Chapter Text
The air was too hot in room 302A. Felix didn’t handle heat well, and Sylvain handled it even worse. While Felix sweated miserably in his thin black t-shirt, Sylvain strained against his printed button down. He undid the top two buttons with a finger and exhaled. Felix rolled his eyes.
“And that’s class. Don’t forget to submit your responses online in the portal, make sure you come to lecture on Friday, and I’ll see you again in discussion next week,” their TA said. “And I’m sorry about the air conditioning - maintenance said it would be fixed by this morning but clearly that hasn’t panned out.”
There was the immediate shuffle of students standing up and hopping out of their desks. Ignatz, who had another class across campus, nearly sprinted from the room. Felix sat back and sighed. He pinched his nose at the bridge, closed his eyes, and counted his breaths. One, two, three… He opened his eyes to see two girls leaning over Sylvain’s desk.
“But you’ll be at the party this weekend, won’t you?” a girl with bright pink hair asked.
“At the party? Sweetness, I am the party,” Sylvain punctuated with a wink. The two girls giggled and hurried out of the classroom, binders clutched to their chests.
I can’t believe people are actually like this , Felix thought.
Sylvain turned and saw Felix looking. He winked again and Felix bristled like a cat, turning away.
“What’s up, Felix? You coming this weekend?” he asked.
“Coming? Where?” Felix asked.
“Beta Lambda is having a party this weekend, don’t tell me Dimitri didn’t tell you,” Sylvain smiled.
Felix huffed. Dimitri had, in fact, invited him. Dimitri had cordially invited him over dinner in the dining hall, which Felix felt was oddly formal for an invite to a frat house.
“I have heard,” Felix said carefully.
“Good, because I might have told Dedue and Ashe that you’re coming. And also Ingrid. And Dorothea. You know. The bunch,” Sylvain said, sitting on Felix’s desk. Felix groaned, heart thudding against his ribcage like a bird trying to escape its cage.
“Why can’t you just let me tell you no before you go and lie to people?” Felix asked, leaning back again and shutting his eyes.
“But you have to come! We’re gonna watch the big game on TV! There’ll be free alcohol!” Sylvain said. Felix cracked one eye open to see Sylvain pulling a Monster Espresso drink out of his backpack. Three shots of espresso! the can bragged.
“Sylvain, you have got to stop drinking those,” Felix said, finally rising from his seat and packing up his belongings. The next class would be arriving soon, and Felix would rather get choke slammed into a wall than make small talk with anyone he knew.
“But I love coffee!” Sylvain said, cracking open the can and chugging it in one go.
“That. Is not. Coffee,” Felix said.
“Whaddaya mean? Look, this is espresso, not an energy drink,” Sylvain said, pointing at the can.
“I can read, idiot. I’m saying that’s not real coffee. You know, fresh coffee, drank black, not coffee with…” he pulled the empty can from Sylvain’s hand, “190 calories?! Sylvain, this is more sugar than caffeine.”
Felix let the can clatter to the floor and exited the classroom.
“Good thing I love both,” Sylvain said, scooping up the can and jogging to catch up with Felix. “What does it matter, anyways?”
“What does it matter - are you kidding me? Coffee is delicious if you drink it properly. Coffee is an art . There are flavor notes . It’s not all this over-sweetened crap,” Felix scolded.
“News to me. I just think the stuff’s bitter,” Sylvain said. Felix glared at Sylvain so hard that the redhead was sure he was going to get punched. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time. Sylvain tossed the can into a recycle bin and pumped his arms when the can made it in.
“I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but... come over. Tonight. I’ll make you some real fucking coffee and you can stop chugging this shit,” Felix groaned.
“Ooh, Felix, inviting me over? How bold,” Sylvain teased.
Crack .
There came the slap across the face. People walking by stared but Sylvain laughed it off and kept walking with a big, dopey grin on his face.
“You need help with your response essay anyways. God knows you’ll royally screw it up again without me, and if you fail the class, my parents might murder me,” Felix said.
“Why?”
“Because your parents will be disappointed in you and they’ll tell my dad, and my dad somehow always finds a way to make my friends’ problems my fault.”
“Oh my god, Felix, are we friends?” Sylvain said as obnoxiously as possible.
“Sylvain I will kill you.”
Felix came home and cleaned his studio apartment with fervor. Despite Sylvain being lazy and generally an ass, he was neat and would comment on it if Felix wasn’t. It was some kind of a miracle, actually, that Sylvain lived in a frat house yet managed to keep his room spotless.
