[ Of all the emotions currently warring in Byleth's unbeating heart, he thinks that exasperation may win out. There is worry, yes — there is concern in spades — but, mercifully, though the injuries are most certainly life-threatening if left untreated, they're not life-threatening in the immediacy of the moment. He is very, very confident that he can save Sylvain before he bleeds out. ]
If you can still flirt with me, you aren't dead enough.
[ Methodically, the professor searches through Sylvain's scalp until he finds the offending head wound. Ah. Very nasty, this one. Might have been the blunt back of an axe, which is better than the sharp edge of one considering its location. Byleth tends to it immediately, hands glowing faint green as he magicks sweet relief into Sylvain's wounded skull. ]
I'll see to your head wound first. After that, I have to pull the arrows out before I can make them better, understand?
[ He probably does. By now, this isn't Sylvain's first time taking arrows to the back, and it's not Byleth's first time treating them, either. But even so, Byleth likes to give the people he's healing the reassurance of telling them what he's going to do in advance. ]
idk where felix is or why he's missing we're pantsing AND pining. pintsing.
Do you want me to be deader? I could manage, I think.
[ he could also not. byleth would probably prefer it if sylvain were less dead, actually, but sylvain is...so-so at the thought. take it or leave it. if it weren't for his promise with felix, well.
anyways. he leans down for byleth to examine him, brushing his hands over the back of his head until sylvain is hissing and jerking in pain before his faith magic finally takes over. the lance shudders and pulses slowly, as though sated by the bloodshed. it takes his weight when he goes a little slack with relief. the headache finally peters out under byleth's magic, and his vision doesn't swim as badly when he opens his eyes, so that's probably a good sign. ]
Just. Be gentle, all right?
[ sylvain drops down - collapses, really - for byleth to have better leverage. the arrow in his shoulder has dug deep with all the fighting he's done, but better the professor deal with it than making any of the girls see him like this. ]
...I went looking for him again.
[ sylvain exhales slowly as byleth sets to work. grit his teeth and bear it. he's from faerghus. that kind of thing is in his blood. suffering builds character and all that. the scars across sylvain's skin are enough character, in his opinion. ]
Is it too late to ask you to keep this between us? It is, isn't it?
you're in luck i kind of love "felix defected to beagles" angst (we can make it happy tho)
[ It's been years since the relationship between Dimitri and Felix finally deteriorated so badly that the heir to House Fraldarius left the Blue Lions to join the Black Eagles instead. Even then, they were all still sort of friends — but then Edelgard had declared war on everyone else, and Felix hadn't seemed prepared for that. But neither had he been prepared to rejoin what he saw to be the madness in Dimitri and the cold cruelty of his father back in Faerghus, and —
He's been a renegade of sorts, apparently. Ever since Garreg Mach fell. Mercenary life would have suited Felix well, Byleth thinks, with some dry humor; he knows it well enough and knows Felix well enough to know that the man has probably been comfortable, if lonely, all these years.
Now, it is rumored, "the Lone Wolf" has been active in the vicinity of Garreg Mach. (Byleth thinks, again with some humor, that "Lone Wolf" is a better title than "Ashen Demon.") Small wonder Sylvain has been taking up the night watches and riding out to the local villages to try and get a glimpse of him. Byleth knows this, knows what is motivating the behavior. He thought he'd simply let it happen.
Tonight, searching for Felix nearly got Sylvain killed.
The professor sighs. He is understanding, but he sighs. ]
Who was I going to tell?
[ He strokes Sylvain's hair a little as he tries to peter off the rest of his magic. Sylvain might still have a bit of a headache for the next hour, but the bleeding has stopped, at least. His skull is probably fine. His brain... well, there was always a bit something wrong with his brain. ]
I think everyone knows, though. Why you've been taking up the night patrols. You are not subtle.
Edited 2025-11-19 18:13 (UTC)
god bless u because i had 0 thoughts i winged it and this is sooooo good
[ sylvain still remembers the day felix left their house. the disdainful look he had given sylvain like he couldn't stand to perceive him a second more. for what? for standing with dimitri? for not training hard enough? for chasing too many skirts? maybe for not being there when glenn had died. he wouldn't have been surprised if felix had been sheltering his anger since then, hiding it away until the right moment to let it come pouring out.
and the worst possibility of all: maybe it had nothing to do with sylvain at all.
at least if he had been part of the reason, if some little piece of him annoyed felix so much that he needed to leave, then there was something sylvain could have done. something he could have said to make felix stay. to not abandon their country. (to not abandon sylvain.)
that meant there was something sylvain could still do to bring him home. ]
But he's gotta be out here. Somewhere. [ please. just one last opportunity to see him and memorize his face and his beautiful, amber eyes. ] He's smart. He has to know we've made camp here too, and if he wanted to leave... [ his voice gets thick. ouch, professor. careful with that magic if yours. or something like that. ] If he didn't want to be found, he wouldn't be.
