylvain opens the door.

It’s also weird that Claude is asleep on the couch instead of his bed.

Sylvain belatedly remembers that today was the test he’d talked about before. Claude had said that he would be hibernating over the weekend after it was finally over. Which made it doubly weird.

Maybe he was so beat he just dropped on the nearest surface and slept there right after coming back home. Sylvain knows it’s wrong the moment he thinks it, because Claude is dressed in a big hoodie and sweatpants, meaning he probably had to go to his room to change, but he also doesn’t want to think about the other possible reason why Claude could have fallen asleep here with the lights on at 2 AM, when he always retreats to his room. That would be presumptuous.

And now Sylvain is the weirdo standing over his sleeping form spaced out like an idiot, so.

When he lived with Ingrid and Felix, they used to wait up for him when he was out, which was a lot. No matter how many times Sylvain would toss out a don’t wait up for me or a if I don’t come back it means I’m having fun, they would. Sylvain had his issues, and they did too, but it was times like those when he’d remember sleepovers and being the one to help Glenn and Mr. Rodrigue carry Ingrid, Felix, and Dimitri to bed when they’d exhaust themselves and conk out on the Fraldariuses’ living room floor.

Unaware of Sylvain’s trip down memory lane, Claude sleeps on. He’s half-curled up, his hair mussed and falling into his eyes as he rises and falls with his breaths. Sylvain debates with himself for half a minute before he bends down, maneuvers him, and lifts.

He’s a normal amount of heavy. Sylvain has had practice. But he looks down once, sees Claude stir and scrunch his nose up—turning his face into Sylvain’s jacket. And there’s just something about holding him close like this, his head cradled in one arm and his legs draped over the other and—Sylvain feels like he’s about to combust, suddenly. He feels like someone took a match and lit up whatever alcohol was still left in his system and now Sylvain is in flames.

He walks to Claude’s room, pushing the door open with his shoulder. His foot hits something and Sylvain feels a brief flash of panic at the idea of tripping over something. He squints at the floor and carefully toes around piles of—books? He reaches the bed and lays Claude down, gently clearing a space on the mattress. He rummages around—more books, goddess—and manages to find a blanket balled up and wedged between a couple of books. He shakes it out and lays it over him.

He steps back, nearly trips over the books he’d sidestepped earlier, panics when Claude turns and stirs, and then trips over himself trying to scramble out in the dark before Claude can wake up.

—————

Sylvain undresses first—he empties out his pockets and finds his dead phone. He plugs his phone in and changes into clean clothes as he waits for it to turn on.

He has a few texts from Ingrid, ranting about how she missed a few questions on her midterms. One from Felix asking when he was free.

He pauses. He has two texts from Claude.

7:18 PM

Claude

Hey, I just got out. It went much better than I expected, honestly. Maybe I won’t sleep it off right away. Do you want to order out and watch something when I get home? Or I could pick something up on the way back, what do you want?

My treat this time :)

7:45 PM

Claude

You didn’t say you were going out, so I’m just texting to check if you aren’t in trouble or anything, haha

—————

Sylvain quietly turns his phone back off again, and puts his head into his hands. He feels like laughing.

—————

“Have fun?” Claude asks him.

“What does it look like?” Sylvain grins, knowing full well the hickies on his neck are visible.

Claude doesn’t answer, but the smile and look he gives him says everything and nothing.

—————

Sylvain wants to grab him by the shoulders, and tell him honestly: Stop looking. There’s nothing there. You won’t find shit.

He should stop feeling so bothered about being seen through, because it was only natural people look right through you if there’s nothing but holes. He keeps at it anyway, at Claude, because he'll take what he can get until it all eventually falls apart.

—————

Exiting his last class on Friday, Sylvain gets a text asking if he wants to get dinner outside today.

“I was already out, and I remembered your class lets out around this time,” Claude shrugs, when they meet up.

Well. Sylvain wouldn’t say no to dinner and quality time. They get dinner at the nearby mall, at some ramen place, and split the check. They’re supposed to go home right after, but a shop catches Sylvain’s eye.

“I’ve always been interested in tabletop games but I’ve never really joined anything,” Sylvain says. He remembers that his family hadn’t really been into the whole—well, family thing. “Growing up the only other people I knew who liked board games were Dimitri’s stepsister and her idiot sidekick who I think hates me except when I’m not being dumb.”

“Sidekick?”

“Tall, broody, no eyebrows. Looks like Dracula.”

“Oh, Hubert.”

It’s fine. There’s really nothing out of the ordinary. Claude inspects the games on the shelves, occasionally pulling one out to look. Sylvain looks at games, and looks at Claude looking at games, and then there’s this weird thing nagging at him suddenly but he doesn’t know what it is.

Claude’s hand brushes against his as he moves past him to look at something, and it shouldn’t be weird but it is, and Sylvain doesn’t feel anything particular—just—

Taking out his phone, he pulls up his message log with Felix, scrolls back through their texts idly. Finally, he taps the text box.

hey, he starts, tapping it out slowly. i think i’m in love with claude.

He stares at what he’s written for a moment. After a while he presses his thumb to the back button, watches the blinking line stutter over his letters and take them back somewhere private.

He’s always been bold and quick to declare love before. Ingrid and Felix have made a joke out of it over the years; remember when Sylvain fell in love with that girl in fifth grade and then broke up with her because he got scared of her dad? Remember when Sylvain fell in love with that girl after she said she’d break his arm if he kept annoying her? Remember when Ingrid ate a whole bucket of chicken legs and Sylvain proposed marriage?

Felix wouldn’t think anything of it. Sylvain knows this. He puts his phone back in his pocket.

“You okay back there?” Claude asks him. He’s holding a game box in his hands. “Look at this, I think you’d like it. The mechanics look overcomplicated, I know, but I asked the guy at the register and. . .”

Huh, Sylvain thinks, as the swelling in his heart starts to edge into aching. Claude, unaware and looking down at the box, continues on. Huh.

—————

Sylvain decides it’s a good ache. It’s a twist in the chest, small punch to the gut kind of ache—but with a pleasant aftershock tingling through him, a can you do that again kind of ache.