Sylvain had pledged Beta Lambda as a freshman and was head-over-heels in love with drinking, wooing women, and being so charming he got away with anything as long as he smiled. Felix, on the other hand, had started at university two years after Sylvain and was not nearly as enamored with partying.
Sylvain had come to their school because of its reputation for pretty girls and giant parties. Felix had come for its enormous libraries and academic standing. They’d been best friends in high school and still stayed in constant touch, Felix always playing the snappy and bitter wolf to Sylvain’s lounging lion, and Felix hated to admit that Sylvain was part of the reason he’d chosen this college.
Sylvain. Ever-present, ever-annoying, ever-gentle Sylvain. Sylvain, who had drawn Felix into his group of friends and who always held a seat for him in class. Sylvain, who had comforted Felix for months after Glenn died in a freak car accident. Sylvain, who had demanded they take their general education requirements together because when else would we take a class together, our majors are so different! Sylvain, somewhere between an older brother and a crush, the ever-present object of Felix’s stupid heart.
Felix sighed and sat down. He needed a break. He walked to his fridge, grimaced, and poured himself a glass of wine.
Naturally, his first drink had been with Sylvain, too. Felix hadn’t touched the stuff until college, and Sylvain made some crazy parental demand that Felix’s first drink be with him.
“It’s how I’ll know you’re safe!” Sylvain claimed.
Felix was sure it had been the opposite.
Instead, Felix’s first time drinking ended with him hunched over Sylvain’s toilet, hurling up what surely was everything he’d ever eaten, Sylvain gently rubbing his back and bringing him water bottles. Felix, bitter, had refused to talk to Sylvain for a week, until Sylvain invited him out again and promised it would be better this time. Felix had his doubts, but he fell for it anyways.
He always fell for it with Sylvain.
Felix’s musings were interrupted by a sharp knock on his door.
“Felix! I’m here! I brought the good shit!” Sylvain yelled. Felix wrenched his door open.
“Could you not make it sound like I’m dealing drugs?” Felix hissed. Sylvain grinned widely and pushed his way through. His crisp button down (a different one with a different print, Felix noted) and jeans looked much more college-appropriate than Felix’s uniform of black t-shirts and black skinny jeans, though Felix had changed into sweatpants for the evening.
“Aw, you started without me,” Sylvain teased, nodding towards Felix’s glass of wine.
“I needed to prepare to spend time with your insufferable self,” Felix said. Sylvain laughed and threw a bag of coffee beans at Felix’s chest. The younger man had instructed Sylvain to go to the hipster coffee shop downtown and buy whatever bag of beans he wanted. He’d chosen a blend called Lover’s Respite. Felix set it down next to his tablet and Sylvain poured himself a pint glass of wine.
“So, how’s school?” Sylvain asked.
“Terrible. I go to it with you,” Felix replied. Sylvain laughed, and Felix felt like his chest was melting.
After about an hour of conversation - Felix could never get Sylvain to start anything on time - Felix finally shuffled Sylvain to his modest kitchen.
“Okay, so you’ve picked a dark roast blend. A lot of people think dark roast has more caffeine, but it’s actually the opposite. Light roast has the most caffeine,” Felix began.
“Oh, fuck, is that bad?” Sylvain asked.
“No, it doesn’t matter, because we shouldn’t be drinking coffee this late at night anyways. And unlike you, I drink coffee for its flavor, not to stay awake when I’m hungover.”
“Harsh. True, but still a little harsh. This might be why you don’t have any luck with the ladies and gents.”
Felix pointedly ignored Sylvain and began to measure the beans into his grinder. He faced away from Sylvain, talking into his equipment.
“So the next thing that’s important is the grind of the beans. For something like a French press, which uses a wider mesh filter, you want a coarser grind. Espresso uses a very fine grind. We’re just doing a pour over, so the grind we want is somewhere in the middle.”
“Oh, I can think of a few other things we can grind,” Sylvain smirked, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. Felix closed his eyes, sighed, and counted to ten before responding. Yep, he still wanted to say it. Felix whipped around.
“You did not just come into my kitchen to use a line like that,” Felix said clearly and quietly, his thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Aw, Felix, where’s your funny bone? That line was gold!” Sylvain said, crowding into Felix’s space. Felix backed into the counter.
“Is this how you get all those girls? With terrible puns and expensive gifts?” Felix asked. Sylvain stepped into Felix, forcing him to sit up on the countertop. He had one knee on either side of Sylvain’s hips.
