Chapter Text
☼
Felix comes to the ultimate conclusion that it’s too damn hot, even for summer. He’s come to this conclusion because he’s had the unfortunate experience of trying to stand from his computer chair, only to have the skin practically ripped from his thighs. Even the breeze is unforgiving—which is what had forced him up in the first place—slamming the window shut and cranking up the A/C on his barely surviving window unit. It whines in protest and shoots out a feeble stream of lukewarm air. Fantastic.
Outside the window, a sky of pure, hazy blue. No cloud coverage. No mercy. The uncomfortable beads of sweat dripping down his lower back to seep into the seam of his underwear proves it. He lolls his head back against the sticky leather and promptly gives up. It’s a remote day anyway, and he knows no one is really working.
He must’ve drifted off, because he jolts awake in the middle of a snore to the sudden sounds of footsteps on his porch and a flash of orange hair outside his window. Felix is confused; he doesn’t remember inviting over Annette, and she usually makes a much more dramatic entrance. The last time she’d been here he’d heard her from the street, singing some made up song about a drooping lily flower and feisty catbird. Come to think of it, he should ask her how it ends.
He says a prayer for his raw thighs on his second attempt at standing, and trudges his way to the front door.
“Annette, it’s the middle of the—oh.”
It’s… not Annette.
It’s a man, tall and broad and sweaty, complete with fire engine hair sticking out at odd ends from under a hat and too many freckles and a smile that makes Felix suddenly crave the juice from a fresh watermelon.
What the hell?
“Oh, hey! Sorry about that,” the man says, as though he was the one walking in on Felix. “But perfect timing! Here, for you.”
Felix stares at the small sheaf of papers being offered to him. It’s obviously spam since only his mother and Annette have his address, but the Bed Bath and Beyond coupon for ***current tenant*** might actually be a blessing in disguise. He’d discovered last night he’d never brought frying pans with him, and that he really doesn’t cook enough.
He’s discovering now that the man’s freckles extend to cover his knuckles. He’s not sure why that’s important.
“You okay?”
“Huh?”
The man is staring at him with light concern, coupons still being offered to him like it was this guy’s job to stand there delivering mail. Felix snatches them from him defensively.
“I’m fine. And why do you have my mail?”
The man’s eyebrows raise. “Um.”
Felix belatedly realizes that he was so busy focusing on freckles and smiles that he’d completely overlooked the light blue uniform. Which is painfully obvious now that Felix is looking—even the dumb hat had the post office logo stamped across it. Felix wishes the summer was hotter. He’d rather be unconscious than this.
“Don’t answer that. Nevermind. Whatever.”
The man’s grin morphs into a lopsided smirk that can only mean trouble. To Felix’s horror, (and instead of being dissuaded by Felix’s absolute incapability of having a conversation) the man only leans on the chipped wood of Felix’s door frame, and cocks the hip with his mailbag salaciously, and asks:
“So… you come here often?”
Felix blinks. Narrows his eyes. Maybe he’s already unconscious, or still napping in his chair, and this is some weird fever dream. Some kind-of karmic justice for refusing to dish out money for a new A/C unit. That’s definitely the reason why he doesn’t slam the door in his mailman’s face and doesn’t move out immediately the next day.
And why he opens his mouth and answers, “I live here.”
Without missing a beat, the man winks—Felix is seconds away from submerging his head into a bucket of ice water—and says, “So is that a yes?”
Felix comes to another ultimate conclusion: this man is obviously delusional. Best to ignore him and sift through the damp envelopes in his hand. He was right. All spam. He slips the one coupon discreetly from the stack and slaps the remaining pile against the man’s stupidly firm chest.
“These aren’t mine. Take me off whatever mailing list there is.”
The man is not offended, as he absolutely should be. Instead he laughs, a rich baritone which Felix absolutely does not find cute.
“You know that’s… not how that works right? But I’d be happy to take these off your hands… if you can tell me what name I should be on the lookout for at this address.”
Felix frowns. An unimpressive playbook, and yet Felix fell right into its pages. It doesn’t matter. This mailman can go fuck right the hell off with his pretty lashes and sweet words, because there was absolutely no way he’s giving this guy his name.
“You’re the one with the names and addresses. Figure it out yourself.”
Maybe that’s rude, but Felix also has a point, which is more important. The man lets out an overacted sigh, clutching the stack of mail tight to his heart. It bends sadly in the damp heat.
“Wow, you cut right to the core… I like it.” The glint in his eye is back. Or maybe it never left. “It sounds to me like you’re offering a challenge. And it just so happens to be an easy one for me to meet, because you’re right. I do have all the names and addresses. Or, well. On this route, anyway. Back in the truck. Somewhere. I don’t, like, carry around—anyway. That’s not the point. The point is—”
He stuffs the coupons dramatically into his bag, does a (not impressive—it is not impressive) jump off the porch, and grins broadly from the front path. “‘Next time we meet, I’ll have figured out your name.”