It hits at unexpected moments sometimes, like when he comes home and sees Claude just—reading the ingredients label of some fucking can. Or when he catches him on the phone with Hilda once, teasing her with a truly terrible falsetto voice impression (“I don’t sound like that!” “Yes, you do!”), or sleeping on the kitchen table over some papers, his head buried in his crossed arms. Things like that.

—————

Sylvain really does cut it back on the partying—Friday was a fluke, he swears—but he never said he couldn’t have a party by himself, and people say that you gotta cut back slowly on things instead of going complete cold turkey, don’t they?

He thinks actually, maybe I should’ve just gone out after all as the burn settles in his stomach and his throat starts feeling numb and his head starts feeling empty. That probably would have been a better decision, but Sylvain always makes bad decisions, so it checks out.

Maybe, maybe he can open another bottle and get himself drunk enough that he passes out. Or throws up everything. That’d be worst case scenario. He should camp out by the bathroom just in case.

He’d been aiming for a slight buzz, and he was not a lightweight, so what the hell, Sylvain thinks as he climbs off his bed and stumbles towards the door. He holds the wine bottle up and squints at the label as he feels for the doorknob.

The light makes his head start pounding, a steady throb at his temples and—everywhere, he decides.

“Sylvain?”

Under the kitchen lights, Claude looks amazing. He always looks amazing, Sylvain chastises himself.

“Hey.”

Claude looks down, and his eyebrows contort and do that thing where one goes up and the other goes down and he looks cute. Sylvain snorts in amusement.

“Are you drinking wine?” He asks, incredulous. “. . .by yourself?”

“Yes,” Sylvain says, because there’s really no way around it. Claude takes the bottle as it’s handed to him, putting down his mug on the table. “I wanted to get buzzed.”

“Miracle Wine,” Claude reads, flatly.

“It was funny. You know, like the miracle of—yeah.”

Claude makes a face as he reads, “Huh. This is stronger stuff than most. And you probably drank too fast.”

“Wait, what?”

“Did you actually look at the alcohol content or did you see the funny label and bought it on a whim?”

“I did,” Sylvain says, petulant. He confirms nothing. He’d squinted at the price at the time, his new contacts not delivered yet, and he never brought his glasses anywhere if he could help it.

“You should just start wearing your glasses,” Claude sighs, smiling and shaking his head.

“They’ll ruin my dashing good looks.”

“Actually, it’d be the opposite.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing. You’re drunk.”

“Get drunk with me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’ll be fun.”

“I don’t think we have the same definition of fun.”

“I think we do. I know exactly how to get you.”

“Do you.”

“Want me to show you? Let’s play.”

“You sure you’re in the right state for that? I’d feel bad sweeping the floor with you like this, you know.”

“Then let’s even the playing field. Fair match.”

Claude’s fingers pick at the cap of the wine bottle. Sylvain grins.

—————

Sylvain catches Claude press the heel of his palm against his flushed cheek.

“Miracle Wine is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever drank,” he mutters. Sylvain laughs as he sets up the chess board.

“Okay, so, winner gets a prize,” he says, placing the last of the white pieces. “And it’s strip chess.”

“Strip—are you kidding me?” Claude says.

“One piece of clothing per piece eaten,” Sylvain says. Claude stares at him, then picks up his mug and takes a gulp.

“Fine.”

—————

“So, what does regret taste like?” Claude asks, amused, moving his rook to knock another black pawn off the board lightly. His captured pieces—three pawns now, a knight, a bishop—lay on one side of the board on the floor, disorganized. Sylvain’s watch, socks and sweater lay to the other side, in a neat row. They’d agreed that the sweater would count for two pieces.

“I’ll take any chance I can get to show off the goods, thanks,” Sylvain mutters, lifting his hips up to unbutton his jeans.

Sylvain himself only had two pieces so far. Claude had sighed and pulled off his socks, and Sylvain had made a show of it.

“Oh shit, I mean, uh—dear goddess,” He’d said, fanning himself and startling Claude, “Your delicate ankles. . .how scandalous. I feel incredibly filthy.”

Claude had smirked and rolled his eyes.

In real time, Sylvain glances at Claude’s bare ankles for the umpteenth time. Cross-legged, Claude absentmindedly lays a hand on his ankle. Sylvain catches himself thinking idly that there is something delicate and intimate about ankles.

“Are you going to move?” Claude finally asks him. Sylvain snaps to attention.

“Uh, right.”

He needs to catch more pieces.

—————

“You were acting all high and mighty about the strip chess thing but we both know you’re literally just going after all my pieces,” Sylvain says, watching Claude swipe his last pawn off the board. “You’re not even trying to look like you’re going after the king.”

Claude simply smiles.

Sylvain sighs and pulls his overshirt over his head.

—————

Sylvain grins, happily holding Claude’s queen in both hands.

“This has to count for something big, right? I mean, it’s the queen.”

Claude, down to his shirt and jeans but still ahead of Sylvain with his undershirt and boxers, snorts, shaking his head. “Something big? Alright.”

He reaches up and to the back of his neck. Sylvain watches curiously as he unclasps a necklace and pulls it out from under his shirt—he hadn’t noticed it before. Claude lays it down gently by the chessboard.

“It’s my mother’s,” Claude says, almost apprehensively. “Well, also my late uncle’s. Kind of a long story. It’s mine now and I like to keep it in my pocket or under my shirt and hold it when I’m really—you know. I’ve—I’ve never really shown anyone before.”

“We have time,” Sylvain says, eyeing the pendant with interest.

Claude blinks. He tilts his head.

“Another time,” he says, looking at Sylvain like he’d expected him to say something else. “I’ll save it for a rainy day.”

—————

“Are you really debating on whether to take off the boxers or the shirt,” Claude says, spinning a black knight in his hands. He’d managed to snag it off as Sylvain closed in on his king.

“Yep.” Sylvain says.

Well. A secret for a secret.

He takes off his undershirt and lets Claude look at the jagged, light scar on his chest.

“My brother got rough with me sometimes,” Sylvain says lightly, looking at the chessboard instead of Claude’s face. “Once, he pushed me down a—anyway. Checkmate.”

