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Would it be in any way productive to just throw a bucket of water over the boar and be done with it? He could toss a sponge at its stupid head, too, and a bar of soap. Perhaps several bars of soap.

Fully confident that no one’s watching him, Felix chews on the skin beside his thumbnail as he stares at the boar’s back. He can’t stand this. The boar won’t even talk to the Professor.

It used to just adore the Professor. It loved talking to the man, raising its hand to ask questions, staying after class to ask more questions, following him around if it could to ask even more questions. Offered to help the Professor every chance it could get. So polite, so eager, so desperate for Byleth’s praise and attention. How utterly disgusting it was, pretending to be a sweet and polite young man.

It’s just as disgusting now that it barely talks to Byleth at all. Doesn’t acknowledge even his presence most days, after everything Byleth did for it, for them, five years ago. After he tried to save them all and then fell and… came back.

The boar doesn’t even have the basic decency anymore to pretend to have manners, to try to present a human face.

It can’t even pretend that it cares about anything—or anyone—except for its need for vengeance.

Blood blooms in Felix’s mouth. He’s bitten down the side of the nail, chewed the skin so badly it’s torn and bleeding now. He stares down at the slow trickle of blood.

Nasty little habit he formed as a much younger person, one that comes and goes now as an adult. Before Glenn went away to the capital, to serve King Lambert (and the boar—no, Dimitri, Prince Dimitri, before the boar had swallowed him up and started walking around wearing his skin), he used to gently take hold of Felix’s wrist and draw it away from his mouth. He’d hold on until Felix felt the urge to chew pass, until Felix could talk about what it was that had upset him and driven him to bite and bite and bite.

The skin around his fingernails doesn’t ever really go back to normal. There are no ointments or creams that seem to be able to make the hard ridges of skin go away, and sometimes, Felix finds himself absently picking at the calluses.

Better to keep his hands busy in other ways, keep them wrapped around the hilt of a sword, to sit down and write something, to carry things, to—anything. Anything but this.

He crosses his arms, fingers of his right hand painfully squeezing the bicep of his left arm. He’s going to leave bruises behind. Good. He can press on them later, make them hurt, make them worse, a different kind of bite, a reminder. The pain reminds him he’s alive. He’s alive. He’s alive and he failed his prince years ago—and so many times since—letting a wild beast possess Dimitri when he wasn’t looking.

One day, one day, he’ll find a way to apologise to the boy who had been named Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, who he’d followed into this world a scant two months after his birth. The boy he’d played with, the boy he’d loved so fiercely. The boy he’d let die just out of reach on that terrible battlefield.

This is futile. He needs to eat. He needs to rest. He can’t spend all day, every day, standing a silent vigil over the boar’s silent vigil.

He shouldn’t feel this need to bear witness, but who will mark this if he doesn’t?

When the pegasus messenger landed in the courtyard, Felix looked out the window at just the right time to see her arrival, and met her outside himself since his parents were in a meeting with several Fraldarius bannermen.

“My lord,” she said. She was dreadfully pale, and her hand shook as she passed him a single piece of parchment, sealed with a sigil he remembered as belonging to one of the old man’s closest allies in the capital, a lesser lord who just so happened to have the good luck of excellent land for logging. Felix glanced back at the woman’s face, and realised she was the the lord’s daughter.

“My lord,” she repeated, bowing with her hand on her chest.

Felix showed her to the chamber where his parents and their allies were, and stayed only long enough to listen to the old man relay the news before he walked away, feeling like he was drowning. Like he had already drowned and like there wasn’t enough air and everything was made of ice.

He didn’t remember taking the stairs, up and up and up, to the old disused tower room full of equally disused furniture, all covered over with dusty old cloths.

He didn’t remember why he’d come all this way. He didn’t remember if he thought about it at all, if it was in any way a conscious decision, or if he’d just let himself walk and stopped when he had nowhere else to go.

Even the windows were covered in dust, and the light in the room was weak and dim. No one came here. It was cold in that room all year long, except at the very height of summer, when it was stifling, instead. Goddess only knew how long the hearth had sat dark and unused.

He yanked one of the cloths aside, sending up a plume of dust, and stared at the stacked chairs underneath.

Eventually, he picked one up, turned, and slammed it against the wall. Then a second. A third. With the fourth, he felt that familiar surge of power, and closed his eyes as the chair simply shattered into splinters. With a cry of rage and an unspeakable, bone-deep grief, he hurled the two legs he still held in his hands against the opposite wall.

Dimitri was dead. No, the boar. No. No. No. Dimitri. Executed for a crime even Felix didn’t believe he’d commit. He wouldn’t murder the last living member of his family, no matter how monstrous and mad he was, and even if Rufus himself had done something to deserve it.

Dimitri wouldn’t. Even the boar wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.

With a snarl, Felix yanked another cloth aside and found a chest of drawers with a mirror. There was his own face staring back at him, eyes red, tears streaming unnoticed, unremarked, down his cheeks.

He didn’t remember punching the mirror, but there it was, shattered. There was his fist, bleeding. He tore the mirror’s frame from the chest, and hurled it against the wall, where it, too, shattered. He stalked deeper into the room, yanking away the coverings on the old furniture, until he was choking on the dust (surely the dust), covered in it, and he tried to howl out all his grief, destroy all his rage with every bit of furniture he tore apart with his bare hands and the help of the cold, uncaring walls—and his cold, uncaring Crest.

He never asked who heard him, but someone must have. His mother found him a few hours later, sitting on a single, pristine Fraldarius teal sofa, his arms around his knees, staring at nothing. He had no more tears to spill. His throat hurt. His hands were bloody, from the mirror; from a second, larger mirror; from broken furniture; from chewing on his own skin.

She sat down beside him, uncaring about his filthy state, and drew him into her arms.

He closed his eyes and wept all over again.

Felix knows it’s foolish, which is why he doesn’t ultimately do it, but there’s a part of him genuinely tempted to try to dangle the Sword of Zoltan—which he still has, all these years later—in front of the boar to see if that will entice or distract it into letting its guard down so that someone can bathe it.

He’s saved from having to try to figure out ways to introduce the boar to soap and water by a single mission dealing with bandits at the Professor’s orders. Both Felix and the boar are sent, and Felix thinks he’s there largely just to keep an eye on the boar, because he may be the only one who has a snowball’s chance in the eternal flames of subduing it.

After the mission is complete, and utterly covered in viscera after the way its Crest aided its relentless slaughter, the boar finally has no choice but to clean himself (no—itself). It even allows Ingrid and Sylvain—and only Ingrid and Sylvain—to take its armour to clean that, too.

Felix would like to burn the fur, but beggars can’t be choosers, he supposes. At least it also gets a good cleaning.

As soon as they return to Garreg Mach, though, the boar is right back to the cathedral, and his (no—its) silent, glowering vigil.

For days, Felix spent hours walking aimlessly around the castle, lost and dazed.

He wouldn’t talk to anyone. There was nothing to say. Perhaps there was nothing left to do.

On the fifth day after the news about Dimitri, Felix was stopped from leaving the castle grounds. From that point, he realised he was always watched carefully. As if the guards could protect him. As if they could stop him, if he really wanted out.