So, there has to be a chance.
[ the next breath he takes feels wetter. sylvain shrugs his shoulders back to try and inhale deeper before pain lances through his arm and down his chest.
ah, right. the arrows. ]
No more night patrols for a bit, though. Would you...
[ look for felix. apologize to him. bring him home. all the things sylvain wants and can't bring himself to admit. he glances over to byleth, careful not to jostle him while he works, and then just as quickly drops his gaze down to his hands in his lap. coward. he still can't say any of it. ]
[ Sometimes Byleth wonders whether or not it had anything to do with him. Undoubtedly, Dimitri was a part of it — undoubtedly, Rodrigue was an even bigger part of it, because no one decides to forsake family and country without family being the largest share in the matter — but still. Even so. Byleth still thinks he could have handled Felix differently.
He knew that Felix didn't like him, on their first meeting. But Byleth had never been the sort of person who cared overmuch about whether or not people liked or disliked him, so he had decided at the time to do very little about it. Now he thinks that perhaps he should have tried harder to connect with Felix when he'd had the chance. That, as the months and weeks flew by, the young man probably saw the monster that Dimitri had become growing ever and ever more infatuated with another heartless monster who was only teaching him how to kill people better and better. That Sylvain's love for him was not enough to close the gap. That he finally grew so disgusted with the heartlessness of the archbishop raising two monsters in her monastery, ostensibly for the future of Faerghus, that he felt that his only choice was to leave the Blue Lions.
But then, Byleth figures, probably not. If that was part of it, it was only one part of the whole. And, anyway, when Felix had filed the paperwork to transfer out of Byleth's house, he'd scowled, looked his professor dead in the eyes, and said Just so you know, this doesn't have anything to do with you.
But Felix said a lot of things that he didn't mean, and Byleth was never very good at telling what was true from what was just bluster.
Regardless. Sylvain is correct. If Felix did not want to be found, he wouldn't be circling the monastery now, knowing full well that he's in Church territory. The professor makes a thoughtful, noncommittal sound before his fingers locate the arrow in Sylvain's shoulder, somewhere between his arm and his back. He wraps his fingers around the shaft of it, his other hand coming close with healing magic. ]
This will hurt. Brace yourself.
[ It doesn't hurt as much as when some other healers do it, though. No one can beat sweet Mercie when it comes to have the gentlest, most painless bedside manner, but the professor is swift about healing at the same time he pulls the arrow out, such that any fresh lance of pain is relatively bearable in the grand scheme of things.
He should be clinical and efficient, but the true Ashen Demon died long ago, and Byleth the professor is another man entirely. With an almost fatherly affection, he pets Sylvain's cheek to try and soothe him, then sets about locating that other arrow, the one in his side. ]
...If I find him. [ He almost made it seem like he wasn't listening to the bit about Felix. But he was listening. Of course he was listening.] What should I say?
[ lie back and think of faerghus, or whatever. or maybe that's supposed to just apply to sex. he's done that when he's fucked and when he's fought, and also after both too. either way, at the professor's warning, sylvain digs his fingers into the dirt and doesn't make a sound as the professor tugs the arrow out of his back. he's had worse. his brother's done worse to him. another scar to add to the map of them, drawn all across his body from all the things that tried to kill him and haven't succeeded yet.
he sucks in a breath. it only burns a little with byleth's magic pushing into the injury as the tissue knits back together. fuck, it would be just his luck if it nicked a lung or something. it'd mean more time mercedes won't let him out of the infirmary. more time for felix to stray away from him again. ]
That... [ god, byleth, how could you put him on the spot like this? as though he hasn't imagined a hundred, a thousand times the things he'd want to say to felix over the last five years because there are a hundred thousand things he wants to tell him. that he misses him. that he wishes he'd gone with him. that he wishes felix had asked him to go with. that they should just leave fodlan, run away together and put the messy business of war behind them.
that he'd die, if that was what felix wanted. that he'd die anyways, if felix never came back. ]
That he'll always have a place with... [ with sylvain. ] With us. Even if he doesn't want to come home. Come back, I mean.