He swallowed hard. His mouth went dry.
“No, I do something like this,” Sylvain said, tucking a stray hair behind Felix’s ear.
They were close enough to kiss now.
Holy shit, holy shit, he could kiss me right now, he could just lean in and do it, Felix’s mind screamed on repeat. He closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe.
“Felix, I-”
“Don’t,” Felix said, shoving Sylvain away from him. Felix stormed out of the kitchen and sat on his couch. “Don’t, Sylvain.”
“Holy fuck, Felix, I’m so sorry, I totally misread the situation,” Sylvain began babbling.
Felix ignored the rest of Sylvain’s diatribe in favor of remembering the last time they drank together.
Teeth clashed messily, both of them hungrily gripping each other’s faces in the darkness of Sylvain’s room.
“Fuck, Felix, I just, fuck,” Sylvain had moaned, breaking away to rip his button-down away from his shoulders. They had returned from Sylvain’s formal, Felix as Ingrid’s markedly platonic date, and somehow an accidental brush of Sylvan’s hand against Felix’s neck had turned into this.
Felix shucked off his t-shirt and threw it to the ground before throwing himself at Sylvain again. Sylvain responded in kind, shoving Felix down onto his bed and biting his neck sharply. Felix moaned, honest-to-god moaned with a loud cry escaping his lips, and Felix hadn’t known he would be loud in bed but he didn’t know much at all, and -
Sylvain’s hard cock was pressing against Felix’s thigh when the door burst open, letting in light. Sylvain quickly jumped off of Felix, but the intruders hadn’t even noticed the room was occupied.
“A sword? Babe, this isn’t your room,” a girl’s voice giggled. The door was shut again, and Felix turned expectantly to Sylvain, but the damage was done.
“Fuck, Felix,” Sylvain whispered.
“Something like it,” Felix offered, reaching out, but Sylvain retracted as if Felix was covered in blood.
“I, this is a mistake, we’re both too drunk, and…” Sylvain’s voice trailed off as he slowly picked up his shirt.
Felix felt like he’d been sucker punched. What was happening? After so many years, so much yearning, Sylvain was doing this?
“Sylvain…” Felix began, but his mouth couldn’t find the words.
“I’ll see you in class, Felix,” Sylvain said, walking out the door.
But back to the present.
“Felix, Felix, are you listening? I said I’m sorry,” Sylvain said.
“Why did you stop kissing me the last time we were drunk together?” Felix barked.
“I... you... what?” Sylvain asked.
“The last time we drank together. After your formal. We were in your room. We kissed. We were interrupted and you stopped, and we never fucking talked about it. What happened?” Felix asked.
“I… you were drunk. I was worried that I was taking advantage of you. So I stopped and told myself I’d talk to you about it when we were sober, but then the next day in class you threw a pencil at me and didn’t say anything about it, so I didn’t say anything about it, and then today you invited me over, and I thought maybe I should try again, but clearly you didn’t want it so-”
“I never said I didn’t want it,” Felix said through gritted teeth.
Sylvain’s face looked like his brain was recalibrating.
“Okay, but you pushed me away,” Sylvain said slowly.
“Because we need to fucking talk about it!” Felix cried, covering his face with his hands.
“Okay, okay, let’s talk about it,” Sylvain said, quickly scooting next to Felix on the couch, their hips touching.
“You want to kiss me," Felix said point blank.
"Yes."
"And I want to kiss you," Felix said, feeling like his teeth were being wrenched out one by one.
"...that's news to me, but yes."
"And yet we are not kissing right now."
"Yes. You stopped me, if I recall the last five minutes or so correctly."
"I did," Felix said solemnly. They sat in silence for a moment, Sylvain covering Felix's hand with his own. The action made Felix feel like his hand was under a heat lamp, and after a few seconds he pulled it away in favor of clutching his thigh. More hair had fallen from his ponytail, and Sylvain reached to tuck it behind his ear.
“Let me try that again, then,” Sylvain chuckled breathily, leaning in and locking Felix’s lips in a kiss.
It was somewhere between everything he’d thought it would be and greater than he could have ever imagined. Felix had pined for Sylvain since high school, when suddenly he noticed the strength in Sylvain’s arms and the broadening of his chest, and found himself panicking am I gay am I gay am I gay before Glenn died and things like wanting other boys didn’t matter anymore.