But he didn’t want to hurt anyone. Not now, and certainly not with so much going on. His parents weren’t concealing anything from him about the messengers that kept arriving and the messages they carried, but Felix was in no position to do anything.

So, that day, he continued to wander the castle grounds, barely paying attention to the weather—unseasonably cold, as if the world knew, and couldn’t bear to give him beautiful weather.

He climbed stone steps, walked the battlements, stood and looked out at the castle town beyond the walls, which would be empty soon enough as the year marched on, people going off to find work elsewhere, as if everything wasn’t different now.

The world had to continue without Dimitri in it. Somehow. What did Felix’s grief even matter any more, in the grand scheme of human existence? People died every day. People were born every day.

Felix supposed he would endure. He didn’t have much choice.

But the world felt even more diminished than it had even after the suppression of the Western Rebellion. There were no traces left anywhere of the boy he’d known, except in Felix’s memories, which would have to sustain him from now on.

“How long are you going to do this?” Felix demands of that broad, hunched back. “You have duties. Responsibilities. You should be helping to lead us. That is what you were taught your entire life. You have to do something.”

The boar, of course, says nothing.

“I’m sick of this,” Felix says. “I can’t—you can’t keep doing this. This isn’t…”

Almost as quickly as the anger bubbled up inside him, it slips away, leaving Felix hollow and empty. Is this what the boar feels, when its rage isn’t in control of it? Is this what keeps it (him) rooted here, in place, not looking at anyone? Felix doesn’t ask, because he doesn’t expect an answer.

After their years of estrangement, it’s no wonder, really. Felix shouldn’t be surprised, but that doesn’t make the hurt of it any less real. As if he could wave a magic wand, give the boar a pat on the head or a kiss on the cheek and he (it) would be good and normal again. It would be Dimitri again, resurrected just for Felix. As if that’s a thing that could actually work, to make him—it—snap out of this, whatever this is.

Felix dreamed about him. His bright eyes, which Felix didn’t struggle to meet as much as other people’s; his sweet smile, unexpectedly shy; his hand, grabbing Felix’s, laughing as they ran through the snow. He dreamed that they found the pegasus when they chased it, that it was in a warm clearing with a hot spring, and that the pegasus let them pet it, that it loved Dimitri best of all, because Felix had, once, and a pegasus would have very good taste.

He dreamed that he’d been brave enough to steal a kiss, just once, while sparring with Dimitri, because he was Dimitri, and Dimitri deserved to be kissed.

He dreamed that he’d been brave enough to kiss Dimitri any number of times, because he was Dimitri, and Felix loved Dimitri best of all. There had been a time, Felix knew, where no one but probably King Lambert loved Dimitri as much as Felix did. No one at all, even if Sylvain, Ingrid, and Glenn came close—but they didn’t get to spend time alone with Dimitri the way Felix did.

That Dimitri died years ago. And now his body had finally followed him.

After dreaming that Dimitri had died on a battlefield and there’d been nothing Felix could do about it, he joined his mother at the cathedral in Fraldarius’ castle town. He stood beside her as she prayed, and he bowed his head, his hands clasped tightly behind his back, and asked the goddess, if she was merciful, to finally let Dimitri know peace.

The cathedral is dark, which is not unexpected, since it’s midnight.

But the boar is active.

Very much so, pacing, gesticulating, talking out loud to… no one. It doesn’t even hear Felix arrive. Doesn’t hear Felix even when he stands mere feet from away. Doesn’t hear the slight groan and creek of protesting wood as Felix puts his hand on the back of a pew and squeezes as hard as he possibly can as he listens to the boar’s babbled nonsense.

He remains still and silent, watching this wretched pantomime play out.

Until the boar says, “Glenn, I’ll take her head, I swear it, please, you have to believe me—”

“Shut up,” Felix says, through clenched teeth.

The shaggy golden head snaps up, and the boar freezes, for just a few slow heartbeats. It turns to Felix, stares at him, its eye wide. In shock? Fear? Even in the guttering candlelight still illuminating the room, Felix can see all the colour drain from the boar’s already pale face.

It drops to its knees, and puts its face in its hands. “I’m sorry,” it babbles, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—forgive me, please—”

And it crawls forward, as Felix watches in horror and revulsion and fascination. One lumbering, awkward motion after another, hunched, scraping, pleading. Felix is rooted in place, can’t even jerk away when the boar (Dimitri) rests one of his (its) gauntlets on his shoe. He can’t move an inch as the boar (Dimitri) rests his (its) forehead on his thigh.

“I’m sorry,” the boar (Dimitri) gasps out. “I’m trying, I’m—they’re holding me back—we will have our vengeance, I swear it, I will give you her head, and you can finally rest, you have my word. Glenn, please. If you ever—if you—be patient, for me, if anyone could be patient for me, surely it’s you.”

Felix wants to throw up. He wants to laugh, to cry, to scream, rage, tear, break—he reaches down and he intends to fist his hand in the boar’s (Dimitri’s) golden hair and yank his (its) head back and snarl and spit and scold. Instead, he just strokes gently—what is he doing?—why would he—why can’t he—

Dimitri’s entire body shivers. He whimpers, shifts ever closer on his knees, wrapping his arms around Felix’s legs.

I’m not him. I could never be him.

The words die on Felix’s tongue and taste like ashes, especially when Dimitri (the boar) tilts his (its) head back, eye closed, pushing its head insistently into Felix’s hand. Fascinated, horrified, repulsed, Felix pets its hair again. Again. Again. Again.

Panting, the boar (Dimitri?) opens its eye and looks at Felix. Recognition and clarity flash across that disturbingly human face, and Felix braces himself, prepares to be flung away, and yet, Dimitri (the boar?) just holds him tighter.

“Felix,” the boar rasps.

Felix doesn’t reply. His fingers finally close in the boar’s hair and, horror heaped upon horror, the boar lets out a wretched, awful moan.

Repulsed, fascinated, horrified, Felix pulls on the boar’s (Dimitri’s) hair, which elicits a gasp, lashes so pale he can barely see them flutter and bloodless lips part. Felix imagines shoving his fingers into the boar’s mouth. No, he imagines pressing his thumb against the beast’s tongue, pushing down hard, forcing that mouth open wider, wider, so he can peer into the gaping maw and see beastly fangs, maybe so that he can spit into the boar’s mouth and make him (it) swallow it.

He needs to leave. He needs to break free of the boar’s (Dimitri’s) grasp and run back to his room, hide there, until he finds his equilibrium again.

Because there’s something wrong with him. Because he’s got his thumb in Dimitri’s (the boar’s) mouth, and he’s pressing down on his (its) tongue, making him (it) open wide, wider, so he can see perfectly normal human teeth.

Every breath comes in gasps. He’s panting now, just like Dimitri is, as they watch each other.

“You’d let me,” Felix says. His voice is too loud, even though he’s barely speaking above a whisper. “Wouldn’t you. You’d let me do anything to you.”

Dimitri doesn’t answer him. He can’t; Felix has a very firm hold of his lower jaw. He just blinks slowly.

Felix needs to leave.

Ten days after the news of Dimitri’s execution, Felix found he didn’t want leave his room. He didn’t want leave his bed. He closed the curtains and clutched a pillow to his chest, wanting to stay in the dark.