[ no, he doesn't mean. he means home. not faerghus or the northern territories they'd grown up in, but the closeness of another person. felix has always been his home. ]
Not that he'd listen, probably. He never does to me. No one should. [ sylvain laughs, dry and pained, as he shuffles a little for byleth to access the second arrow, dug low into his back. god, that'll make sleeping a pain for a few days, but it's not like sylvain gets much rest these days anyways. he leans against the professor's hand as though he can hide his face from the world if he just turns away and tucks himself behind byleth. wouldn't that be nice? ] But at least I tried then, right?
[ He's been working too hard. All of them have, to a degree, but Sylvain isn't like Annette, who would just get frustrated if anybody told her to rest and let someone else handle things. Sylvain needs someone to tell him that he's done enough.
Byleth resolves to be that person, even as he locates that arrow in Sylvain's back, wraps his fingers around the shaft — ]
You did. You tried your best.
[ — and pulls. ]
And sometimes you have to tell yourself that your best was enough.
[ Byleth ebbs healing magic into the wound as soon as he makes it, in an effort to assuage the inevitable lancing pain, but no matter what he does, Sylvain will just have to suffer a little bit. The vagaries of war. Again, the professor runs his hand through the redhead's curls, trying to soothe him through the sting.
His voice is soft as he makes his earnest promises: ]
I'll find him. I promise. If he doesn't come back with me, I won't force him. But I'll find him, Sylvain. You have my word.
[ Sometimes it seems like Byleth hasn't changed at all in the past five years; other times, it seems like he only grew more sensitive, and even more kind. ]
[ only the quietest whine of pain escapes sylvain as byleth pulls the arrow head out. blood spills sluggishly under byleth's fingers despite the magic he pushes in. sylvain's head spins just a little, lolling back against the trunk of the tree while his vision grays and comes back into focus. fuck, injuries are never easy to bounce back from, but this one feels even worse than normal.
his breath comes out harsh against byleth's neck. his hand feels so nice in his hair. he doesn't know the last time someone did this for him. maybe never, honestly. ]
I should've done more. I should've...
[ sylvain squints out into the forest and dreams about the flash of navy in the trees. the blood loss is getting to him. ]
[ A simple Heal spell wasn't enough... Sylvain is still bleeding, and it looks like he's reeling with pain. Byleth silently shifts gears, drawing up the formula for Recover instead, pressing it more firmly into Sylvain's body, weaving together deep tissue and frayed blood vessels with as gentle care as he can manage.
(He's good, the professor is, but no one's as good a healer as Mercedes is, not even Manuela. Sometimes Byleth thinks that the woman's penchant for embroidery and knitting has something to do with it. Maybe he needs to take it up. Knitting. It might make him a better healer. He'll ask her about it when he gets back.) ]
I'm sorry. We'll bring him back, I promise.
[ There's no flash of ink-blue hair in the trees, no sign of the fur-trimmed teal armor that Byleth knows that Felix has taken up recently. But he'll go looking. Byleth knows where all the good mercenary haunts used to be in the area; it might give him better leads than the ones Sylvain has been chasing. ]
I should have done something about this years ago.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
i can't stop laughing at byleth's expressionless face
If you can still flirt with me, you aren't dead enough.
[ Methodically, the professor searches through Sylvain's scalp until he finds the offending head wound. Ah. Very nasty, this one. Might have been the blunt back of an axe, which is better than the sharp edge of one considering its location. Byleth tends to it immediately, hands glowing faint green as he magicks sweet relief into Sylvain's wounded skull. ]
I'll see to your head wound first. After that, I have to pull the arrows out before I can make them better, understand?
[ He probably does. By now, this isn't Sylvain's first time taking arrows to the back, and it's not Byleth's first time treating them, either. But even so, Byleth likes to give the people he's healing the reassurance of telling them what he's going to do in advance. ]
idk where felix is or why he's missing we're pantsing AND pining. pintsing.
[ he could also not. byleth would probably prefer it if sylvain were less dead, actually, but sylvain is...so-so at the thought. take it or leave it. if it weren't for his promise with felix, well.
anyways. he leans down for byleth to examine him, brushing his hands over the back of his head until sylvain is hissing and jerking in pain before his faith magic finally takes over. the lance shudders and pulses slowly, as though sated by the bloodshed. it takes his weight when he goes a little slack with relief. the headache finally peters out under byleth's magic, and his vision doesn't swim as badly when he opens his eyes, so that's probably a good sign. ]
Just. Be gentle, all right?