Before Felix can find a retort, the mailman strides off, whistling a tune and stretching his arms over his head just enough to lift the seam of his uniform shirt. A thin line of tanned skin sears Felix’s corneas. It’s too far away to make out if there are freckles there, too.
The harsh ringtone of his work phone snaps Felix to his senses, and he hurriedly slams the door on the unforgiving summer heat trying to snake its tendrils past him.
☼
He avoids another mailman meeting for a week. It’s easier than he thought, with a hybrid work schedule and weekend plans. There’ve only been those noontime flashes of red hair through the window, each time Felix ducking to the side to make sure he wasn’t seen staring—no. Not staring. Observing. Making sure the guy didn’t make eye contact or wave or think it was some strange invitation to…
To what. Felix doesn’t know.
All he knows is he’s in the middle of his lunch break when there’s a firm triple knock on the storm door. Sure enough, when he spins around, there’s the eye contact and exuberant wave and now Felix has no possible chance of avoiding his mailman for as long as he lives in the apartment.
(At least he’s not seconds away from heat stroke today. Small victories.)
He resigns himself to answering and does his best to focus on anything else other than the overwhelming situation in front of him, the one that smells like sandalwood and the good parts of the beach near his childhood home.
That must’ve been Felix’s mistake last time: looking at the guy when he didn’t have the mental facility to function normally. This was ridiculous. Felix doesn’t get distracted. It was just the damn summer—
“Well hello again.”
Felix stares as hard as he can at the porch and wonders when it was last painted. Pieces of light blue are chipping under the man’s regulation shoes, one slipping sadly between the slats when he shuffles his feet.
“Um… you okay?”
Why is this the second time in two meetings this guy’s asked that? Like he thinks Felix can’t handle himself? Felix snaps his head up on reflex and meets soft, brown eyes. Big and creased to the point where Felix doesn’t even have to look down to know the man is smiling.
“Fine.” He clears his throat to clear his head and gestures at the package tucked securely under the man’s arm. “I assume that’s mine?”
“Heh, good guess.”
“It’s not a guess, you knocked on my door. It’s implied. Just like leaving it on the porch when I can grab it later.”
Plus he doesn’t want to risk his package being held for another second. Felix’s frying pans are in there. The mailman can’t know the coupon was used.
“Ah, no can do, this one requires an autograph. And lucky for me, I get to be the one to collect yours.” He double clicks a pen he pulls from behind his ear and extends it with a small clipboard. “Right here on the line for me, Felix.”
Felix’s hands freeze halfway to the clipboard and he glares at the smirk being sent his way. “Great. You figured it out. Want a prize or something?”
The man taps the pen against the clipboard, unfazed. “Already told you. Autograph. That way when you become famous, I can brag and say I got this baby before anyone else knew you. Unless—” The man squints and leans a little closer, bringing his freckles and scent with him. Bastard. “You’re not already famous, are you? Although, I guess that actually wouldn’t matter.”
Felix snatches the pen from him for lack of anything else to do. “You’re insane.” He scribbles the ugliest rendition of a signature since his last prescription and holds out a hand. “There. Box.”
“Wow, this is PhD worthy. Get it? P.H.D?” He’s wiggling his eyebrows. He still has Felix’s package. He must be aiming for a rise—or a restraining order—and Felix doesn’t give him the satisfaction of either. Time to make this guy squirm with Mercie’s beat a creep at their own game tactic: feign innocence.
“No, I don’t. Enlighten me.”
“Well, it can also mean—wait. You seriously don’t know?”
Felix graces him with a frosty eyebrow raise. Take that, summer heat.
“Actually, uh, nevermind.” He looks away, and Felix is awarded vicious satisfaction when he sees a blush creep up the side of the man’s pretty neck. “Anyway, here you go: one Priority Mail Certified package for Felix.”
Finally; it looks like the battle is swinging in Felix’s favor. He prepares to deliver his killing blow— a masterful line about huge dicks and how Sylvain obviously doesn’t have one—but before he can, the man beats him to it.
“Hey, listen… I’m sorry about that ‘PHD’ thing. Old habits, you know.” Suddenly a broad hand is being extended towards Felix, eager. Open. “Let me even the playing field here. I’m Sylvain, your friendly neighborhood postman.”
No way. That’s—Felix won this exchange, fair and square, and this Sylvain dares to apologize? This is a trick. It’s got to be. He will not accept this so-called ‘peace offering,’ not even from a hand that looks like it’s been moisturized by an expensive skincare routine.
But his body betrays him to discover that Sylvain’s hand is both soft and all-encompassing.
His mouth betrays him, too.
“Felix,” it says, unnecessarily.
And Sylvain’s smile widens.
☼
The third time they meet Felix is, catastrophically, sweating through his shirt, and even more catastrophically, not alone.