Was that what Dimitri saw now? Just darkness, all-consuming, oppressive, swallowing him hole and never letting him go? No, of course not, that was stupid. He would see nothing, know nothing. He would never again smile, or give a soft, amused chuckle, or feel sunlight on his face, or hear his boots crunch in freshly-fallen snow.

He’d never see snow, ever again.

Because he was dead. First his mother. Then his father. Then Glenn, his protector. (And his uncle, but Felix felt nothing about that, not a single thing.) Now Dimitri himself.

Was the world better off without that bloodline in it at all? (Did Rufus have bastards out there who would start clamouring for the throne?)

Felix closed his eyes. Made himself remember how to breathe.

His stomach growled. Could he languish here, in his bed, forever? Oh, it was tempting. So tempting.

He wished he could turn back time. And immediately dismissed that desire, because it was foolish, it was impossible. He didn’t even know how he could change things for the better.

He pushed himself up, even though he didn’t want to. Climbed out of bed. Got dressed. He couldn’t malinger. There was work to do. There would always be work to do.

(What would be the end goal of all of a desire to fight back? To put his father on the throne? Become a prince himself? Goddess, what a joke this all was!)

When he descended the stairs to the main hall so he could go in search of breakfast, he found Sylvain there, looking up at him, looking pale and tired and grief-stricken. He was always softer than he let on.

Felix clutched the railing so tight he heard the wood protest in his grasp.

Sylvain lifted his hand in a small, pitiful wave. Felix swallowed, forced himself to let go, forced himself to put one foot in front of the other, and then Sylvain grabbed him. Yanked him close, forced Felix’s face uncomfortably against his shoulder, petted his hair like he was a small child.

A moment later, he finally wrapped his arms around Sylvain, too, clinging to the back of his shirt.

The same way he used to cling to the back of his father’s shirt when they had to say goodbye to Dimitri, when they were small, a lifetime ago.

Felix can’t extricate himself from the boar’s grasp.

Not because the boar’s too strong, but because he can’t bring himself to even try. He just lets the thing that was once a man—once a boy—cling to him, needy as it is, as it rests its big, golden head against his belly. Listens to it make strange noises, listens to it mutter, listens to it say his name over and over again, like some sort of prayer or mantra. Feels the way it rubs its cheek against the fabric of his shirt.

Feels his own breath quicken. Feels his fingers stroke through the soft hair under his hand, petting it, as though in praise for this nonsense, for the ridiculous and overbearing attention that he should not be allowing.

When the creature looks up at him again, Felix’s heart stops for a moment. That eye—familiar and strange, all at once—is wet and watery, as though its owner is about to cry.

“Felix,” the boar says.

“Let go,” Felix says.

It does.

Felix tells himself he’s not disappointed as he takes two huge steps back, then, after a moment’s hesitation, another. And then he turns and, finally, flees.

Mid-winter. Nearly Felix’s birthday. Aside from the candle Felix lit, privately, alone, during a visit back home, he didn’t acknowledge yet another one of Dimitri’s birthdays passing. Not out loud. Not to anyone. But he’d wanted to be home for it, in the familiar sights and smells of the castle, which he’d wandered like a ghost for most of the day. He remarked—only to himself—the many various parts of the castle Dimitri had been in over their years of friendship.

The kitchens, of course; the both of them and Ingrid following Sylvain as they stole pastries then burst out into the gardens, breathless and laughing, the boys always taking extras to give to Ingrid. The gardens themselves, where they’d played so many games, most of them made up by Sylvain; when it was just Dimitri and Felix alone, they pretended to be Loog and Kyphon, which they also did in the gardens of Dimitri’s castle. The training yard, where Dimitri had broken training swords, and Glenn had ruffled his hair, and Glenn had taken too much of Dimitri’s attentions away from Felix.

That fountain, where they both threw a coin in and made a wish and Felix had wished to always and forever be near Dimitri. The stables, where Dimitri had tried to coax Felix onto horseback for years, until he finally did, and Felix had clung to Dimitri, face pressed against Dimitri’s back, as the horse took a very gentle walk around the castle and, afterwards, Dimitri had to hold Felix up because his legs shook so badly, and he didn’t laugh at him, not once (and offered Felix half his dessert that night, out of the principle of the matter, since he knew Felix would decline it). The dining hall, where Dimitri and King Lambert always had a place of honour at Duke Fraldarius’ table, and Felix and Dimitri always sat side by side.

The great hall. The main hall. That corridor, where the four of them took off their shoes to see who could slide the farthest on the polished wood floors in stocking feet (Ingrid, usually). The grand staircase, where Sylvain had slid down the railing once and definitely almost died, and Dimitri had cried almost as hard as Felix, and Ingrid had to leave them to fetch Felix’s father who healed Sylvain right up and then had to endure being yelled at by people who cared about him, even Dimitri, who had hugged him afterwards and cried some more.

The guest room that was always, always referred to as “the prince’s” and no one, not a single other soul, had used in years.

Particularly because, weeks after news of Dimitri’s apparent death, Felix had locked it and hidden the key and his parents couldn’t seem to bring themselves to bring in a locksmith. “Later,” the old man had said, one night. “We have more important things to do right now.”

Felix’s own room. The ghost of Dimitri lingered there, too. Felix noted the various things he owned that Dimitri had touched, like the old toys still in a box that he and Dimitri had played with together. Buried at the bottom of the trunk at the foot of Felix’s bed was a teal blanket that Dimitri had loved. Felix couldn’t bear to part with it, and couldn’t bear to use it, and so there it sat, underneath extra blankets and pillows, and on top of a tunic Dimitri once left behind by accident and Felix had secreted away. Books that Dimitri had borrowed from Felix’s personal little library, to read at night before falling asleep.

And there, in front of the window, where they’d watched the still and quiet world outside during a heavy snowfall, and they’d held hands, and Felix hadn’t been brave enough to kiss Dimitri the way he wanted to. But, out of nowhere, for no readily apparent reason that Felix turned over and over in his mind like a puzzle box, Dimitri had hugged him, tight and fierce, and Felix hugged him back.

“What was that for?” Felix asked.

Dimitri blushed, looking suddenly shy, and took Felix’s hand again. “I wanted to.”

“Oh. Okay,” said Felix, and gave Dimitri another hug. They climbed onto the window seat and, holding hands, watched the snow in silence, until their fathers returned from their excursion and they’d raced downstairs to meet them, laughing in childish delight.

Once, long ago, Dimitri had been very free with his affections, where Felix was concerned. That, of course, stopped after Dimitri died the first time, leaving behind only the boar.

To this day, Felix feels lingering echoes of Dimitri’s hugs. The way he’d take Felix’s hand and pull him along behind him as they laughed, whenever they played as children. The way he’d kissed Felix’s cheek, a few times, when he thanked him for gifts.

He’d stopped doing it quite suddenly, when they were around twelve years old.

But that was so long ago, and now, as Felix tries to throw all his willpower behind not thinking about the boar clinging to his legs, it’s all he can think about. It’s all he seems to know throughout all the next day, this phantom touch, those preternaturally strong arms wrapped around his limbs. The boar’s forehead on his thigh. (Dimitri’s hugs when they were children.)

His thumb in the boar’s mouth, and the boar so… docile. Tame, even.