[ sylvain drops down - collapses, really - for byleth to have better leverage. the arrow in his shoulder has dug deep with all the fighting he's done, but better the professor deal with it than making any of the girls see him like this. ]
...I went looking for him again.
[ sylvain exhales slowly as byleth sets to work. grit his teeth and bear it. he's from faerghus. that kind of thing is in his blood. suffering builds character and all that. the scars across sylvain's skin are enough character, in his opinion. ]
Is it too late to ask you to keep this between us? It is, isn't it?
you're in luck i kind of love "felix defected to beagles" angst (we can make it happy tho)
He's been a renegade of sorts, apparently. Ever since Garreg Mach fell. Mercenary life would have suited Felix well, Byleth thinks, with some dry humor; he knows it well enough and knows Felix well enough to know that the man has probably been comfortable, if lonely, all these years.
Now, it is rumored, "the Lone Wolf" has been active in the vicinity of Garreg Mach. (Byleth thinks, again with some humor, that "Lone Wolf" is a better title than "Ashen Demon.") Small wonder Sylvain has been taking up the night watches and riding out to the local villages to try and get a glimpse of him. Byleth knows this, knows what is motivating the behavior. He thought he'd simply let it happen.
Tonight, searching for Felix nearly got Sylvain killed.
The professor sighs. He is understanding, but he sighs. ]
Who was I going to tell?
[ He strokes Sylvain's hair a little as he tries to peter off the rest of his magic. Sylvain might still have a bit of a headache for the next hour, but the bleeding has stopped, at least. His skull is probably fine. His brain... well, there was always a bit something wrong with his brain. ]
I think everyone knows, though. Why you've been taking up the night patrols. You are not subtle.
god bless u because i had 0 thoughts i winged it and this is sooooo good
[ sylvain still remembers the day felix left their house. the disdainful look he had given sylvain like he couldn't stand to perceive him a second more. for what? for standing with dimitri? for not training hard enough? for chasing too many skirts? maybe for not being there when glenn had died. he wouldn't have been surprised if felix had been sheltering his anger since then, hiding it away until the right moment to let it come pouring out.
and the worst possibility of all: maybe it had nothing to do with sylvain at all.
at least if he had been part of the reason, if some little piece of him annoyed felix so much that he needed to leave, then there was something sylvain could have done. something he could have said to make felix stay. to not abandon their country. (to not abandon sylvain.)
that meant there was something sylvain could still do to bring him home. ]
But he's gotta be out here. Somewhere. [ please. just one last opportunity to see him and memorize his face and his beautiful, amber eyes. ] He's smart. He has to know we've made camp here too, and if he wanted to leave... [ his voice gets thick. ouch, professor. careful with that magic if yours. or something like that. ] If he didn't want to be found, he wouldn't be.
So, there has to be a chance.
[ the next breath he takes feels wetter. sylvain shrugs his shoulders back to try and inhale deeper before pain lances through his arm and down his chest.
ah, right. the arrows. ]
No more night patrols for a bit, though. Would you...
[ look for felix. apologize to him. bring him home. all the things sylvain wants and can't bring himself to admit. he glances over to byleth, careful not to jostle him while he works, and then just as quickly drops his gaze down to his hands in his lap. coward. he still can't say any of it. ]
Just while I'm recovering. He'd listen to you.
no subject
He knew that Felix didn't like him, on their first meeting. But Byleth had never been the sort of person who cared overmuch about whether or not people liked or disliked him, so he had decided at the time to do very little about it. Now he thinks that perhaps he should have tried harder to connect with Felix when he'd had the chance. That, as the months and weeks flew by, the young man probably saw the monster that Dimitri had become growing ever and ever more infatuated with another heartless monster who was only teaching him how to kill people better and better. That Sylvain's love for him was not enough to close the gap. That he finally grew so disgusted with the heartlessness of the archbishop raising two monsters in her monastery, ostensibly for the future of Faerghus, that he felt that his only choice was to leave the Blue Lions.
But then, Byleth figures, probably not. If that was part of it, it was only one part of the whole. And, anyway, when Felix had filed the paperwork to transfer out of Byleth's house, he'd scowled, looked his professor dead in the eyes, and said Just so you know, this doesn't have anything to do with you.
But Felix said a lot of things that he didn't mean, and Byleth was never very good at telling what was true from what was just bluster.