Maybe this really was he wanted to do, from the start. He’d been the one to suggest the game, after all.

—————

“What do you want?” Claude asks.

Sylvain swallows, and stares into his eyes, thinking about seeing whatever was behind them. He thinks about what it would be like to be close— actually close to him. He doesn’t know how to ask for that.

“Would you want to kiss me?” He blurts.

Claude doesn’t startle, or recoil, or anything. He stares back, biting the inside of his cheek, and gets up on his knees unsteadily. He ends up in Sylvain’s lap, sitting in the space inside his crossed legs.

His ears are pounding.

The way Claude kisses him is almost shy; his movements cautious and careful. Sylvain leans back on one hand and wraps the other around his waist. He tilts his head up and guides him through it, soft and sickly sweet like wine.

Claude moans, quiet and from the back of his throat, and one of his hands presses against Sylvain’s bare shoulder, and suddenly he feels like a live wire—or an exposed nerve, tender and painful—but—

He presses back, slipping one hand under the hem of Claude’s shirt and feeling up his back. Claude’s heated skin on his feels heavenly. He feels like there’s not enough air and too much at the same time. He needs to get closer.

When he tilts his head to pry open Claude’s mouth and slip his tongue inside, two things happen: Sylvain feels wetness brush his nose, and Claude grips at his shoulders tightly—but it doesn’t stop the slight tremble in his hands.

The feeling is close to having a bucket of ice water dumped over his head. Sylvain pulls back, snapping his eyes open. The weird thing is that Claude actually tries to follow; almost desperately.

“Hey,” Sylvain says. He reaches up, cupping Claude’s face in his hands and trying to brush his tears with his thumbs. Claude winces, and grabs onto his wrists. He starts to pull but stops before Sylvain can tell what direction and just—holds them, stilling.

“Don’t,” he croaks, his voice rough.

Don’t what, Sylvain thinks wildly.

He waits, frozen in place. He tries to read Claude’s expression, but it’s a mess; he was a mess of signals, and he looked like he was fighting himself. Sylvain watches, wide-eyed, as his lower lip trembles and he sucks his lips in.

Claude drops his hands, stiffening up like steel. The moment shatters.

—————

One thing about Claude, Sylvain notices, is that he’s full—there’s so much behind his eyes, he’s full of life and presence and whenever they touch it’s like he’s a bottle of lightning.

He’s getting his metaphors mixed up.

The point is—Sylvain doesn’t know if he wants to get closer or stay away.

—————

The other thing is he’s holding so much, and yet—Claude treats himself like he’s a secret.

—————

Sylvain dreams that he is a puppet.

His hands have frayed seams at the edges. His skin is rough, and papery like cheap fabric. When he reaches up to touch his hair—it’s threadlike and much too fine to be human, twisted into each other and when he pulls it down to his field of vision, it’s frayed yarn, bright vibrant red and unnatural-looking.

He can’t feel the ground beneath his feet. It’s hard to explain—but it’s like everything is muted.

He looks around, and realizes that he is on an empty, dusty stage. The seats at the front are mostly empty, except for the middle row. It is a mix of doll and human. He can recognize others—Dimitri, Ingrid, and Felix lay side by side, limp in their seats and propped up. Dimitri and Ingrid are smiling, but Felix sports a deep frown, black thread pulling at his skin hard enough that his skin swells slightly around it. Next to Felix, Miklan sits, leaning forward and looking at him. His father and mother are relaxed in their seats, looking at up at him with serene smiles and glassy eyes that don’t really seem to be looking at him. Humans with doll eyes.

Miklan’s stare is unnerving. It cuts into Sylvain and he looks down at himself to check if it hasn’t sunk right through him and spilled stuffing everywhere.

He doesn’t say anything. He watches Sylvain with those, dark, hateful eyes.

There’s an ominous feeling. He wonders when the show is going to start.

“Sylvain,” Someone speaks. Sylvain turns.

Claude frowns at him, his eyes wide. He looks almost like a caricature of Claude, exaggeratedly concerned and distressed.

“Let go.”

Sylvain looks down. He’s holding a string. He follows the line, forward, then upwards towards the ceiling, feeling terribly afraid.

Miklan stares holes into his back. Claude does the same from the front.

The string loops over a beam and goes down, down, tied to two pieces of wood in an X. The strings disappear around him.

Sylvain reaches up with his free hand. There are strings around his neck.

“Don’t.” Claude says.

Sylvain winds the string around his knuckles twice and yanks.

—————

He startles awake with a sharp inhale, somehow tangled in the blankets. He pulls them from his neck, rubbing at his throat.

He has a vague memory of holes in his back and a suffocating presence around his neck, but can’t recall anything else despite lying in bed for almost an hour trying to. His head pounds.

—————

11:20 AM

Sylvain

messed up

Felix

what happened

11: 30 AM

Sylvain

i was too sexy he cried

11:37 AM

Sylvain

wait that was a joke come back

FELUX

FELIX

i was JOKING

come baaacccckkkk

lix

;(((( ;( ;(

Felix

text me one more time. see what fucking happens.

Sylvain

oh good ur back. it worked. heh

Felix

just get to the goddamn point. what happened

Sylvain

have i ever told u why claude is like the sun

listen. like conventionally hes like sunshine, warm and shit. his smile is fuckign blinding and he wears so much yellow and brown he looks like a ray of sunshine got turned into a person

Felix

okay? so what happened

Sylvain

people always associate sunshine with warmth and cuteness and whatever. sunshine is warm and he is too but he can and will come at u with the burning force of the afternoon sun. no mercy. unassuming and subtle. its tough. one sec ur basking in warmth and the next ur melting into a sweaty puddle and the sun is beating on u and its so fuckign inconvenient and u dont know whats going on but where would we be without sunshine? its just one of the things we live with without really thinking about it. the sunlight is just. there. its kind and gentle. its merciless and burning. the duality.

also he’s so fuckigbhot idk wht to do anymore felix i really dk

12:15 PM

Felix

are you fucking high

—————

1:00 PM

Ingrid

Hey, felix tells me you’ve divorced the weed

3:54 PM

Sylvain

yeah

Ingrid

Are you ok??