Felix shivers, tugging his jacket a little tighter against a chill, bitter breeze as he stands on the battlements, overlooking the monastery grounds. Usually, the cold doesn’t bother him much. Today, though, he’s tired, distracted, not himself—things Catherine said as they sparred, right after she knocked him flat on his ass, surprising both of them.

She’d kicked him out of the training grounds and all but told him to take a nap.

Instead, he’d dashed a very strong and bitter cup of tea, stood at the back of a room and glowered at people, helped haul some newly acquired books to the library, helped triage wounded coming in, helped haul repair supplies, and stood at the back of another room and glowered at the boar.

All in all, too much glowering and too much hauling before he finally, sullen and quiet, ate dinner with Sylvain, who nattered, endlessly, about—about—something Felix can’t even remember, too distracted by the phantom touch of that beast in the cathedral.

“What could have done this?” Sylvain asked, whispering as if he was thought that speaking too loudly would disturb the already very disturbed scene around them.

Carnage.

With the deep cold, it was impossible to judge by the sate of decay how long the bodies had been there, but there was no snow covering them—that was the only indication. The last snowfall was five days ago. Their weapons rested in the snow, scattered here and there, sometimes still gripped tightly. Two were impaled on spears; perhaps wrested from them or their comrades and thrown into them, and left behind. One had a dagger in her thigh. Another had a dagger buried to the hilt in his eye.

Most of the faces that were visible caught the fear of their last moments alive. There was blood, so much blood, atop the snow, darkened and frozen, and of course splattered across the dead themselves.

These soldiers had been mutilated, but Felix didn’t believe it had been done out of a desire to toy with or torture them. Instead, whoever—and he was certain that it was a who not a what—had ripped them apart had done so with sheer strength alone.

He’d seen this before in his search for Dimitri, before Sylvain had joined him. Three times, he’d come across a similar scene.

“You know,” Felix said, his breath steaming in the cold, still air.

“I really don’t,” Sylvain said. He was still atop his horse, as if he was afraid of coming any closer.

Felix couldn’t really blame him. He stood upright and turned to look at Sylvain, hands on his hips. “You do,” he insisted. “You know who did this.”

Sylvain was pale. He looked around and shook his head, and Felix almost—almost—felt sorry for him. “No, he…”

Felix made a slashing gesture with his hand and turned away. “Come on. We have to keep looking. He’s somewhere.”

He began to trudge through the blood-splattered snow, Sylvain on horseback quickly catching up to him. He offered Felix his hand. “Come on. It’ll be warmer for both of us if you stop being so stubborn.”

“No.”

“I’m going to make so much fun of you if your fingers and toes all fall off.”

“They won’t.”

“Felix.”

“I said no.”

Even if Dimitri—the boar—was out there somewhere, and was responsible for this slaughter, Felix couldn’t bear the idea of someone else taking any place in his memories where the young Prince Dimitri resided, not even Sylvain. Dimitri was the only person besides his father who had ever coaxed Felix up onto horseback, the only person who’d let Felix cling to him in all his nervousness, who didn’t push Felix too hard to get used to the animals.

Sylvain was dear to him (not that Felix would ever admit that out loud) but he couldn’t be Dimitri. He couldn’t take that place, no matter how ridiculous and nonsensical Felix’s reasoning.

“We’ll stop soon,” Felix offered, as some manner of compromise. “I’ll warm up then.”

“You’d better.”

Felix squinted off at the distance, not daring to look up at Sylvain. “I appreciate the concern, though,” he added, muttering the words uncomfortably as though his tongue couldn’t quite understand their shape.

Sylvain drew his horse a little closer. “You matter too, you know,” he said.

“Don’t.”

He kept his gaze straight ahead, but heard Sylvain’s sharp inhale and heavy exhale. At least he didn’t press the matter too much.

That night, Felix dreamt of Dimitri again. He dreamt of pushing his way through heavy, falling blood-red snow, and found Dimitri waiting for him, resplendent in white and gold finery, reclining on a throne that Felix couldn’t dare to look at, for it was too terrible, too monstrous, to behold. But Dimitri held his hand out to Felix, and Felix couldn’t resist going to him and taking that hand. As Dimitri’s fingers closed around Felix’s, another set of fingers from the throne grabbed Felix’s ankle.

“Mine,” Dmitri said, his voice too deep, too cold. “My sweet Felix.”

More fingers, locking around Felix’s other ankle. Cold and terrible; a sharp contrast to the sweet and welcoming smile on Dimitri’s face.

Felix would have let himself be devoured alive, if it wasn’t just a dream.

Felix returns to the cathedral in the dead of night. He’s not sure what he expects to find in the moonlight, whether the boar would be active and talking to its ghosts again, or if it would be curled up in an uncomfortable-looking lump and fast asleep, or perhaps just crouched there like a castle gargoyle (surveying and protecting its domain).

Gargoyle. There, a hunched shape near the rubble at the end of the once-proud and beautiful chamber; it turns towards Felix, who feels its eyes on him even though he can’t see it yet.

He keeps his pace steady, his hands curled into fists, keeping tight hold of his resolve until he’s mere feet away from the boar, still crouched there, face obscured by shadow and his ridiculous hair.

They haven’t seen each other in days. Felix had to stay away. He can’t stop thinking about Dimitri.

(He had loved him, once. Fiercely. More than any other in all the world, he’d loved that boy. This creature is not that boy. He wants this creature to give that boy back.)

The boar crawls to him. No prompting, no preamble, and no pretending to be anything its not, it crawls, to wrap its arms around Felix’s thighs, to rest its big head against his stomach.

“Felix,” the boar says, and makes strange, rumbling noises as it holds on to him.

He runs his fingers through its hair and it makes those noises louder. You’d let me. Felix swallows, hears his own throat click, and closes his eyes, trying to remember how to breathe.

“Felix!” Sylvain’s voice was nearly swallowed up by the howling wind, a crash of thunder. “Felix!”

He couldn’t hope to outrun a man on horseback, but Sylvain’s horse was terrified of the thunderstorm, and Felix wasn’t. Not tonight—his quarry was close, he could feel it in his bones, and he wasn’t going to wait for Sylvain to get the animal under control. He couldn’t afford to.

They were close. They were so close. He was so close.

He was so close.

Felix ran faster than he ever had in his life. Dimitri came this way, leaving behind a trail of pain and bloodshed and death in his wake. Felix would find him, stop him, bring an end to all—this. This madness.

He thought—wildly, nonsensically—that if Dimitri saw him, of all people, that it would show him that it was safe to come back to civilisation.

Felix crashed through the underbrush as lightning crashed, too, and goddess, please, no fires, he couldn’t handle that on top of all of this, and Sylvain was back there, somewhere, behind him, maybe still screaming for him to stop.

He couldn’t stop. Even when his lungs burned, even when his legs felt like they were going to give out entirely, even when his foot caught on a root and he almost went face-first into the muck underfoot. He snarled, at himself, at the goddess, at Dimitri for leading him on this wild hunt.

He couldn’t stop.

He staggered to his feet, and he ran, and he ran, because he saw him, he was certain of it, he saw Dimitri, his stupid golden head, there, just there, just ahead.

“Dimitri,” he gasped out, lungs on fire, heart in his throat. “Dimitri. Dimitri!”

