#gautres

“    𝑰    𝑯𝑨𝑻𝑯'𝑻    𝑵𝑨𝒀    𝑰𝑫𝑬𝑨    𝑾𝑯𝑨𝑻   𝑻𝑯𝑶𝑼   𝑨𝑹𝑻    𝑻𝑨𝑳𝑲𝑰𝑵𝑮    𝑨𝑩𝑶𝑼𝑻    ,    𝑺𝒀𝑳𝑽𝑨𝑰𝑵    .    thither's    nothing    wrong    with    the    way    i    speaketh   !   ”

PREPARE TO BE PRESSED // accepting -- since @gautres and @crestid had the same idea ;)

OH HOW SHE WOULD HAVE LOVED to be able to bench Sylvain all the way -- the big kink in her chain was his tall frame ; standing at 6′1 , he was going to have a higher weight than most of the other competitors , and adding to his muscle being a physical fighter left her with an obstacle that she couldn’t overcome . She managed to lift him part-way , but part-way sadly doesn’t count .

✎ to draw your muse || ACCEPTING.

please stop haunting me with btr i actually listened to them on spotify also bro his face is so fucking PUNCHABLE

isnt gina like 4'7"

perhaps it would be easier to live if he were to extract his beating heart from his chest / or the METAPHORICAL ONE there of / or whatever it is within him that sparks a deep set emotional response that reverberates through his bones. so frequently he is alone at the front of the pack, half-isolated from the rest and raging / raging / raging forth in a blaze of glory that he is often only peripherally aware and yet ——— something catches ——— and he twists and ———

it’s a moment : frozen in time.

a lance, flung / and a lunge / and the piercing of armor so neatly and perfectly that it sinks like a stone in water and it’s a moment frozen in time. and then it isn’t. and then it’s moving too fast and TOO MUCH and he is only VAGUELY AWARE OF THE BEATING OF HIS HEART TOO FAST IN HIS CHEST and he dodges the swing of an axe and blood sprays as he slices a throat and he : runs.

it’s foolish. it’s stupid. IT’S SO UTTERLY AND UNBELIEVABLY STUPID yet he runs, without thought and without meaning / and the space between them closes so quickly that before the damned bastard can deliver a killing blow he has a SWORD IN HIS BACK and felix shoves and falls and he realizes, faintly. distantly. dimly. that this is panic.

training is abandoned and surely it would be EASIER to be a warrior if when you are born your heart is taken from your chest and obliterated there and then with such ease and simplicity and placed back in your chest : dead and dead and dead. and hasn’t he tried to do that? hasn’t he attempted? hasn’t he sloughed away his FEELINGS for the sake of betterment of the self and proving himself to be THE BEST / and all of that / comes crumbling down in the face of him.

sylvain is heavy in his arms. always taller. always broader. and in a full suit of armor, to boot. the wound is deep and stabbing and felix cannot SEE IT with the armor in the way but there is the way that face ( so familiar to him and he remembers counting his freckles when they were young again and again and again and never able to come out with the same number and oh, how sylvain had laughed, then, at his determination and his stubbornness and his ——— ) twists in pain and there is NO MASK HERE FOR HIM TO DESPISE WHOLHEARTEDLY.

until there is.

he wonders, in the abstract sense of half desperate wondering that is so quickly and effortlessly discarded, if sylvain had known it to be him. the lack of surprise in his eyes when they open once more lends itself to the thought / and when their gazes meet a FUCKING SMILE starts to pull at his mouth in a slow curve and it would be lazy if it weren’t for the fact that he’s grimacing the whole way through it and felix ———

❝ things… aren’t going as i hoped. maybe if i died, i can start over again? ❞

blood is welling from within the stab wound of his armor and felix can feel it : pooling in his lap as he cradles sylvain and / stares at him with what he’s CERTAIN is an expression which he has not made in years or a millennia and there is a shift / and a sigh / and there is a well of despair which lies in the pit of his chest and he traipses about it, always. never quite falling in. always peering into its depths / like the fool he is.