Sylvain

fine

having the time of my life

—————

They both pretend that nothing happened. Sylvain is sick of pretending but he does it anyway because he has no idea what else to do.

—————

8:45 AM

Mercedes

Hello sylvain! I’m free around lunchtime today and I thought we could go get something to eat

We haven’t talked in a while, haven’t we?

—————

Is she psychic?

—————

“We talked about this before, and I just remembered,” Mercedes says, amused, as they settle down in their seats. “And my schedule freed up today quite suddenly, so I figured it was a sign.”

“Yeah? How’s it going?” Sylvain puts on his most charming smile. “I know it’s tough.”

“Yes, well, I’m managing,” Mercedes says dismissively. Sylvain notices the bags under her eyes.

“Hey, make sure you’re getting some rest, alright?” He says, keeping his tone light. “You know you gotta take care of yourself before you can go around treating your future patients.”

“Yes, yes,” Mercedes sighs, picking up the menu, “I just forget sometimes. . .you give good advice, Sylvain.”

“Um. Anytime.”

“So how are you?” Mercedes asks, conversationally. “I never got around to asking—you live with Claude now, don’t you? He’s nice.”

She probably sees the split second shift in his expression, or senses it somehow, because her eyebrows pull down.

“Oh dear, has something happened?”

—————

Somehow he always ends up spilling when it’s Mercedes, sooner or later. It was her that held him through a breakdown, his first year at Garreg Mach when they’d been classmates for a required math subject she’d put off until her last year. He’d been helping her through the course at the time, but he thinks he ended up taking more from her than he gave her.

“Goodness.” Mercedes says heavily, after he’s done. Her eyes are wide.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, okay, I fucked up,” Sylvain is running his fingers through his hair.

“Have you talked to him?”

“No, well—yeah, I mean, we talk but it’s not the same anymore,” Sylvain exhales. “I guess I just miss it. Though I guess I can’t miss what I never had, huh.”

“I don’t know,” Mercedes says, “It sounds to me like you know him very well.”

“I don’t. He’s a mystery. I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Mercedes huffs out a laugh, setting her empty plate aside and crossing her arms on the table. “You got him to get drunk and play. . .strip chess with you, and you just spent an hour giving me details like how his face looks when he likes something but he’s trying not to show it, or what he gets excited over, or—or how he’s the ocean but also the sun and—lightning?”

“He’s too complicated for one metaphor.”

“Of course, of course.” Mercedes looked like she was watching a particularly riveting TV show. “Why don’t you try telling him all that?”

“Are you kidding me?” Sylvain slumps back in his chair. “That’s coming on way too strong. And I don’t think he’d even like it—it’d probably spook him off, let’s be real.”

“Then you do know what he likes.” Mercedes says.

“Well—okay, maybe.” Sylvain grits out, forced to admit it. “Maybe I know how to—get him, or whatever, but the problem is I don’t know how to—to keep him, I guess. I wouldn’t know what to do when I’m actually there.”

“That’s silly, you don’t have to know everything before you get into a relationship,” Mercedes laughs, so genuinely amused that Sylvain feels a little insulted. “That’s why you both have to figure it out, together.”

“Well, look what happened last time,” Sylvain argues, “he—when I touched him—“

“I think he’s not used to it,” Mercedes says, looking like she’s somewhere else, “And I think we all struggle trying to take the things we want but we aren’t used to getting. But I know you already know that.”

Sylvain sighs and looks away.

“Yeah.”

“It’s just very refreshing to see you talk like this, for once.” Mercedes says, her smile fond. “Love suits you very well.”

“Wha—who said anything about love?” Sylvain laughs, pointedly not looking at her. He thinks, nervously, of an unsent text message. “I’m not. . .”

“Alright, but you will talk to him, won’t you?” Mercedes asks.

—————

Sylvain used to throw around I love you like it was confetti. He was “in love” with every girl or guy he’d looked at for more than a minute, he was in it about two days into his next fling, the I’m a lover not a ‘insert profession here’ schtick. He’d thought that maybe if he told himself enough he’d start believing in it.

This, though. Suddenly everything seemed to pale in comparison. Pleasant knots in his stomach, a rush of lightheadedness, power thrumming all the way down to his fingertips. Like his heart was swelling and pushing out through his ribs and just—melting, in general. The kind of fondness that made you ache but in a good way.

Sylvain feels that low, electric hum all the way back to the apartment building, all the way up the stairs, all the way up to pulling open the door.

“Hey,” Claude says, startled. His hair is mussed. There’s creases and a short line of blue ink over his cheek.

The power retreats, abruptly. Something inside Sylvain shrivels up and fucking dies.

“I’m. . .going to my room.”

“Okay.” Claude nods. “Good night.”

“Night.”

—————

Sylvain lies awake in his bed, staring at the ceiling, for a long time.

—————

11:47 PM

Sylvain

so how weird would it be if i burst into his room right now and said all that stuff

would he think its cute and like romcom movie levels or would he be sleeping and pissed off and boot me out

i’d die of heartbreak.

ok i can’t sleep i feel like i have to do it right now

tell me to do it mercedes and i swear i will im gonna go in there in my boxers and unsexy bedhead and declare forever love

Mercedes

personally, i would think it was strange. i would not boot you out. but i would probably think you were strange and would avoid you for a while

Sylvain

ur not mercedes

Mercedes

she’s asleep.

Sylvain

oh sorry. she’s usually awake at this time

Mercedes

indeed. i’m glad she’s getting rest tonight. she’s been overworking herself too much.