He cleared the treeline. There was a river, no bridge in sight. On the other bank—

Lightning illuminated the world, briefly. He was certain he saw it, a familiar shape, on the other bank of the river.

“Dimitri!”

Sylvain caught up to him, eventually. He heard the horse, first, and then Sylvain dismounting.

And then Sylvain knelt beside him at the river’s edge, put his cheek against Felix’s very wet hair, and held him tight as the rain pelted down on them, and the horse whickered nervously and stamped her hooves.

“I’m sorry,” Sylvain whispered. “I’m really sorry, Felix.”

Felix clung to him, face against Sylvain’s shoulder, and didn’t cry.

“Felix,” the boar repeats, and nuzzles its head against Felix’s stomach. “You came back.”

Felix can’t breathe. There’s no air in this room. His fingers tighten in the boar’s shaggy hair, and the boar moans at him in response.

You’d let me.

He pulls the boar’s head back and looks down into that eye. It blinks up at him, mouth going slack again.

Felix pushes two fingers inside, and the boar doesn’t bite. Doesn’t close its lips around them, just lets Felix explore, rub over its tongue, trace along its teeth. All the while, the boar just stares up at him, and Felix thinks, even in the dark, that it looks almost blissful as Felix just explores his mouth.

Its.

Its mouth.

Felix’s heart hammers against the back of his ribs as if it would like very much to get out and leave him to—to—this, whatever this is, whatever madness has infected him to make him do whatever this is. The boar’s practically tame now, pliant and patient, waiting—waiting—for what?

Will he—it—be obedient now?

What does Felix want? What is it that’s drawn him here, now, with his fingers in the boar’s mouth? He licks his lip, and he’s pretty sure the boar watches him do that before looking up into his eye again. He swallows hard, and draws his hand back, only for the boar to cling to him again, face pressed against Felix’s stomach.

Idly, not sure what else to think or do—not sure of anything at all—Felix strokes the boar’s hair, and the boar shivers. Its arms tighten around Felix’s legs, big hands clutching at him as it shifts closer, closer.

Felix wonders what he’d be feeling if not for the boar’s fauld when it shifts higher, presses against his leg, arms wrapped around his waist now. He’s caged in, trapped, and he should try to get free. He should really try. He should try.

He doesn’t. He strokes the boar’s hair again, before pulling again to see if he can make it moan.

It does. It’s a pathetic, whining sound, yearning and desperate.

He should really try to break free.

He doesn’t.

He stands there, and wraps his arms around (Dimitri’s) head, keeping (him) trapped, too. The boar mutters to itself, and Felix hears snatches of words in the incoherence—it says things to or about Glenn, its father, its stepmother; brings up names Felix only half-recognises as knights and guards and servants of the royal household he likely met before. It promises vengeance and relief so that they—the boar included—can finally rest.

Something about that makes Felix snarl, as if he, too, is a beast. He yanks the boar’s head back again, and its expression seems confused as it blinks up at him, as if trying to clear its vision and make him come into focus. As if it’s not entirely certain who he is and he glares down at the beast still trying its best to cling to him but not using all its inhuman might.

“Look at me,” Felix says, through clenched teeth. “Look at me, boar. You know who I am. You know I’m here, right here, and it’s only the two of us in here right now.” His free hand goes to the boar’s jaw, clenching tighter than he should, and suddenly its arms go slack, falling to its sides and it just… kneels there.

Waiting.

“You’d let me do anything to you,” Felix whispers. He feels some of the tension in his shoulders release, but his touch remains too rough. “Wouldn’t you?”

The boar makes noises, but no words. Nonsense sounds. It looks up at Felix, but he’s not sure it’s actually seeing him. Especially when it eventually says, “I loved you so much, Felix.”

He’s never wanted to hear something so much. He’s never hated hearing something so much, experiencing a terrible, full-body jolt of revulsion and fear.

“I loved you when we were boys,” says the thing wearing a face that resembles Dimitri’s so much. “I loved you more than anything. I ached for you when we were at the Academy, even though you’d left me behind so long ago. And you keep coming back to me, even though you hate me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. If I could—all over again—I’d try—I’d try just for you—”

Felix wants to howl, but his throat is too tight for it.

The boar surges forward again, easily breaking Felix’s hold and wrapping around him, nuzzling against Felix’s stomach, arms like a cage, penning Felix in. The boar lets out little whimpering sounds, soft whines, its hips making little aborted movements now and then as the moments tick by and Felix just stands there, not knowing what else to do. His head buzzes.

There are dull golden strands stuck between his fingers. He shakes his hand and they flutter away.

“I’m sorry,” the boar repeats, over and over again. It nuzzles Felix’s stomach, then grabs his hips so its mouth can go lower, leaving dampness behind on Felix’s clothes.

Felix’s breath catches in his throat. His heart thuds in his chest; his heartbeat deafening. He stares straight ahead and the boar’s mouth finds his cock, which twitches in traitorous interest in his pants. The boar moans again, louder than before, mouthing at Felix’s cock long enough that he’s getting hard. He shoves the boar away with a snarl, and it lets itself fall back, catching itself on one hand as it looks up at Felix. There’s no mistaking the hurt and confusion on its stolen face, but then it watches, keenly, as Felix opens his belt. The boar licks its lips—an unconscious gesture, probably, but it’s… enticing, nonetheless. Guileless, undisguised hunger that makes arousal hit Felix in his gut and his spine all at the same time, skewering him all the way through.

The boar tries to move towards him, but Felix steps back. The boar looks confused all over again, and gets on its hands and knees, crawling to him, muttering under its breath. Felix steps back again. The boar keeps going, stalking him, as Felix opens his breeches, too, still stepping back, a little at a time, making the boar chase him if it’s so damned hungry for what Felix is still keeping concealed as he holds up his open breeches.

Until his back hits the wall, and he shoves his breeches and his smalls down his hips, bearing his half-hard cock to the boar’s (Dimitri’s) hungry gaze. “Is this what you want?” Felix demands.

He’s gone mad. That’s the only explanation. It’s contagious, he’s caught whatever the boar’s suffering from. He’s feverish with it, aching, shivering. He can’t catch his breath, like that night—that night—

The boar (Dimitri) reaches him. Its (his) hands fly up to Felix’s hips and pin him to the wall. The stone is cold against his bare ass, but that does nothing for the fever or the poison or whatever this is coursing through Felix’s veins.

It gets his (its?) mouth, hot and wet and too much, on Felix’s cock. Felix doesn’t want to moan, but he does, because he’s gone mad, and the boar’s mouth feels so fucking good. He pushes his hands into the boar’s hair, pulling, tugging, making the boar moan, too, keeping him from taking his cock into his wretched, awful, perfect mouth. Felix rocks forward, grinding himself against the boar’s lips, making the boar turn his head so he can rub against his cheek, until they’re both panting.

“Is this what you want?” Felix repeats, holding the boar as still as the boar will allow him to.

“Yes,” he gasps.

“Then have it.”

Felix releases his hold. He lets his hands dangle at his sides—for now, at least—and lets the boar do as he will.

Instinctively, Felix knows it’s inelegant and sloppy, maybe even clumsy, just like everything the boar does—and so much that Dimitri, before it, did; awkward and shy, unable to control his own strength, a bit of a walking disaster, but Felix had always found it endearing, found him endearing, both in spite and because of it.