❝ shut up, ❞ his voice is tight and there is that SAME FURY that dwells deep within him and he cannot piece together who he once was / who he is / who he will be but there is something integral to his HEART ITSELF which riots at the mere CONCEPT of the unthinkable happening. of sylvain ———

( how long ago had it been? years. a decade. a lifetime. when he held onto sylvain as if a lifeline and followed so closely behind and ran crying to him, AND ONLY HIM / when their shoulders pressed together and they whispered to each other furtively / when they were A UNIT MORE OFTEN THAN NOT / when they were ——— )

❝ ——— better luck next time, ❞ there’s a shred of STUPID HUMOR in his voice and felix wants to retch and he wants to scream but he’s already hauling sylvain into his arms / and staggering to his feet / and there is a certain WRONGNESS OF IT ALL. ( hadn’t it been the other way around? wasn’t this meant to be the other way around? )

❝ shut up !! ❞ a repetition. is he yelling? no ——— not quite. the world has narrow down to THEM and there are others but they are so far and so distant and it harkens so neatly back to their dawning days and he starts forward and thinks it a miracle that no enemy attempts to stop them / and he spares a half thought for that oddity / before charging forward. heaving heavy breaths. ❝ you’re not dying here, ❞ there is a dark danger in his voice, a silent : I DARE YOU TO DIE ON ME NOW and there is sylvain’s hand on his shoulder. an anchor. and it squeezes, once.

he cannot look at him ———— too afraid.

❝ i won’t let you die. ❞ not without him. not without him.

( if an enemy fells them now : then perhaps. perhaps. perhaps. )

“I want you to undress me to the sound of all your defenses collapsing.” –– lora mathis

                                               ❛ YOU…THINK SO? Sylvain? ❜  

      THE SUDDEN COMPLIMENT LEFT HER WITH LITTLE WORDS. Though, it wasn’t unappreciated. Her hard work, it had been paying off. That trip to town he promised was something that she held dear to her for this long, something to help keep her going onward when she knew little about what was becoming of her fellow students from Faerghus, home to people who understood her plight. A trip was enough to make her practice smiling in the mirror. Was she weak willed enough to do such a strenuous task because someone said some kind words to her? Perhaps so. 

Though, her smile was because she was just happy in going on about the animals she had seen since they returned home from the monastery. How he listened to her blather on about the birds, the wolves, the squirrels or horses that lived around her home was astounding. How did he listen to all of this? Was it simply over a smile? If so, she’d have to grin less often, in hopes of not having him bored out of his mind. 

❛ I…I’ve…practiced.  ❜ The confession caused her cheeks to darken as she kept her eyes trained at the floor. Not out of pain, but out of embarrassment. Sylvain’s kindness really did give her one more reason to live this long, the encouraging words of “practice makes perfect” still ringing out to her. Was now the part where she should say that she spent hours a day practicing, as if these were the lessons Byleth taught? All for the promise of being a better person to go to town with… She was a bit childish, wasn’t she?

𝙃𝙀 𝙒𝘼𝙎 𝘽𝙐𝙍𝙄𝙀𝘿 𝙒𝙄𝙏𝙃 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙍𝙀𝙎𝙏 𝙏𝙃𝘼𝙏 𝘿𝘼𝙔. that day engulfed in flames and smoke, the scent of blood and burning flesh. he could still taste the tears on his tongue, the blood that coated his throat  —  he understood that dimitri died and remained nothing but a husk since. a husk that tried to play human with the rest of the kids, seeing just how long he could waltz in the land of the living without missing a beat, without skipping a step or fumbling on the travel. dimitri has been plagued by non - existing figures, he has been plagued by their voices - and since they have guided him when everyone was gone. 

to feel the sudden embrace, he staggered a bit by the force of it all but he managed to utilize his foot used to step back and stabilize himself. his hand was placed on the arm that wrapped around his waist before the other came up and planted itself upon his shoulder blade. it reminded him of those long lost days of his childhood, how sylvain was always the one he turned to when he needed it. he never imposed, he never forced an answer out of him. if dimitri had ... spoken of his sorrows, would this have turned out differently? if he ... if he told someone that he wasn’t okay, that something was wrong and he knows. would he have gotten the proper help he needed? would he have gotten the support he didn’t know he needed?