“I’m just saying,” Annette is saying, as they make the long trek up his street, “if we tried one new one a week we’d get through the whole town by the end of the summer! It’ll be fun, like restaurant week but even better.”
A dramatic mental image of Felix collapsing and sticking to the melted road is enough of a deterrent, setting aside the torture of going into the crowded town every week to shell out for over-priced drinks and shitty bar food.
Annette pouts at his silence, and he loses the argument before he starts it.
“Fine. Maybe.”
“Woo!” she chimes, punching the air, and he quickly adds, “But we drive next time.”
A glance down tells him he’s going to have a wicked sunburn, and a check on Annette reveals the same.
“You know, you’re right,” she answers, nodding sadly and pulling at the fabric of her dress, “I feel like I just got out of a pool. Who made the summers so hot? Well, I mean it’s summer, so it’s not exactly surprising, but still!”
They turn onto Felix’s front path and that’s when he sees the figure on the porch, shuffling through his stuffed mailbag with his back turned to them.
And Felix is faced with an impossible decision: run away and risk fainting from the heat… or talk to Sylvain. And risk fainting from a very different kind of heat.
Sylvain chooses for him, alerted by the sound of their carrying voices and breaking into a smile. Even at a distance, it’s more blinding than the sun. How irritating.
“Hey, Felix!” He calls, bounding down the porch steps and waving. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Not really, seeing as I still live here,” he grunts as they approach, running a hand through his bangs and getting a nice palmful of sweat. Lovely.
“Heh, well, lucky for me,” Sylvain says, a little too intentional to be all sarcasm, and Felix tries to will away the red splotches he feels crawling up his throat.
He fails miserably. Really, he must look like an over-baked lobster compared to Sylvain—who, aside from a smudge of shiny red across his nose, seems to be more freckles and tan than ever. Even Annette doesn’t have that many. And even if she did, she definitely doesn’t have ones like these, like the ones nestled in the crooks of Sylvain’s elbows, or like the dot on the apex of Sylvain’s Adam's apple, or like the one only seen on a blink, hiding behind the creases of an eyelid. It’s obscene. Felix can’t keep count.
Not that he’s trying.
“Um, hi there!” Annette chirps from beside them, making them both jump. “Sorry to interrupt… whatever this is. I’m Annette, and I’m also, like, super hot—uh, temperature hot. Felix, can I have the keys?”
Was Felix imagining it, or did Sylvain’s grin momentarily falter? By the time Felix fishes the metal from his pocket, it’s back on and directed towards her.
“Hey, nice to meet you! I’m Felix’s mailman, Sylvain.”
Annette takes the keyring and shoots Felix that specific side-eye that he knows is supposed to mean something, but he’s at a loss. Then she grins (a little too similar to the one he’s seen Sylvain wear) and he’s filled with a great sense of foreboding.
“Just Felix’s mailman, huh?”
Oh for the love of—Well. Felix is going to have to make peace with murdering his best friend. That’s all there is to it. Before he has time to mourn the misery of a life sentence, Sylvain is leaning in like a cheesy conspirator of the world’s most secret knowledge.
“Well, between you and me, if I had it my way, I’d be way more than—”
“We’re going inside,” Felix says abruptly, dragging Annette behind him as he stomps up the porch. He pauses at the mailbox, glaring, before banging it open and grabbing the contents.
It’s three. Stupid. Fucking. Bed Bath and Beyond coupons.
“Unlock the door,” he mutters frantically at Annette, who looks like she’s barely containing herself from bursting into a million, giggling pieces.
When the door finally opens, he practically launches her over the threshold. And then he has a terrible lapse in judgment and glances over his shoulder.
Sylvain is standing halfway down the path, sacrificing himself to the heat as he waits—like he knew Felix would look back. When their eyes meet, he waves again. Felix’s flush rushes full-speed to his cheeks.
He counters it by slamming the door so violently the house shakes, throwing the coupons on the table like they’ve personally offended him. Which they absolutely have.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.” (It’s far from nothing.)
The coupons stare from the table, and Felix wonders which of his poor neighbors will never get one. Annette stares from the threshold of the living room, and Felix wonders if he can get away with changing the subject.
“Did you still want to watch that movie?”
“Ohh no you don’t. You are not moving from that spot until you tell me everything. Felix, he was so cute! And he was so into you? And,” she grins, a wicked thing that should not be possible on such a sweet person, “you were so into him.”
He snorts, a top tier response that should need no further elaboration. Annette apparently doesn’t agree. Just leans against the wall, takeaway bag swinging its greasy, pulled pork taco threat. Even if she doesn’t end up using it, she has the power of her ice-out stare. And like every time prior, Felix thaws.
“Fine, but there’s not much to tell. He showed up a few weeks ago on my porch and gave me my mail because I thought he was—uh. Someone else. I made him take back all the dumb coupons. Then he kept showing up. And he delivered a package. That’s it.”