He looks down, his palms flat against the stones behind him, and stares at the boar as he mouths and licks and sucks at Felix’s cock with the desperation of a starving man—or something akin to a man, at least. No finesse. All insatiable, boar-ish hunger.

It shouldn’t feel so good.

The boar’s eye is closed and he moans right before Felix does, too. He seldom spends any time taking Felix’s cock into his mouth, and that’s probably for the best because teeth—maybe—maybe that’s it—maybe the boar is worried about hurting him—and a part of Felix that’s disappointed by that has its own private little war with the part of him that’s enjoying this no matter what.

(Because it’s Dimitri.)

He slams his eyes shut, tilts his head back, and comes, demonstrating his own inexperience by merely gasping as the only warning he can possibly give as his orgasm genuinely catches him by surprise. He swallows hard, gasping, opening his eyes to stare at the ceiling for a moment before daring to look down and see the boar’s (Dimitri’s) face.

Covered in Felix’s spend, across his lips and his nose and his cheek. Felix bites his lip and his knees nearly flee without him when Dimitri licks his lips. He leans on the wall, panting for breath, and watches, rapt, dumbstruck, as Dimitri yanks off his gauntlets, letting them clatter to the marble floor, then his fauld is gone, and he opens the tight black breeches beneath. Just that little bit of fabric between the cool night air in the cathedral and—

Sweet goddess.

Is it normal for a cock to be that big?

Felix has no idea. The bottom falls out of the world and his brain as he watches the boar spit on his hand and stroke himself—also absolutely no finesse, though maybe Felix isn’t a good judge, as he doesn’t do that very often himself because he has other things and there’s no one else he—

He licks his lip.

“Yes, touch yourself,” he whispers, as if (Dimitri) the boar kneeling at his feet is going to do anything but that now that he has started. He stares up at Felix all the while, panting harshly, Felix’s seed still on his face as he strokes himself, finding completion in mere moments, spending himself on the floor, and on Felix’s boot, with a low snarl of a moan.

Felix has lost his mind. He’s gone entirely mad, just like the boar—Dimitri—the prince—his prince—his Dimitri.

Dimitri stares at Felix’s boot, and Felix scrambles to yank out a handkerchief before Dimitri gets some stupid idea like licking Felix’s boot clean. He’s a beast, an animal, but Felix isn’t going to allow that, at least. Dimitri just blinks, utterly still and passive as he allows Felix to clean up after them. Folds the handkerchief several times, carefully, Dimitri’s seed as hidden as it can possibly be, and stows it before he finally has the clever idea of closing his breeches.

They watch each other, Dimitri’s face impassive, Felix’s—well, he has no idea what he looks like right now. He only knows that his cheeks are burning uncomfortably. Shame, mostly. At what he’s done. As Felix stares down at Dimitri, the nail of his right pointer finger picks at the hardened skin around his right thumbnail, entirely of its own volition.

And then Felix turns and flees.

He stays away from the cathedral. Doesn’t step foot in it. Won’t step foot in it. Throws himself into war councils, training, brushing off the idea of commanding a battalion, studies magic with Mercedes and Annette when the Professor is busy, goes on a few missions.

There are other things to do. He can’t think about Dimitri, not anymore. He shouldn’t, anyway. He did something foolish—beyond foolish. Awful. Immoral. Terrible. If Dimitri is a monster, what does that make Felix for what he did to a man not at all in his right mind?

He stays away from the cathedral for a week.

He returns after he hears that Dimitri voluntarily bathed—after slipping away to go and kill a group of bandits and returning covered in gore and viscera. Standing in the dark, he chews on the skin around his thumbnail until he tastes blood, then walks slowly, carefully, quietly, towards the figure hunched in front of the rubble.

It’s quiet. It’s always quiet at this time of night, which is precisely why Felix is here. The quiet will swallow up his sins—no. No, it won’t, because he won’t do anything like that ever again.

Dimitri turns his head when Felix is within a few feet of him. And then he turns the rest of him, too, and kneels there, until Felix is close enough that he can reach out and yank him close and press his face to Felix’s crotch.

Felix is not going to do this again.

Felix was not going to do this again, but then Dimitri moans and mouths at his cock. He yanks on Dimitri’s hair, pulling his head back, and Dimitri snarls at him. Felix brushes his thumb along Dimitri’s lower lip, leaving behind a few drops of his own blood.

Felix wasn’t going to do this again, but all he hears is static and all he knows is Dimitri’s mouth on his cock, and he’s going to burn for this, he knows he is, so if he’s going to anyway, then he’ll just take Dimitri with him.

They can finally be together again.

Felix tells himself, every time, that it’s the last time. Night after night, he returns to the cathedral, and spends himself on Dimitri’s face—until the night he spends himself in Dimitri’s mouth—and every time, he watches Dimitri spend on the floor. Or on his boot.

After, Dimitri’s docile, kneeling there as he watches Felix clean up. But before—oh, before, he’s a needy, mewling, whining thing, demonstrating that as tame as he might seem for Felix, he’s still a beast.

He demonstrates it with breathtaking simplicity the night that Felix doesn’t immediately give him what he wants.

Felix is furious with him. They’d skirmished with Imperial forces as they returned to the monastery from another mission, and Dimitri had rushed in, headlong, straight into the fray, uncaring about the mages who would have a clear shot at him. He’s terribly vulnerable to magic, he always has been, and he nearly died.

He crawls to Felix, but Felix—smaller, quicker—all but dances out of his reach. “You almost died today,” he says, through clenched teeth. “What were you thinking? Do you want—” He stops abruptly, stepping back again, Dimitri’s (the boar’s) hand just grazing his belt.

Of course Dimitri wants to die.

Yes, he wants his revenge; yes, wants to fulfill the wishes of the “ghosts” only he can see and hear. But it’s so obvious he has a death wish, that he’s trying, over and over again, to get taken out even as he slaughters his (their) enemies.

Felix clenches his hands into fists and turns his back on Dimitri, starting to make his way to the nearest door to get away from him.

But then he feels a hand around his ankle, and stops with a gasp.

“Please,” Dimitri says, his voice plaintive. “Felix, please, don’t...”

Swallowing, Felix holds himself still, closing his eyes.

“Please,” Dimitri repeats, slipping closer. He releases Felix’s ankle, and—same as always—his gauntlets clatter to the floor. This would be a fantastic time for Felix to just dash out of the cathedral, back to the dormitories, where he can wallow alone and quiet and miserable in his own room, yet he’s frozen in place.

Dimitri stays behind Felix, still on his knees since Felix doesn’t hear him stand, and reaches around him to paw at him. Inelegant as always, without finesse, needy and pathetic, and of course Felix’s treacherous cock responds. Dimitri’s trained him just as well as he’s trained Dimitri.

“Please.”

Pathetic.

Felix turns.

He’s pathetic too. He collapses onto the nearest pew and opens his breeches. Dimitri’s on him in an instant, wrapping his lips around him, his tongue rubbing against the underside of Felix’s cock in a way that he very quickly figured out Felix likes.

He’s a wretched beast.

And so is Dimitri.

Felix wants to regret staying that night he’d meant to flee and never look back.

But he doesn’t.

He can’t.