He didn’t want to think about that right now, about how differently things could have turned out, about how much sooner this could have happened if his life hadn’t gotten fucked into six different directions, so Felix traced Sylvain’s jaw with his thumb and relished in the way it made Sylvain shudder.
Felix pulled away to breathe and Sylvain took the time to nibble at his neck and work his hand up the bottom of Felix’s shirt, skating gently along his stomach. Felix’s muscles jumped and twitched, and he felt himself growing hard all too quickly. He groaned at the revelation, and Sylvain laid Felix down and positioned himself on top of him, slotting their legs together. Felix could feel he was in a similar state.
“So long, Felix, so long, I thought you would never let me kiss you,” Sylvain muttered between small nips and kisses at Felix’s jaw.
“You’re-you’re going to leave m-m-marks,” Felix stuttered.
"Good," Sylvain said, sucking a hickey into Felix's collarbone.
Felix whined, embarrassed. The overwhelming sensation of Sylvain's lips on his body caused him to buck his hips wildly and he gripped Sylvain's shoulders for purchase.
"Easy, easy," Sylvain said, taking a hint and leaning back. He stroked Felix’s face gently and waited for Felix to catch his breath.
There were so many things Felix wanted to ask Sylvain, but he stuffed the words back in his throat and pulled Sylvain back on top of him.
They kissed, Sylvain clearly more experienced, guiding Felix’s hands across his body, poking his tongue into the back of Felix’s mouth and licking just to taste. Felix felt precum leaking from his dick and clutched the back of Sylvain’s shirt, dragging their hips closer together.
Sylvain kept grinding down, and the gentle friction built slowly inside of Felix. Suddenly, embarrassingly, after just a few minutes of grinding, Felix realized he was going to cum. The years of desperation had built up in his mind, and everything felt hot to the touch. Every nerve ending was a live wire, waiting to be tripped.
“Sylvain, Sylvain, fuck, if you don’t stop, I’m gonna, oh fuck,” Felix mumbled against Sylvain’s lips. He tucked himself next to Sylvain’s jaw and panted, licking his throat with a strange desperation he didn’t know he had.
“Fuck, that’s so hot Felix, fuck,” Sylvain muttered, grinding down harder and faster. He pulled away to simply rub Felix’s cock through his sweatpants, the angle and pressure much better. He used the other hand to undo his belt and jeans and rubbed himself in equal rhythm over his stupidly patterned boxer briefs.
The friction became overwhelming, pleasure aching through Felix’s cock to his core, boiling over in the pit of his stomach. He felt like a bowstring pulled taut, all of the pressure releasing itself at once as he came into his pants.
“Oh, fuck,” Felix said into Sylvain’s mouth, before letting out a terribly humiliating mewl of pleasure as Sylvain rubbed him over his pants to the point of overstimulation. Felix recoiled, the feeling too much, and groaned. He laid back, collapsing into the cushions.
“Oh my god, fuck, that was so hot,” Sylvain said, leaning back til he was up on his knees, straddling Felix. “Fuck, Felix, fuck.”
In record time, Sylvain whipped his dick out and jerked himself off furiously near the head with his right hand, using the left to shove Felix’s shirt up over his abs. Before Felix had time to be fully embarrassed that he came in his pants like a teenager, Sylvain shuddered and came all over his abs.
Sylvain’s rubbing slowed down and he opened his eyes, blinking slowly and smiling down at Felix.
“Sorry, Fe, I probably should have asked first, but fuck, god,” he muttered, collapsing on top of Felix and tracing his fingers along Felix's sides.
“Ugh, gross, Sylvain, you’re going to have cum on the outside of your shirt,” Felix groaned, feeling the wet spot on the front of his crotch grow uncomfortably cold.
“‘s fine,” Sylvain said, clearly falling asleep. Felix undid his ponytail, shook his hair out, and tied it again.
“Oh no, you are not falling asleep on top of me. I need to change. Get up, I’ll finish making the coffee, Jesus,” Felix said sharply.
“I always knew you’d be good at pillow talk,” Sylvain chuckled as Felix extracted himself and walked to his dresser to look for an identical pair of black sweatpants.
“And I always knew you’d be the type of bastard who falls asleep immediately after orgasm,” Felix said.
“No coffee f’r me, please,” Sylvain yawned, curling up into himself, his jeans still undone but his dick tucked away.
“You are hopeless,” Felix said.
As Sylvain fell asleep, he thought he heard something like fondness in Felix’s voice.