“Hmm… if you made him take the coupons back, then why did you just accept three of them?”
Felix can’t do this. Not here. Not in front of the incriminating 25% OFF ALL ITEMS IN STORE. He avoids her mirthful eye as he grabs the bag from her, stomping to his pathetically empty fridge. He hears her follow and tap her foot behind him.
“Just those specific ones,” he grunts to the week-old pasta he’s checking, “And because I need things for the apartment. Like pans. A cutting board. Curtains, because you insist my living room looks like a psychopath’s den or whatever.”
“Well first of all, it absolutely does. And I’ve already told you, Mercie and I will come over to help put them up and re-paint! But that’s not important right now. What’s important is that he’s already stealing things for you, and he made you—Mr. Grumpy, stern, I’ll never admit to my emotions Felix Fraldarius—blush. I haven’t seen you that red since we dragged you up for impromptu karaoke night!”
“Don’t remind me,” he mutters, shutting the fridge and leaning against it for any modicum of support. He’ll take anything he can get right now. “And I didn’t blush. It was hot, and he was being annoying.”
“Uh huh.” She shoots him another Annette-patented look before throwing herself in the nearest chair. “So now that we’ve established you have a ginormous, sickening crush—”
“I don’t have a—”
“Now that we’ve established it, you need to be nice, Felix. Don’t shut him out just because you’re too, I dunno, overwhelmed or something.”
“I’m not overwhelmed.” He’s not. No way. “The guy is—I’ve never met—do you know what he asked me when I first saw him?He leaned against my door frame and asked: ‘Do you come here often?’ What even—who the hell says that as a line? He’s lucky I didn’t shut the door on him. He’s got a serious screw loose. ”
“Woooow, he even has you stuttering. This is getting serious.” She leans across the table, leaving sweaty elbow smudges in her wake. “Listen to me. Be. Nice. Talk to the guy—without being so… well, you know.”
She gestures at him, like Felix knows what that means. Felix absolutely does not know what that means. He thinks maybe he should be offended.
“Can you do that? At least try? For me?”
She pouts until Felix gives a reluctant maybe—which they both know means Annette has won, again—and for the remainder of the afternoon, while Elle Woods follows her shitty boyfriend all the way to law school, Felix’s mind stays stuck on earnest brown eyes and warm freckles.
☼
“Oh ho ho, would you look at this—”Sylvain clears his throat, holding up the paper to read in a voice of forced formality. “’To Mr. Felix H. Fraldarius.’” He drops his hands and says normally, “Should I be concerned that you have a real letter?”
“Downright distraught,” Felix deadpans, snatching it from Sylvain’s teasing grip and smudging the curly script of his address.
He’d been following through on his ‘maybe’ to Annette for the past week—only because it’s less embarrassing to grab his mail from the source instead of watching Sylvain through his window like some kind-of heatstroke stalker. Not because of some stupid crush, or because of the insufferable urge to smooth rough hands over Sylvain’s peeling shoulders.
Be. Nice.
He tries to school his expression into something that’s not a scowl, searching for whatever can constitute small talk. Felix abhors small talk. Sylvain hovers on the step, and in a moment of desperation Felix flaps the envelope at him and blurts, “uh, invites.”
Small talk? No. This is miniscule talk. Microscopic. Sylvain raises his eyebrows, looking confused—but he doesn’t leave, which means he’s an obvious glutton for punishment. Felix clears his throat and pretends his ears haven’t turned into flaring red beacons.
“I mean, it’s not a real letter, just Annette’s invite. We all do this late summer party thing every year so. Yeah.” He drops his arm. “Invites.”
Sylvain’s confusion drops into a sweet smile. “Awww, that’s cute.”
“Not really. If anything, it’s a waste of paper. We have phones.”
If Annette were here, she’d be mortified. And would definitely spray Felix with the garden hose.
“Okaaaay, it’s cute and a waste of paper. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”
Felix’s scowl returns, and he doesn’t stop it. “Do you do this on purpose?”
“Do what?” Sylvain asks innocently, but Felix catches the spark in his eyes that confirms he definitely does this on purpose.
“Sometimes I wonder if you have an ounce of self—wh—Neko, no!”
From over Felix’s foot a blur of black darts onto the porch; Annette’s invite is lost to the ground as Felix lunges and misses by a hair. Shit, shit, shit. His mind is already running through lost cat contingencies when in the blink of an eye, Sylvains mailbag is strewing its contents across Felix’s lawn and Neko is squirming within his solid arms instead.
“Hey, whoaaaa there, little kitty. It’s alright, there’s no need to—aaah!”
“Damn it, let me—”
Felix darts forward and scoops Neko bodily from Sylvain before tossing her, flailing, back into the hallway and slamming the storm door. She scurries out of sight into his room.