He can’t regret it, because Dimitri is beautifully needy for him. Desperate, crawling, pawing at him like the pathetic, terrible beast he is. It’s disgusting.

But he’s Felix’s, now (again). His eye looks hazy every time it falls on Felix; it turns glassy, because Felix knows exactly what he’s is thinking about.

Dimitri still doesn’t participate in anything, leaves leadership up to the Professor. He still pretends no one else exists during the daylight hours. He growls and stalks and talks almost entirely to people who aren’t there. He’s vicious on the battlefield, a terrible sight to behold, battered and bloody and howling out his pain.

(And Felix does understand, somewhere, deep down, that the boar—his prince—his Dimitri—is caught in the grasp of pain, drowning it, unable to claw his way out of its icy grip.)

And he’ll look at Felix, and Felix knows instantly that Dimitri has room for just one more thing in his life besides his pain and his drive for vengeance: Felix’s cock.

Honestly, he’s not sure that Dimitri is at all interested in the rest of the people at the monastery anymore, including his own old friends. He just wants to get his mouth on Felix’s dick every night that Felix comes to him, willing to give in to him. He can take Felix deep now, until his nose is buried in the dark hair at the base of Felix’s cock. Just for a few frantic heartbeats—two, three, four—and then he’ll draw back, gasping for breath, a string of saliva keeping his terrible, wonderful mouth connected to Felix before it snaps and Dimitri surges forward again.

Right there, in the cathedral, with Felix sprawled on a pew and Dimitri kneeling before him, wet and messy and incredible on Felix’s cock. As if Dimitri needs it to live. And, fuck, maybe in some sick, twisted way, he does.

Felix laughs, loud and harsh and unnerving even to his own ears. Dimitri starts to draw back, but Felix buries his fingers in Dimitri’s hair and drags him down again, until Dimitri starts to fight him. He looks down, panting harshly, to see Dimitri’s hands flat on the seat of the pew, fingers spread wide, as if he’s trying to resist tearing the wood apart to escape. He gags, chokes around Felix’s cock, and Felix finally lets him go.

Dimitri sits back on his heels, panting, wiping at his mouth, glaring balefully up at Felix, who watches him impassively in turn, as if he doesn’t feel guilty for making Dimitri choke.

He really should apologise.

Instead, he reaches out and rubs his thumb over Dimitri’s lower lip, making Dimitri flinch but not back away further. “Finish what you started,” Felix whispers, and that—oh—that does something to Dimitri, who drags his teeth over his lower lip. He lets Felix card his fingers through his hair and draw him close, until he gets his mouth on Felix’s cock again.

They’re both mad. Sooner or later, Felix is going to have to reckon with the way he’s let Dimitri drag him down with him. For now, his acknowledgement of it is a fleeting, ephemeral thing, something he grasps at the very edges of his awareness that always slips through his fingers, not quite ready to be caught and held yet.

Especially not when Dimitri’s getting so fucking good with his mouth. Not when he’s so docile for Felix like this.

He’d let Felix do anything to him.

“You almost died again.”

Felix is too angry to spit and snarl and yell. He is full to the rim of wrath and rage but he’s running cold with it. He backs the boar against the wall without putting a single hand on him.

Dimitri licks his lip.

Disgusting.

He doesn’t meet Felix’s eyes, either. His own single, lonesome eye keeps darting to the side, and his lips move sometimes on silent words, the longer Felix keeps him pinned there with nothing but his glare.

Felix puts his hand on the wall next to Dimitri’s head, and if he has to reach up to do it, neither of them are going to draw attention to the fact. Dimitri blinks, as if he’s surprised, suddenly, that Felix is still here.

“We’ve talked about this,” Felix says, even though that’s a lie. They haven’t talked about it. Felix has berated Dimitri about his death wish, while Dimitri has been at his most boar-ish, and Felix has been at the end of his tether, furious and terrified all at once. So he’s scolded Dimitri, over and over again, for his reckless behaviour, and Dimitri has stared right through him, and sometimes talked to his “ghosts,” and gone on to carry on with this new status quo, even out there in the world where he’s supposed to still matter.

He keeps acting as if he doesn’t matter anymore, and over and over again others—Felix, Sylvain, Ingrid, Byleth—are all left trying to pick up the pieces after his rampages.

Would any of this be happening if Dedue was still alive? Felix, of course, doesn’t know how to handle this the way Dedue would.

Obviously, considering he’s pretty sure Dedue wouldn’t keep putting his dick in Dimitri’s mouth to try to keep him docile.

Dimitri doesn’t respond to Felix and, frustrated, nearing his breaking point—how much longer can he really do this?—Felix clenches his fists and brings the sides of them down on Dimitri’s chest. Dimitri doesn’t even react, and so Felix does it again, and again, and again, as Dimitri watches him passively. It’s as if he’s waiting for Felix to escalate, to do more and worse things to him, and Felix would be lying (again) if he said he didn’t think about it. He could probably put Dimitri right through the wall if he wanted to, but even now he knows it won’t accomplish anything besides making another hole in this building that’s still supposed to be sacred.

And, oh, he wishes Dimitri would react. What he wouldn’t give to get some sort of response out of him, other than the blasted dead-eyed stare—to have Dimitri yell at him or shove him back or—

Dimitri kisses him.

Well—yes, he kisses Felix. But the first thing he actually does is take hold of Felix’s head. His hands—bigger than they used to be—take hold of Felix’s head as gently he seems able to, his gauntlets still on, and Felix freezes, his fists falling still and resting on Dimitri’s chest. The heels of Dimitri’s gauntlets rest on Felix’s cheeks—cold, unfeeling things that they are—and Dimitri’s fingers curl around the back of Felix’s head, into his hair.

Felix’s eyes widen, and his breath quickens, and then Dimitri’s mouth crashes into his.

The kiss is just as artless an inelegant as everything else the boar does. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, at all, and frankly, neither does Felix, and he’s pretty sure there’s supposed to be less teeth involved in kissing—yes, surely there’s supposed to be much less biting, especially when one’s has teeth as sharp as a few of Dimitri’s are.

So Felix just bites back, and finally Dimitri does something else: he growls at Felix. He growls, and bites again, and Felix tastes blood after a sharp sting of pain, and he shoves Dimitri hard against the wall. Dimitri growls at him, and he yanks off his gauntlets and they drop with a clatter.

This is the first time they’ve kissed.

Felix had dreamt about it when he was younger, when he understood what kisses like this meant. He’d curled up under the covers and closed his eyes and imagined kissing Dimitri in the dark.

Those imagined kisses were nothing like this. This is a struggle, a battle between them, and Dimitri’s fingers push into Felix’s hair and tug it loose, a little bit at a time, while absolutely refusing to cede any ground by breaking the kiss. And if he won’t break the kiss, there’s no way on earth or in the heavens or eternal flames that Felix will give up, either.

Felix feels his hair spill down over his shoulders, and the way Dimitri runs his fingers through it, and some king or other ought to outlaw the soft moan Dimitri lets out that signals his surrender. Felix can tell the exact moment that Dimitri gives up, that his knees are about to give out, when Dimitri wants to kneel for him.

He’s not going to let that happen.