Sylvain

yeah she’s always been like that

Mercedes

yes

Sylvain

ok wait sorry i never introduced myself

Mercedes

actually, i’m the one who should, your name is on here

it’s dedue

Sylvain

OH DEDUE FROM LASER TAG

Mercedes

yes

you were the one with dimitri. i just remembered

Sylvain

and you were the one with claude

Mercedes

is claude the one you want to declare forever love to

Sylvain

can we forget about that

idk what i was saying. maybe i was going a bit overboard if we're being honest

Mercedes

if so i advise you to wait until the morning

Sylvain

wait u know claude

like outside of laser tag

Mercedes

yes, we bonded during the game. we also share some classes but we didnt really spend time together before that

he speaks fondly of you

so i think you have a fair chance, but only if youre careful about it

Sylvain

wait wait he talks about me?.

what di he say

Mercedes

i feel like it’s not my place to tell you

mostly good things, though, i assure you

Sylvain

mostly

Mercedes

i really must get back to the papers i’m procrastinating now. goodbye sylvian from laser tag

—————

Sylvain doesn’t really know why he’s holding back. It’s just—it’s effort, and Sylvain has never really put it in before. Claude feels like something he wants to be serious about, and he’s—

It’s just easier to get lost in the days and wait. And. . .not, at the same time. It’s all very confusing.

—————

Sylvain glances at the time, on the lower corner of his laptop. 4:54 AM. The sun would be coming out soon.

He looks beside him. Claude scrolls through a word document on his laptop with glazed eyes, too quick to actually read anything. He rapidly scrolls up and down, wildly, and sighs—he shifts and sticks his hands under his thighs, leaning back against the base of the couch.

“I’m done,” he announces, blinking. “I don’t think there’s anything else I can do for this paper.”

“Same,” Sylvain says, rubbing his eyes and putting his phone on the coffee table in front of them. “I mean, I seriously doubt there’s any more information I can cram into my brain in less than an hour for the test.”

Claude hums. He shifts again, over his hands. He’s shivering.

“It’s cold,” He says, when he catches Sylvain looking. “My hands feel like ice blocks.”

Sylvain only feels a mild chill himself, and he rubs his hands together. They’re not that cold. He takes a second to think about it. He’ll blame it on the sleep deprivation.

He holds his hand out wordlessly, palm up, and waits.

If Claude ignores it he’ll pretend it never happened, he thinks to himself. He’s good at pretending. Except he can already feel Claude’s stare on the side of his face as he pointedly stares at his laptop screen of notes.

He’s on the verge of withdrawing and going back to pretending he’s incredibly busy staring at the pdf on his screen when he feels Claude lightly place his hand on top of Sylvain’s.

“Holy shit,” Sylvain says, his fingers twitching involuntarily. Claude’s hand is literal ice—and when his skin makes contact, there’s something else. Static shock. Sylvain laughs it off, softly. “You weren’t kidding.”

Sylvain brings his other hand up and covers Claude’s hand, rubbing gently. The static crawls up his arms and into his chest, somehow. His chest feels light and numb.

Claude takes in a quiet breath, his fingers curling as Sylvain traces the veins on the back of his hand.

“Thanks for the help,” he says, quietly.

“No problem,” Sylvain murmurs, in that weird, shaky place between tired and wired. They wait for the sun to come up.

—————

“Hello—woah, nice hair.”

“Thanks,” Leonie grins, stepping inside.

“So, what. . .?” Sylvain gestures to Leonie’s head—her hair is fixed in a slightly tousled mohawk, the sides shaven.

“Nothing, really,” Leonie says, “I’ve been thinking about it for a long time.”

“Well, it looks great.” Sylvain watches her walk into the kitchen with a pep in her step. She tosses out a cheery “thanks!” again.

“Haven’t heard from Claude lately until he asked me to pick this up for him,” Leonie calls. “How are you guys?”

“Um, we’re alright,” Sylvain scratches at the back of his neck. “I mean, I’m alright, I don’t know about him.”

Leonie walks out, shouldering Claude’s laptop bag. She looks thoughtful. “You know, Claude was always kinda disorganized about his things for all the time I’ve known him, but forgetting to bring his computer on the day of a presentation is too much, even for him.”

“Don’t you have to get that to him?”

Leonie waves dismissively. “It’s not for almost an hour. He was going to get it himself but Lysithea told him to sit down and take a nap.”

Maybe Sylvain wasn’t the only one thrown off-kilter.

“Is he okay?”

“Yeah, I think he’s just tired.” Leonie pulls up the strap of the bag, adjusting in on her shoulder. “He doesn’t say when he is, but if you know how to tell. . .and this time you can really tell.”

“Yeah, huh.”

“You don’t seem so good either, now that I’m looking.”

“Ouch.” Sylvain winces. “Does my face really look that bad?”

Leonie snorts, and for a moment her expression looks a lot like Claude’s. “If you’re fishing you’re not getting any from me.”

“Cold.”

“So,” She says, and she’s a lot better at the whole friendly tone thing than anyone. She really does sound like she cares as she says, “I’m just saying, if there’s something going on—Claude is good at hiding. He doesn’t always. . .I’m just worried.”

She looks at Sylvain.

“Anyhow. I gotta get going.” She taps the bag.

“Okay.”

“This is kind of a low standard,” she says as she gives him a friendly slap to the shoulder as she walks out, “But man, I’m glad we can talk without the weird metaphors now.”

—————

He tries to clean his room to clear his head. Sylvain finds the other bottle of Miracle Wine under his bed. He looks at it, and thinks.

—————

The bathroom door creaks open. Sylvain, having just flushed the toilet, sits back on his knees on the floor and hugs the bowl like a lifeline.

“Gods.” Claude murmurs.

Sylvain blinks up at him. “Did they send you?”

“How much did you—“ Claude makes a face. “Miracle Wine.”

Sylvain opens his mouth to say something, lurches, then ends up with his face in the bowl again. It’s disgusting. Sylvain hates it. He will never get drunk again. It isn’t worth it.

He feels a hand push his sweaty hair out of his face and hold it back. Claude rubs his back with the other hand.

“Done?” He asks.

“I don’t know,” Sylvain croaks. His throat feels raw. He tries to stand but nearly keels over.

“Okay, okay, wait, maybe you should wait it out,” Claude says, rushed, trying to steady him. “Just—until the room isn’t spinning, okay? Can you do that?”

I’d do anything for you, Sylvain thinks.

“Anything,” He says, sitting back down and crossing his arms over the bowl and resting his head. “Anything.”

“Okay.” Claude says, like Sylvain hasn’t just spouted nonsense. “Just—stay here.”

Sylvain grunts affirmatively into his arms.