He deflates, wiping a shaking hand across his sticky forehead. “Fuck, sorry, are you—”
“Heh, I’m fine! Don’t worry about it.” Sylvain has his hands on his hips and a winning smile, nonchalant like he’s not panting heavily or covered from wrists to elbows in several long, bloody scratches. “Feisty cat you’ve got there, huh? Kinda reminds me of someone I know—”
Felix doesn’t have time for this; jumping from the porch, he begins stuffing the envelopes in a very non-mandated system into Sylvain’s bag.
“I got it,” he says, when Sylvain comes to help.
“Heh, I already told you, I’m fine—”
“You’ll get blood on the mail. That’s not good for business. Now go sit.”
“Sir, yes sir,” Sylvain salutes before dropping into one of Felix’s deck chairs with a dramatic sigh.
A sudden smile threatens to steal the scowl from Felix’s face, and he stamps it down with the remaining letters before dropping it gently at Sylvain’s feet.
“Here. I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere. Or touch anything.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Ugh. That sounds genuine. When Felix arrives with paper towels and the antibiotic, its to Sylvain slumped in the chair with eyes closed like some strange, summertime scarecrow.
It is mildly alarming. Sylvain’s uniform will definitely leave a frightening tan.
“Uh,” he starts eloquently, and Sylvain squints an eye open. “Here. Start with this—she really got you good.”
Sylvain’s forearm has the worst of it, and without thinking Felix kneels and presses the wet towel against the cut. It soaks up pink and Felix makes a face. He loves Neko, but right now he could seriously throttle her. An escape attempt? She hasn’t tried that since she was a kitten and there’d been a squirrel out back—even then, she’d only managed to claw up the screen door.
He hears a chuckle and snaps from the memory to see Sylvain, both eyes now open, watching him with amusement. Felix’s face heats on reflex.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. You look cute when you’re all concentrated.”
“Tch, I’m not—you do it then.”
He slaps the dripping towel into Sylvain’s palm and stands, furious at himself for not handing them over in the first place. He’s not Sylvain’s caretaker (even if helping did slightly quell the guilt over Sylvain getting injured on the job.)
Come to think of it—does that mean Felix could be liable? Would he be sued for a cat attack? No, Sylvain wouldn’t sue him—a confirmation given in the way his lips curl with fondness when Felix glances at him.
“Thanks. I think I’m ready for the good stuff now.”
They glance down at the melting tube in Felix’s fist. He should let Sylvain do it. He had just decided he should let Sylvain do it—so then why is he uncapping it himself and yanking Sylvain’s arm towards him?
Because he's perfectly capable of applying ointment, that’s why, and because staying on Sylvain’s good side can only help right now. Felix is basically living paycheck to paycheck. He can’t afford small claims court.
Felix refuses to look anywhere else but where he’s dabbing ointment on the cut across a freckled knuckle. He can feel Sylvain’s insufferable grin directed towards him, and Felix refuses to match it on principle. A whole ten seconds of humid silence pass—a record, Felix thinks—which immediately jinxes it.
“Sooo. Your cat’s name is Neko?”
“Yeah.” He moves on to Sylvain’s inner wrist, stupidly soft and winter pale. Whatever moisturizer he uses must have great SPF. “It seemed fitting.”
“Uh, okay correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Neko mean… cat?”
“Like I said. It seemed fitting. Other arm.”
Sylvain hands over his left, still grinning, but Felix catches the slight wince as he swipes across the deepest scratch. The guilt he shouldn’t have returns full force.
“Uh. What about you?”
“Hmm?”
“I mean—do you have any pets?”
Sylvain’s face lights up in a way that Felix has yet to see, and flames lick through his chest—kicked up by the feet of fiery horses that have suddenly taken up residence there.
“I do! Her name is Mookie, or Mookster for short.”
“That’s not shorter.”
“True, but it is cuter.”
Felix frowns, and Sylvain laughs.
“Wanna see a pic?”
Without waiting for an answer, Sylvain digs in his pocket for his phone. Felix catches his lock screen, some blurry photo of him with an arm slung over a girl with bubblegum hair. It annoys him, the twinge of disappointment in his stomach.
“Here she is! What a champ. It was circus day in the hospital and she didn’t complain about the outfit once.”
He turns the screen to reveal an enormous dog, sitting and staring up at the camera with its tongue lolling out. And she’s wearing—
“Is that… a mane?”
“Yup,” Sylvain says fondly, swiping to the next picture of Mookie balancing on her hind legs. “She was the lion and I was her tamer. There’s a pic of us together somewhere—hah! It was definitely not the most comfortable but I think the kids liked it, which is what matters.”