Dimitri has undone him by simply undoing his hair—he’s just not aware of it. He can’t be. He’s too fucking—

His eye is glassy. He’s desperate. Felix yanks on his armour, needing it off him, letting piece after piece fall to the floor as Dimitri just leans against the wall for support, utterly passive as Felix rips away what protects him from the world. He shoves his knee between Dimitri’s legs as soon as there’s nothing but fabric between them, and Dimitri whimpers pathetically, his hips jerking forward as he rubs himself against Felix’s thigh.

Of course he’s hard from this. He’s a beast, after all.

(And he’s made a beast of Felix, too.)

Felix waits as Dimitri rides out whatever it is he needs or wants right now. He can’t take his eyes off of Dimitri’s face—his eye closed, his lips parted—while he humps Felix’s thigh like the beast he is, having to slump for it, his legs spread apart and that alone could have Felix humping Dimitri right back if only he didn’t have some measure of self-control left.

“Felix,” Dimitri says, his voice a ruin. “Felix.”

“Keep going,” Felix says. “I didn’t tell you to stop.”

Dimitri moans again. Felix tells himself that this is what he wants. He wants to see how much lower the boar can debase himself. He should make him kneel. But there isn’t time for a change of positions; Dimitri tilts his chin up and lets out another pathetic, ragged moan as he comes. Felix has bore witness to Dimitri’s pleasure enough times to recognise the sound, but he’s never seen it from this particular angle, with Dimitri above him, even if it’s just because he’s taller than Felix.

Before he’s even caught his breath, Dimitri paws at him, trying to sink down, but unwilling to dislodge Felix’s thigh from between his legs. “Please,” he says, eventually, “Felix, please.”

“What do you want?” Felix grabs Dimitri’s wrists. He holds them firm at his sides and finally moves his thigh, and down Dimitri goes, sinking to his knees. He leans forward and rubs his cheek against Felix’s erection, still trapped in his breeches. He doesn’t try to tug his wrists free of Felix’s grip, so his hands are up now, like he’s surrendering.

“Answer me. What do you want?” Felix demands.

Dimitri meets his gaze. “Do you want to fuck me?” he asks in return, though barely loud enough to be heard.

(Who taught him such language?)

Felix licks his lip. He wonders if his own eyes have turned glassy at that question.

Bad idea. Bad idea. Bad idea. Oh, it’s a terrible idea, a terrible thing to want and to do, and yet his blood sings at the very idea.

He wonders, hazily, if Kyphon ever had Loog like this. At his mercy, offering himself up. He wonders what they looked like—what they really looked like, not just artists’ imaginings. He wonders if they looked like the two of them—him and Dimitri—and if Loog ever knelt for Kyphon. If Loog ever got on his knees and asked if Kyphon wanted to fuck him.

“Yes,” Felix whispers. He puts his hand—inelegantly—on Dimitri’s face, fingers on his cheek, thumb on his jaw, and holds him still and steady as he leans down to kiss him again. No tenderness, no sweetness, instead demanding Dimitri’s surrender.

At the very least, Dimitri doesn’t fight him, if he doesn’t entirely surrender. Felix isn’t sure it entirely counts, but he’ll take it.

He opens his breeches and presents his cock to Dimitri, who licks his lips as if it’s the most delicious thing he could have ever asked for. “Get it wet,” Felix says, not recognising his own voice, rough and raspy as it is.

He wonders, as Dimitri licks and sucks at his cock, if Loog ever did this for Kyphon. He imagines Loog would have been less… messy about it.

“Felix,” Dimitri says, and Felix also imagines that Loog would have whined a lot less. Especially for Kyphon’s cock. He would have been patient, he would have known that Kyphon would give him what they both wanted.

Felix kneels behind Dimitri, yanks down his breeches and smalls, and lets himself look. He understands the theory behind what he’s supposed to do, but he’s never done this, and despite whatever else he might think or feel, whatever anger and resentment he harbours, he doesn’t actually want to hurt Dimitri, because his Dimitri is in there somewhere.

Maybe it’s even his Dimitri that wants this. Maybe the fucking is what Dimitri—Felix’s Dimitri—needs to exist, to feel, to grasp at the world he’s been locked away from for so long.

He reaches around Dimitri, touching his cock without a single thought of Dimitri’s pleasure in the moment, but instead to try to gather up whatever he can of Dimitri’s come that’s still on his skin. He sits back on his heels, rubs his fingers over that small opening—the only part of Dimitri that seems to be small at this point—and then leans closer and spits on it for added measure.

Dimitri jerks as if hit by bolting.

Moans, too, a pitiful whining sort of moan, so Felix spits on him again. Dimitri whimpers his name, and that really shouldn’t do anything for Felix, but it does.

He hates himself.

He presses closer. Takes himself in hand. Lines himself up, his other hand tight enough on Dimitri’s hip that he knows tomorrow if he yanked down Dimitri’s breeches again he’d be able to put his fingertips over those bruises and push and make Dimitri make pathetic animal noises again.

Maybe he can fuck the beast out of him.

He presses closer. Starts to push inside. He forgets to breathe, draws back, spits on Dimitri’s hole again and the next sound that comes out of Dimitri is like a sob.

He tells himself that if this hurts, Dimitri can stop him. Dimitri must have some sense in him and surely he would stop Felix if he hurt him too badly.

Still, he takes his time, breathing harshly in time with Dimitri, the first time in years they’ve done anything in unison at all. He leans over Dimitri’s back, his free hand sliding up his side to his shoulder as Felix bends, and lets his lips brush over a raised scar.

“Finish what you started,” Dimitri growls at him.

“Be fucking patient,” Felix growls back. He almost snaps at Dimitri to also fucking relax for once in his entire life—as though he’s never seen Dimitri relaxed, not once, not ever, but that’s not true—and he bites his lip to hold the words in as he withdraws, just a little, to push forward again.

And again.

And again.

The tight heat of him is too much, and now that Felix knows it, he already thinks he wants it again. He groans, even though he didn’t mean to, and he licks the scar under his lips, and, for a little while, loses himself.

He won’t be rushed, not even when Dimitri starts to rock with his agonisingly slow thrusts. He’s going to savour this. He’s going to savour knowing that, even if only for a few breathless minutes, the boar was tame, just for him.

Even when Felix feels his orgasm building, that delicious feeling of pleasure building, building, at the base of his spine—and more than that this time, holding on to Dimitri, bent over his back, with Dimitri surrendering utterly to him.

Oh, he is so very fucked,

Felix lets out another moan, ragged and broken and so deep it doesn’t even sound like himself. He closes his eyes and rides it out, the sweet release of it all as he marks Dimitri inside. He shivers helplessly, and soon he has to pull out, he must, he can’t stay like this because the heat of Dimitri’s body is too much. As he pulls away, he lets his nails drag down over Dimitri’s back, a little too rough, wanting to leave more marks, because Dimitri is his. Dimitri has always been his. He always will be.

Felix collapses beside Dimitri, unable to make himself pull up his breeches. The marble is cold under his bare ass and he hisses as he stares up at the ceiling and hates himself for what he’s done.

It all comes crashing down in a rush, especially because Dimitri cleans them both up entirely on his own, then staggers away, hunching in on himself in front of the rubble again.

Felix lifts his hand to his mouth and chews on the rough, callused skin around his thumbnail until he tastes blood.