Regardless. Sylvain is correct. If Felix did not want to be found, he wouldn't be circling the monastery now, knowing full well that he's in Church territory. The professor makes a thoughtful, noncommittal sound before his fingers locate the arrow in Sylvain's shoulder, somewhere between his arm and his back. He wraps his fingers around the shaft of it, his other hand coming close with healing magic. ]
This will hurt. Brace yourself.
[ It doesn't hurt as much as when some other healers do it, though. No one can beat sweet Mercie when it comes to have the gentlest, most painless bedside manner, but the professor is swift about healing at the same time he pulls the arrow out, such that any fresh lance of pain is relatively bearable in the grand scheme of things.
He should be clinical and efficient, but the true Ashen Demon died long ago, and Byleth the professor is another man entirely. With an almost fatherly affection, he pets Sylvain's cheek to try and soothe him, then sets about locating that other arrow, the one in his side. ]
...If I find him. [ He almost made it seem like he wasn't listening to the bit about Felix. But he was listening. Of course he was listening.] What should I say?
no subject
he sucks in a breath. it only burns a little with byleth's magic pushing into the injury as the tissue knits back together. fuck, it would be just his luck if it nicked a lung or something. it'd mean more time mercedes won't let him out of the infirmary. more time for felix to stray away from him again. ]
That... [ god, byleth, how could you put him on the spot like this? as though he hasn't imagined a hundred, a thousand times the things he'd want to say to felix over the last five years because there are a hundred thousand things he wants to tell him. that he misses him. that he wishes he'd gone with him. that he wishes felix had asked him to go with. that they should just leave fodlan, run away together and put the messy business of war behind them.
that he'd die, if that was what felix wanted. that he'd die anyways, if felix never came back. ]
That he'll always have a place with... [ with sylvain. ] With us. Even if he doesn't want to come home. Come back, I mean.
[ no, he doesn't mean. he means home. not faerghus or the northern territories they'd grown up in, but the closeness of another person. felix has always been his home. ]
Not that he'd listen, probably. He never does to me. No one should. [ sylvain laughs, dry and pained, as he shuffles a little for byleth to access the second arrow, dug low into his back. god, that'll make sleeping a pain for a few days, but it's not like sylvain gets much rest these days anyways. he leans against the professor's hand as though he can hide his face from the world if he just turns away and tucks himself behind byleth. wouldn't that be nice? ] But at least I tried then, right?
no subject
Byleth resolves to be that person, even as he locates that arrow in Sylvain's back, wraps his fingers around the shaft — ]
You did. You tried your best.
[ — and pulls. ]
And sometimes you have to tell yourself that your best was enough.
[ Byleth ebbs healing magic into the wound as soon as he makes it, in an effort to assuage the inevitable lancing pain, but no matter what he does, Sylvain will just have to suffer a little bit. The vagaries of war. Again, the professor runs his hand through the redhead's curls, trying to soothe him through the sting.
His voice is soft as he makes his earnest promises: ]
I'll find him. I promise. If he doesn't come back with me, I won't force him. But I'll find him, Sylvain. You have my word.
[ Sometimes it seems like Byleth hasn't changed at all in the past five years; other times, it seems like he only grew more sensitive, and even more kind. ]
no subject
his breath comes out harsh against byleth's neck. his hand feels so nice in his hair. he doesn't know the last time someone did this for him. maybe never, honestly. ]
I should've done more. I should've...
[ sylvain squints out into the forest and dreams about the flash of navy in the trees. the blood loss is getting to him. ]
Professor, I miss him.
no subject
[ A simple Heal spell wasn't enough... Sylvain is still bleeding, and it looks like he's reeling with pain. Byleth silently shifts gears, drawing up the formula for Recover instead, pressing it more firmly into Sylvain's body, weaving together deep tissue and frayed blood vessels with as gentle care as he can manage.
(He's good, the professor is, but no one's as good a healer as Mercedes is, not even Manuela. Sometimes Byleth thinks that the woman's penchant for embroidery and knitting has something to do with it. Maybe he needs to take it up. Knitting. It might make him a better healer. He'll ask her about it when he gets back.) ]
I'm sorry. We'll bring him back, I promise.
[ There's no flash of ink-blue hair in the trees, no sign of the fur-trimmed teal armor that Byleth knows that Felix has taken up recently. But he'll go looking. Byleth knows where all the good mercenary haunts used to be in the area; it might give him better leads than the ones Sylvain has been chasing. ]
I should have done something about this years ago.