It’s baffling seeing Sylvain in a different outfit, like seeing a teacher out in the wild. Obviously he’s not required to wear his standard uniform when he isn't working. Felix hasn’t been picturing that—not that he’s been picturing Sylvain. What is there to even picture? Sylvain, heat drenched and splayed out in the chair, beads of sweat dripping down his open collar as he pants, open-mouthed? Wanton eyes begging for relief that only Felix can give? Please. He’d never be so desperate.
At least the outfit in the photo is miles better than the stuffy post office getup. A white button down with straps around the arms is neatly tucked into tight fitting dress pants that leaves nothing to Felix’s spinning imagination. A bowtie and suspenders glitter in gold and—was that an earring? Was that a whip? He’s grinning insufferably at the camera, all too pleased, like he knows what he looks like—and really, what gall to wear something so inappropriate at a—
“Felix?”
“Cute,” he says on reflex, then sputters at the implication. “The—her. Dog.”
Mischief sparkles in Sylvain’s eyes and Felix braces for impact—but he only tucks the phone away, sighing fondly.
“I know, right? She’s such a sweetheart. I hate leaving her when I come to work.”
With the obscene picture out of sight, Felix can better process Sylvain’s previous words about the circumstance of it.
“Hang on—why were you at a hospital?”
“Oh! Heh, sorry, I completely forgot to mention. Mookie is a therapy dog! We frequent the children’s hospital in Faerghus. My friend Mercie works there and helped get us certified. ”
“You—” Felix finds himself at a loss for anything approaching eloquence.
He takes his dog to see sick kids? Damn it. Really, truly, what the fuck. If the man wasn’t already insufferable, this would push him miles over the line. How is Felix supposed to compete with that?
“That’s—the kids must lo—” he veers at the last second, barely catching the love you sitting on his tongue—”uh, really like that.”
“They do. It’s nice to feel like I’m actually doing something useful, you know? Even though it’s Mooks doing most of the heavy lifting.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Felix says on impulse, “your job is useful, too. Plus therapy dogs need capable owners. Don’t sell yourself short.”
Sylvain breaks into a sheepish grin, and Felix can’t help but take in the absurdity of it all—crouching on his tinderbox porch, his postman covered in scratches from Felix’s damned cat as he talks about circus day, looking as though he really cares about Felix’s opinion and is somehow more handsome for it.
“Thanks, Felix,” Sylvain says softly, “that means a lot. And also for—” He gestures to his cuts, which thankfully have stopped bleeding— “you know. Patching me up. You’re a good caretaker. Bet you’d do great in the hospital, too.”
Felix grunts noncommittally, averting his eyes, but a crack appears in his armor as lips quirk slightly upwards of their own volition.
☼
And despite Felix’s initial hesitance, he learns. He learns Mookie is a Bernese Mountain Dog and was the runt of the litter. He learns the scar on Sylvain’s eyebrow was from falling off his horse—totally my fault, not hers, Sylvain defends, plus the gash was gnarly. He learns Sylvain was raised not far from him, just three towns over. In another life maybe they would’ve gone through the same schools, or even been childhood friends. It’s a strange thought that lingers in Felix’s mind, to ruminate over between cell formulas and reheated dinners.
Felix thinks. He thinks about stopping into the pet store down the block for that oversized rawhide bone he always sees in the window. He thinks about the day Sylvain clocked his lunch break on Felix’s porch, coercing him into grabbing lemons to make some of the best homemade lemonade Felix had ever tried. He thinks about Sylvain’s hands, his insufferable grin, the way Felix insults less and less and talks more and more.
Felix knows. Felix knows that perhaps Annette is onto something, just a little bit—but what he doesn’t entirely know is what to do with that information.
So in true logical fashion, he does nothing. He allows Sylvain to dawdle, and allows himself to look. Sylvain slips him the lemonade recipe; Felix roughly hands over the bone and tennis ball he’d caved and bought. They fall into a holding pattern that Felix can’t bring himself to break, for the fear of what could be beyond.
And in true Felix-can-never-catch-a-respite fashion, it breaks for him.
“You’re getting popular,” Sylvain is teasing weeks later, sprawled out yet again in the wooden deck chair that promises nothing but a burnt ass.
He holds a package in his lap. The scratches from Neko have healed aside from the faintest line on his forearm. Felix wants to run his thumb over it, and he bites at his cheek to curb the impulse.
“I didn’t order anything.”
“First class priority seems to disagree, Fe. By the way, Mookster says hi. She’s at the groomer today.”
“Stop calling me that,” he mutters, shoving a glass of lemonade into Sylvain’s sweaty palm. “Tell your dog I sympathize with getting a nickname she never asked for.”
“Hey, she got used to it—and wow, this batch came out great! I think you’re really getting the hang of it. Next time I’ll show you the raspberry version.”
“Only if you bring the raspberries,” Felix counters, “and that’s because she’s a dog. And she had no choice.”
“Ruthless, as always,” Sylvain gasps, a hand to his chest, but his fond smile gives him away.