—————

Maybe Sylvain falls asleep there for a bit. He’s not sure.

When he lifts his head, a cup appears in front of him—he recoils.

“It’s water,” Claude explains helpfully. “Drink.”

“Okay.” Sylvain drinks.

“Okay, so you’re not an argumentative drunk. That’s neat.”

Sylvain nods.

“It’s kind of not neat if you go out drinking by yourself, though. Actually that’s not neat at all, I’m kind of worried now.”

Sylvain finishes the cup and Claude takes it back.

“Better?”

“Yeah,” Sylvain says.

“Do you want to get up?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

—————

“You’re being cool about this,” Sylvain says, after what seems like an eternity. He feels stable enough at the moment, although he doesn’t want to try getting up for fear of bringing the nausea back.

“Leonie discovered drinking in her last years of high school and has a little too much fun sometimes,” Claude answers, sitting with his back to the wall and his head buried in his knees. “She’s trying to stop, though. She’s doing a lot better now.”

“Oh.” Sylvain processes this. “You were in the same high school?”

“Yeah. Her and Mari.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“I was only there for the last two years, I transferred in from outside Fodlan.”

Sylvain hums. “Almyra?”

“Yeah.”

“I went to the same school as Dimitri and everyone,” Sylvain mumbles. “All twelve years.”

“Yeah?” Claude lifts his head, resting his chin on his knees. “He mentioned that, before. You went to school with Edelgard too.”

“Yep.” Sylvain smiles, at that. “She thinks I’m insufferable.”

Claude snorts.

—————

“Sorry,” Sylvain says, five minutes later.

“For what?”

“The trouble. Everything.”

“It’s. . .well, we all fuck up sometimes.”

“I fuck up all the time.”

“Yeah, you said that.”

“When?”

“In between puking your guts out. You also said you wanted to die.”

“Checks out.”

“You know, if you want help you have to ask for it. You can’t expect people to read you.”

“Are you talking to me or you?”

“Maybe both,” Claude laughs, softly. “I’m trying but. . .I guess I feel too fucked up for that, sometimes.”

He’s not. Not exactly. The thing with Claude, Sylvain thinks, is that his heart’s too guarded, but at the same time—he’s soft. So soft. He isn’t hateful at all, not like Sylvain. Claude isn’t holding big black holes in his body, but—maybe that just means that his heart is wired to break, over and over.

Sylvain cranes his neck and looks at him. In the shitty bathroom lighting, he looks—okay. His hair is sticking out everywhere, he’s in a loose shirt and sweatpants. He looks tired—Sylvain feels his stomach clench weakly with guilt—and he looks like he’s in reach, for once. It doesn’t make him look any less beautiful.

One day Claude was going to be too far to reach, a distant star. He needs—someone needs to—

Sylvain wants to tell him all this. He tries to think of some beautiful metaphor to spout, like in the movies. It feels like his mind is about to race, but everything is too abstract.

“Egg,” He says.

“Sorry?”

“Soft—inside.” Sylvain tries to communicate the thoughts in his head.

Claude’s mouth twitched. Sylvain feels a spark of annoyance. He’s not—this isn’t the expression Sylvain was going for.

“No, listen,” Sylvain swallows, makes a face at how dry his mouth is, and tries again. “There’s a shell.”

“Okay. . .” Claude nods. “I get that.”

“But inside—“ Sylvain gestures to Claude. “Soft. New. Like, you know, like beginnings.”

This isn’t coming out the way he intended it to.

“Like beginnings,” Claude repeats. He’s sucking in his lips, trying not to smile.

“Yeah.” Sylvain manages.

“You know,” Claude says, “I think that might be the weirdly sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

—————

3:34 PM

Sylvain

hey i’m done for today u wanna go get something to eat?

—————

Felix grabs a bag of sour gummy worms off the shelf.

“I am nothing like the knight in the book,” he mutters, as Sylvain takes a couple of candy bars. “I am me. Felix Hugo Fraldarius. I am no one else.”

“Dude, a sweet guy like Ashe telling you you’re like a knight in one of his beloved fairy tales? I’d be flattered.”

Felix grunts. “It’s the book Glenn used to read to me when we were kids. You know the one.”

“Oh,” Sylvain watches him. His face is blank. “Oh, that knight.”

“It’s okay,” Felix says, as they walk to the register. “He didn’t know. And I don’t care.”

“Well, at least you’ve grown up from being the squire,” Sylvain says. He half expects Felix to spit something acidic at him.

“Yeah,” Felix says, instead. “Don’t know if that’s any better, though.”

They pay and go to sit at one of the tables to the side. Some pop song plays over the convenience store speakers. Sylvain rips open a candy bar.

“I talked to Dimitri the other day,” Felix says out of nowhere, opening a bag and pinching a gummy worm between his fingers. He places it in his mouth and chews. Sylvain pauses, mid-chew through his own candy. “It was alright.”

“By yourself?” Sylvain asks lightly. “And the world didn’t break? The sky didn’t fall?”

“He was visiting. Ingrid was somewhere in the place.” Felix shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Well, that’s great!” Sylvain gestures at him with his half-eaten candy bar. “Congrats.”

“Hmph. Nothing to get excited over,” Felix says, lowly. “He’s still—whatever.”

‘Whatever’ is better than ‘boar’ or even ‘goat’, but Sylvain doesn’t say it. Felix probably already knows.

It was still probably too much to hope for a neat little bow on it, after everything, and both Sylvain and Felix weren’t optimists. They’d been through this stage before—the ‘everything seems to be looking up’ part, and it’s always crashed at some point after. That was just how the world worked.

But Sylvain does remember everything. He’s the oldest of the four of them, and he can remember, in detail, as far back as Glenn grudgingly turning back to the first page of his book for Felix, back when Dimitri and Felix were a unit, or when they used to indulge Ingrid and help her up the tree in her backyard, so she could reach out, fingers stretched out towards the sky because her biggest dream was just “to fly”, and Felix’s was to be with his family forever—so was Dimitri’s.