They quiet for a moment, Felix leaning against the storm door to stare out at the browning lawn, Sylvain sighing in relief from the shade. These days have been a welcome deviance from his usual workflow, from mundane hours of staring through his window and wishing for something more than just compiling data and conference calls.
A good distraction work is; fulfilling it certainly is not.
But Sylvain… maybe Sylvain is a little of both.
The light clink of a glass swings Felix’s attention to where Sylvain is standing up, rolling his shoulders and throwing him a wet smile that sticks under Felix’s skin.
“Thanks for the respite,” he says, flipping the package neatly into his hand and holding it out. “In return, a package for the oh-so-popular Felix.”
“About time,” he says, but there’s no vitriol to it, and Sylvain’s fingers linger easily against his when he accepts it.
Then Felix sees the name on the return address, and the small bubble in Felix’s chest pops ice through his veins.
How did he find me?
A question with an obvious answer—his mother would’ve encouraged it, probably gave him the address herself, excited for the possible reconciliation. Felix wasn’t ready for this—it was too soon, it was—
“Hey, Fe? You okay?”
He blinks, it’s blurry. His breath is too quick to pretend he isn’t suddenly on the brink of falling apart—and over what? A small box with Dimitri’s name on it? Or perhaps over its contents. Because Felix knows. It couldn’t be anything else.
He has to mitigate the damage. He has to hold it together—he has to—
“Yeah,” he chokes, and it sounds as unconvincing as he feels. “Fine. I should go.”
“Hang on, Felix—”
“Thanks. Just leave the glass on the—”
He wrenches the door open before Sylvain can get in another word, but Felix catches a glimpse of his concern as he shuts himself behind it. Hides like a child in the darkness of the hall until he hears Sylvain step off the porch, watching through fractaled glass as his shape disappears down the path.
Gone.
He slides to the floor with a shaky sigh, staring at the package still clenched in his hands. Keys do a quick job of the tape, and another minute later objects Felix hasn’t seen in years are strewn across the runner; a timeline of memory in discordance with a carpet that still hasn’t lost its factory smell.
There’s a letter with them, slightly crumpled, the formal scrawl dashed across the page too familiar to be welcome.
Dear Felix—
It’s crumpled further into a ball and tossed hard into the living room, where Neko jumps for it, claws extended.
“Good,” he mutters.
Nighttime comes quickly—shadows lengthen and fade along with him, turn blue where his fingers are running over an ornament Rodrigue must’ve gifted Dimitri for some sentimental reason Felix will never be privy to.
“Stupid,” he croaks aloud, his first word in hours.
Neko pads over with a chirrup, nudging at his fingers for a dinner he’s half hour late in giving. He stares down at her, rewarding her with a small scratch under the chin.
“Why today?” he can’t help but ask.
She responds with a slow blink of the eyes.
It wouldn’t matter the day—a year past this and he’d still be bitter to receive it, though possibly more receptive with the passage of time. He’ll never know. Neko takes it upon herself to paw at the pile, batting fragments of his past across the room. Felix doesn’t stop her, just forces himself to stand and leaves them behind for the emptiness of his kitchen.
☼
The next day is a brutal task of suffering through the office, though Felix is slightly glad for the excuse to not face Sylvain. Rodrigue’s items had been unceremoniously dumped in the trash, and then when Felix awoke, even more unceremoniously dumped back into the box now shoved deep under his bed. A ticking time bomb, the pea in that awful children’s book that prevents the princess from sleeping—or, wait. Wasn’t it because the pea was gone that she—
“Stupid,” he says aloud, again, to the steering wheel of his car. It doesn’t refute him.
When he arrives home, he stomps his way up the porch, fumbling with his keys as he opens the letterbox to see—
Well. The usual, blue and white two coupons attached with a paperclip. But what’s unusual is the neon-green sticky note along with them, with three simple words:
Hope you’re okay.
Sylvain. Guilt gnaws under his ribs at the kindness he doesn’t feel he deserves. He pulls the pile out only to have something else come with them, tumbling to the ground before he can catch it. Staring up at him, wilted from heat: an orange day lily, obviously picked from Felix’s own front bushes.
A flush skitters over skin as he gingerly picks it up—just like Sylvain it’s bold and blindingly bright, and just like Sylvain, Felix wants to touch. Fingers graze across its delicate petals before he realizes what he’s doing.
He snorts, considers throwing it into the bushes. It’s an unnecessary offering on Sylvain’s part—like he’s done something wrong, like it hadn’t been Felix who’d essentially shot the messenger.
He retreats to the cool of the house, and despite his belief he shouldn’t keep it, the flower comes with him.
It happens again.
Another day lily, another coupon. There’s a stack on Felix’s console table that he’ll never get through, and a second flower added to the tiny glass on the kitchen windowsill.
A third. A fourth. Too many that begin to collect in various timelines of life. Notes too, on ripped paper from spam mail, sometimes on a post-it Felix can only assume is nabbed from the post office.
Mookie says hi.
Do you think the humidity will ever break?
Ever buy that dagger replica you told me about?
The guilt festers. And he doesn’t know what to do, because he hasn’t explained, and he needs to explain—instead he keeps the blinds closed, the only indication Sylvain’s been around the creak of the porch and the muffled fwump of mail in the box.
The short of it: Felix is being a coward.
“I know,” he mutters to the Annette shaped figure who stands on the threshold of his room, hands on hips.
“Do you know? How long have you been like this? Felix, I haven’t heard from you in weeks!”
“Weeks, then,” he says.
She sighs and drops her hands, walking gingerly into the untidiness that’s become his living space.
“What happened?” she asks, too kind, and Felix can’t bring himself to meet her eyes.
It seems stupid to voice it aloud. That a single box halted all his progress, a lump in his throat he hasn’t been able to speak past since it was opened. Why was it harder now, three months later, then it had been when he’d first gotten the call?
“Dimitri,” he manages to say, and small fingers intertwine with his own.
“Come on. I’ll make you something to eat.”
His tongue finally unsticks after an unholy amount of defrosted meat lovers and the rediscovered existence of sunlight, pouring through the kitchen in vengeant streaks.
“So circling back to earlier,” Annette is saying, mouth full of meatball, “I’m sorry for calling you a coward—kind of. Because Felix, you can’t just keep ignoring him!” He shoots her a look, and she rolls her eyes. “I know, I know, you know that. But come on! He’s leaving you notes? How romantic is that?”
“And flowers,” he adds, then freezes in mortification. He did not need to share that detail. Annette’s eyes practically burst from her skull.
“Flowers?! He left you—okay, that is it! We’re remedying this. Right now.”
“Annette—”
“Right now! Where’s your baking stuff?”
He stares, deadpan. “Baking stuff.”
“Yeah, you know, Sugar, flour, chocolate chips. Things to make sweets.”
“What, with all the baking I do? Annette. I don’t even have milk. What makes you think I have chocolate chips?”
“Alright, impromptu store trip it is. And no objecting. You owe me.”
To no one’s surprise, Annette’s baking supplies trip ends up with ingredients for cookies—not for you, she sighs, when Felix begins to object, for Sylvain—and that's how Felix ends up in front of his mailbox on another hot as balls Wednesday with a bulging ziplock.
And that’s when he realizes that this is not going to work. It’s literally ninety degrees. It hasn’t stopped being ninety degrees. For two. Damn. Months. He can only imagine Sylvain’s appalled surprise when he pulls out what would seem like a bag of brown mush. Not exactly the rectification message Felix wants to send.
Time to improv—and he can do improv, despite Annette’s kind insistence that no he can not do improv—and rushes back inside. He feels marginally better about the ice-filled lunch box sitting on Sylvain’s usual chair, with a note of his own propped inside the mailbox:
Sylvain. Check the lunch box.
He’d considered adding more, a thank you for the flowers, an explanation for…well, everything. But Sylvain deserves more than just a post-it apology. For now, Annette’s baked goods will have to suffice. (If they don’t work, nothing will.)
Work is agonizing. Felix completely zones out in a very important meeting, accidentally deletes a full spread-sheet, and remembers only when he opens the fridge to everyone else’s lunches, that he’d used his one and only lunchbox for Sylvain’s stupid cookies. Thank goodness for his too-kind co-worker offering him half his sandwich.
Another modicum of guilt for Felix to bear.
To top the day off, he almost kills himself tripping over the porch steps in his haste, cracking every knuckle in his hand as he saves himself on the rotting railing. Hell, Sylvain is literally going to be the death of him and he hasn’t even done anything.
And now, it all culminates to this:
Shrodinger’s lunchbox, staring at him from the chair.
A fugue state.
The cookies both exist and don’t, and Felix considers keeping it that way—he’s not sure he can take the wordless rejection. (He’s not sure Annette can either). But no, he needs to know. It’s just like removing a band-aid, quick and painful. A hard inhale before ripping open the zipper to find—
It’s empty. Oh, thank the fucking goddess it’s empty. Still, he opens the letterbox with trepidation. Just in case. Sylvain could be planning a surprise attack.
His fear was completely unfounded: another flower reveals itself, this one tall and sweet smelling with small purple buds, and an accompanying note:
The cookies were delicious... but not as sweet as you.
A laugh bursts unexpectedly from Felix’s mouth, a foreign sound—because really. Felix, sweet? If anything, the more he thinks over their meetings, the more he confirms with himself that Sylvain must be legitimately insane for entertaining him.
It doesn’t stop the relieved sigh that leaves him, days long anxiety replacing itself with exhaustion.
That settles it. Tomorrow when Sylvain shows up, Felix will have the courage to face him.