So that has to count for something. Or nothing at all, he thinks, looking at the little assholes they’ve all become. Sometimes it felt like they’ve been growing backwards. Maybe they’d grow. Maybe they wouldn’t. Sylvain couldn’t tell, but right now—he knows he’d rather run himself into the face of the sun trying instead of dying a fool. It’d make for a pretty spectacular show, anyway, he supposes.

He chews and swallows, glancing up.

“What?” He asks, muffled through a mouthful of chocolate.

“You have that look on your face,” Felix’s face is scrunched up. “The one before you’re about to spout some weird shit.”

Sylvain laughs. Felix shakes his head.

“Ridiculous,” he says.

—————

He’s with Felix and the rest of them, chilling at a food court and casually playing a round of virtual chess against Claude. Ingrid is busy scarfing down her food and Dimitri is spacing out and thinking and who knows what Felix is doing on his phone, so Sylvain doesn’t have any issues engaging when Claude sends the first move.

Their matches are split fifty-fifty, mostly, so it’s really a toss-up on who wins. Claude seems to be trying really hard. Of course, Sylvain doubles his own efforts once he catches on.

Sylvain

checkmate :)

Claude

Congrats

Sylvain

aw dont be so down

do I get a prize ;)

Claude

Well. Yeah, actually

Sylvain

wait really

Claude

Yeah.

—————

There’s a vibe coming from him. Maybe Sylvain’s just imagining it. But going off on logic—they’d never actually done the prize thing with the virtual chess before, and Claude was weirdly focused earlier.

He was setting up something, Sylvain thinks. It was how Claude worked—he’d build it up according to his plans and if it fell accordingly then good; if it didn’t he moved on.

Sylvain doesn’t know how to fix this one, mainly because he’s working from behind a screen and it isn’t really his fault anyway. He was only half-serious about the prize thing anyway, and he’s willing to meet Claude halfway if he is.

—————

Sylvain

okay

do u want it i cant really think of anything rn

Claude

Uhh

You don’t want anything?

Sylvain

what do u want

that can be my prize

Claude

Oddly selfless of you

Sylvain

not really

anyway what’ll it be

Claude

Sylvain

oh wait do u not want anything either

Claude

Do want something

Sylvain

ok what is it

…is it weird

Claude

No?

I want a date

—————

“Sylvain!” Felix shouts, annoyed as Sylvain’s phone drops and bounces off the edge of a basket of fries, skittering wildly on the table. Dimitri startles, instinctively reaching for it as it spins in front of him. Ingrid chokes on a fry.

“I’m fine!” Sylvain yelps, snatching it up before Dimitri can and checking for cracks, “I’m fine. This is fine.”

—————

Sylvain

snxkdhf(!

wait sorry accident

u were saying

a date, u say

Claude

Yeah

Sylvain

okay with who

Claude

Are you serious

Sylvain

are u

Claude

Yes.

Who do you think

Sylvain

idk plenty of beautiful people out there idk i dont even know if you like anyone

Claude

Well

Okay

There’s this guy, maybe

Sylvain

oh?

he must be something else to catch someone like you

Claude

Yeah, he’s something, I guess

Sylvain

well so what does mr dreamy mcdreamboat have going on for him then

Claude

okay

Lol

—————

Sylvain grins at his phone screen, blindly reaching out across the table. A “Lol” out of Claude is an achievement. Expectedly, Felix slaps his hand away. Also expectedly, Dimitri pushes his own fries towards him.

“Thanks to my only friend ever, Dimitri,” Sylvain says.

“You have more than enough money to buy another serving,” Felix says. Sylvain is gearing to reply when his phone vibrates.

—————

Claude

He’s not dreamy. I mean

Yeah, he’s nice

Sylvain

ur having a rly tough time with this

u dont have to actually i mean im just asking cause u know

u sound like u like him a lot

Claude

I do

and it’s driving me a little crazy because I want to maybe start something but I don’t

I don’t really know how to. And I want him to do something but I haven’t exactly been the most forthcoming. I can admit that. And it’s way easier to type actually now that I’ve started

Sylvain

oh so do u want me to wingman

Claude

Sylvain

Sylvain

yes?

Claude

you know what

okay

Sylvain

okay cool. cool.

Claude

would you like a physical description

Sylvain

type away i will get this man for u

Claude

red hair

Sylvain

okay red hair. got it

Claude

brown eyes.

Sylvain

brown eyes okay sounds like a real knockout

Claude

he’s tall and has kind of broad shoulders

and I’ve maybe thought about climbing him like a tree multiple times

Sylvain

oh wow okay keepgoing

Claude

he’s also smart but he’s an idiot because he pretends he’s dumb or he doesn’t know when in fact, he does

He pretends to do a lot of things

Back then I wanted to figure him out just for the sake of it but now I

—————

Sylvain watches the screen with bated breath as he watches the typing symbol come up.

“You look like you’re about to throw up,” Ingrid says. Sylvain shushes her. “Ex-cuse m—“

“Shh!” Sylvain hisses, turning away from all of them and hunching over his phone, practically folded in on himself.

—————

Claude

Okay it’s like

he’s my favorite book

and even if I finish it I’d still want to go back and read it again. The kind that makes me want to write notes in the margins and highlight my favorite lines and all that.

anyhow

That’s all I can tell you right now

Would you look at the time it seems I have a class to go to

Sylvain

that’s more than enough

i’ll see you at home later

and

i think youre his favorite book too

and other stuff

i’ll tell you later maybe

Claude

okay

:)))

—————

Sylvain sits up straight again, breathing in air like he’d just broke surface from the fucking ocean.

“Are you done being weird?” Ingrid says. All three of his friends are staring. Sylvain is still stuck on what he’s read. Both he and Claude know that Claude is on a vacant period right now, but he’ll let this one go. This is big.

“Never,” Sylvain says, grinning. It must look better than usual, because all three of them, again, look slightly surprised.

“Are you crying. . .?” Felix squints at him.

“Nope.”

Dimitri pushes his napkins across the table. “Care to tell us the occasion, Sylvain?”

“Got a hot date tonight,” he says to the table at large. Ingrid groans, turning back to her food. “I really did myself good this time, guys.”

“No details, please,” Ingrid rolls her eyes.

“Don’t worry,” Sylvain says, his mind already elsewhere. He wonders if it would be too weird to print out screenshots of a text conversation and frame it. “I’m keeping it to myself.”

—————

Claude gets home first. Sylvain spots him in the kitchen, rinsing out some cups.

“Hey, let me help,” he says, taking one out of Claude’s hand and grabbing the dish towel.

“Oh, hi.” Claude says, very casually.

“Hello,” Sylvain replies, equally as casual. He hastily wipes the cup down with the towel.

“That’s the towel for wiping down the sink.”

“Ah.” Sylvain puts the cup back in the sink. Silence falls over them.

“You know,” Claude says, after a moment, “when you act dumb it’s a little. . .”

“And when you’re nervous you talk in circles,” Sylvain says.

Claude smiles, then bites it back. Sylvain feels an unbearable ache in his chest.

“True,” Claude admits. “I was just planning to end it at the date part and go, actually.”

"The book part was cute."

"Hey, I was just trying to speak your language." Claude tries to play it off, although the flush on his cheeks betrays him.

“So, what now?”

Claude lifts his eyes. “Didn’t you say you were going to tell me something?”

“Well—“ Sylvain looks at him. He looks—Sylvain will save the metaphors and the pretty words for later. “I figure I can just show you.”

“Alright,” Claude’s eyes are wide.

Sylvain crowds him against the counter. There’s no fear in Claude’s face as he looks up at him. He looks like he’s waiting.

“Is this okay?” Sylvain asks, remembering how this went the first time. Claude smiles, reaching up and sliding a hand into his hair, and around to cup the back of his head and pull him down.

Claude’s lips were as warm and soft as he remembers. It’s better than before—it completely blows before out of his mind. They separate. Sylvain tilts his head and goes in again, and Claude lifts his chin up in compliance. Sylvain feels Claude’s eyelashes brush slightly across his cheekbone. He opens his mouth and drags his tongue lightly against the seam of Claude’s mouth; Claude hums and opens his mouth on a sigh.

It’s relaxed, comfortable—there’s no rush, although Sylvain feels that familiar twist in his stomach. There’s that feeling again, like sliding into bed with fresh sheets, delightfully cool from a late shower. Like coming home after a long day and enjoying the feel of the bedsheets against your bare skin. Sylvain feels a little bit like crying, but it’d probably spook Claude away so he holds it in.

Claude’s the first to pull back, although he presses a firm kiss against the corner of Sylvain’s mouth before retreating.

Sylvain smiles wryly and presses his own careful kiss to Claude’s forehead. When he pulls back, Claude’s cheeks are darkened and his eyebrows doing that thing again. He ducks his head, trying to angle it so that his smile is less upfront. Sylvain feels like bursting, suddenly.

“So you can be romantic,” Claude mutters. “Who knew.”

“Oh, I’ll be the most romantic guy you’ve ever had.” Sylvain promises. “I’m pulling out all the stops.”

“I’ll look forward to that,” Claude murmurs, smiling faintly. His eyes seem brighter, and Sylvain never wants to look away now that he can see into them. “And I look forward to returning the favor.”

“Sweet deal,” Sylvain says, slipping his hand around Claude’s waist. “Seal it with a kiss? Two? Is three too much?”

Claude laughs, and pulls him down again.

—————

[an indefinite point in the future]

Sylvain wakes up.

He looks behind him. Claude’s hair tufts out from a cocoon of blankets. Sylvain shifts and wriggles his way into the blankets, pulling Claude’s back to his chest.

“Mrph,” Claude groans. “Time's it.”

“Don’t know,” Sylvain nips at his ear, pulls the blanket down a bit to peer at the window. “It’s raining.”

“‘Kay.” Claude shifts, getting comfortable. Sylvain peppers kisses along his neck, grinning as he goes over the lovebites where Claude’s neck and shoulder meet. He licks at a particularly dark one, closing his lips over the mark and sucking lightly.

Claude makes a sound in the back of his throat. Sylvain hums and pulls him in tighter. Claude reaches back and tangles a hand in Sylvain’s hair.

It’s lazy and perfect; honestly, Sylvain wouldn’t mind if they just spent the morning cuddling in bed. Actually, he thinks as he feels the ache in his muscles, he might prefer it.

He noses along Claude’s throat and buries his face in his neck, hugging him close. Claude sighs.

Claude’s stomach rumbles. He stiffens. Sylvain snorts and Claude shudders, tickled.

If Sylvain is aching like this, then Claude must be really sore too, he thinks. Well, he could always scoop him up, carry him to the kitchen. He’s done it before; he’d kind of struggled, because Claude squirmed a lot at first, but his nervous, surprised little “ohh-kay ” and flushed cheeks were worth it.

But the bed was so nice. And it was Sunday anyway—they could laze in bed all they wanted and having to get up to go to the kitchen kind of ruined it. Maybe he could just get something quick.

“Breakfast in bed?” He asks.

“Really?” Claude rasps, surprised.

“Yeah, why not.” Sylvain presses a kiss to his temple. “Give me a sec.”

He climbs over Claude and gets a shirt and boxers; The shirt is Claude’s, he notes absentmindedly with a smile as he pulls it over his head.

“Hurry back,” Claude mutters, pulling the blankets back over his head with a rustle. “Cold.”

“Yeah, ‘course.” He leaves and heads towards the kitchen.

The rain beating down sounded like pops and crackles. It looked like a thunderstorm was brewing out. He pulls out the ingredients for Dedue’s specific brand of pancakes that Claude is very fond of and gets to work.

He sets a pot of water to boil and pulls out a box of tea bags, a blend of spices from Eastern Almyra. Sylvain waits as he watches the raindrops splatter on the glass like tiny explosions.

Notes:

i tried to go easy on the cheese i DID but...they...me...
i actually ended up scrapping more than a few scenes from this, and i had a lot of thoughts about this that didn't make it in, and i'm thinking of writing a sort of sequel to this someday....more details on the setting....i'm not sure yet.
anyway thank you for reading!
(4/26/2024) if anyone's interested, here's the playlist of songs i listened to a lot while writing this. i just realized i never attached it here.
grateful for all the love on this piece!! <33

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