Title: 24 hours
Rating: T
Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses
Relationship: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Claude von Riegan
Wordcount: 4800
Short summary: 24 (hours) x 200 words of Claude/Felix and their life in Almyra as King and consort.
6.
It’s 6 AM and the sun is rising, obscuring the stars and brightening the sky. Although Claude wishes to remain oblivious to this fact, Felix is not going to let him laze around any longer. Sheets are tugged off, revealing brown skin.
“Morning already?” Claude mumbles, hand coming to cover his eyes.
“Get your ass out of bed already,” Felix answers, walking away to pull the curtains open.
“No, come back. I’m cold,” Claude whines.
Felix turns around. Claude’s bottom lip juts out slightly and his green eyes look watery. It’s Claude’s famous pout that Felix has seen thousands of times, but it still makes him pause.
“You can warm up in the bath,” Felix finally grumbles, not willing to return to the bed because Claude would definitely pull him back in. (This has happened before.)
“With you?” Claude says, grinning as he already knows Felix’s answer.
“Yes,” Felix grumbles, but waits for Claude to get up and join him. Nowadays he doesn’t bother to bathe until Claude is ready. When Claude grabs onto his hand, Felix smiles slightly and squeezes back. This is his gentler morning greeting to Claude as the two of them head for their morning bath.
7.
Their breakfast is always ready by 7 AM, but rarely do Claude and Felix actually begin eating at that time. Claude likes to have a long morning soak, which causes Felix to leave halfway through to dress himself and fix his hair. Claude always laments that Felix is already completely dressed by the time Claude arrives at the breakfast table, in which Felix responds that one, Claude spends too much time in the bath and two, if he waited for Claude then they wouldn’t have enough time to eat.
The second point isn’t actually true; during the war everyone could eat breakfast in less than 5 minutes if necessary. Here, though, they have time, which allows Claude to break off pieces of bread and feed them to Felix. The staff have excused themselves from this scene long ago and only return well after the hour to plates and bowls wiped clean of any food. They don’t think much about how during that hour Felix reluctantly accepts everything Claude feeds him and retaliates by shoving a spoon at Claude’s mouth. Felix doesn’t like to think about it much either, but Claude delights in the playful moments before his day really begins.
8.
Just around 8 AM Felix escorts Claude to the audience hall. There’s still a bit of time before the petitioners are allowed in, which means Felix fixes up Claude’s hair while Claude gets all his papers in order.
Well technically Claude’s hair doesn’t need to be fixed at all, but it gives Felix something to do besides glower at the doors.
“Our classes used to start this early,” Claude comments as he tests his pen on the corner of his paper. Even though a scribe will write down official transcriptions of the petitions, Claude always takes his own notes. Felix takes notes too, albeit mentally, for anything suspicious in a person’s body language. After all he is Claude’s primary bodyguard. “That was definitely a hardship.”
“Lazy,” Felix mutters, straightening Claude’s braid.
Claude laughs. “Hey, waking up early is just not right. Don’t you want to wake up warm and cozy under the midmorning sun?”
Felix shakes his head. “It gets too hot with how you hold me.”
“Of course.” Claude winks. “Who’d let go of the most beautiful man in Almyra?”
“Shut up.”
The doors open and the first petitioners find Claude with a grin and Felix with a blush.
9.
There are a regular group of petitioners that come see Claude starting around 9 AM. Most of them are old grandmothers with more time than they need to think, to see, and to come to Claude with gossip. Claude takes ample notes even if half of what they say is probably petty nonsense, and he smiles and laughs with them as if they had been kind nannies that raised him. He lets them call him whatever nicknames they want and even asks them to find one for Felix. (They are never good enough.)
Felix, though… Even after all this time, Felix’s hand immediately goes to his sword when anyone, baby or grandmother, gets close enough to touch Claude. The old grandmothers who visit regularly are the biggest offenders. Even if they look harmless, even if Felix has seen them and judged them a thousand times, Felix just can’t relax. Looks can be deceiving. He thinks about the powerful spells behind Annette’s sweet smile and the destructive flurry of axe strikes behind Hilda’s playful grin and it’s just… Felix just can’t lose Claude, no matter what, and if that means scowling at old grandmothers and babies, he’ll do that every time.
10.
Felix strictly enforces the 10 AM break by making disgruntled noises and threatening glares 5 minutes before time, causing Claude to cut his conversation short with the latest petitioner. Stupid gossips, Felix grumbles to himself as he leads Claude to their break room.
Still, he knows Claude is thankful for this break. Claude stifles a yawn as tea is served, Almyran pine of course, which Felix sips first before handing it over to Claude.
“If you slept more, you wouldn’t be yawning,” Felix notes when Claude stifles another yawn so he can actually drink the tea.
“I sleep more than I used to,” Claude replies with a smile. “Thanks to you.”
“That’s not a good thing,” Felix mutters, shaking his head.
“And it’s more peaceful, since I have nothing to worry about…”
“Claude.” Felix knows Claude is referring to the fact that Felix would shield Claude with his body if he didn’t manage to disarm the assassin first. To think for so many years Claude had no one... “Don’t let the tea get cold.”
“Alright.” Claude smiles sheepishly as he drinks the rest of his tea. Felix sighs, and Claude squeezes Felix’s hand before they return to the audience hall.
11.
Nowadays often the stream of petitioners dies down to just one or two by the time 11 AM rolls by. This pleases both Claude and Felix for different reasons. Claude is happy to see the number decrease with each year of his rule, suggesting he truly is helping his people. Felix is happy that he can do something other than just stand around and glare at any potential threats.
Today the last petitioner is sent off not even a quarter past the hour. Once the old woman is out of sight, Claude turns to Felix with a grin and takes his hand.
“Looks like we’re done early,” he says as Felix pulls him upright.
“Good. Let’s spar.” Felix would fight with Claude right here in the audience hall, but the one time they did that the guards freaked out, so now he drags Claude to the nearby training room. The soldiers know immediately to clear out when they see Felix dragging Claude.
Claude pouts. “You always want to fight me. Can’t we just relax?”
Felix knows Claude isn’t really protesting, though, dodging Claude’s punch before shoving Claude to the floor. He does let Claude kiss him, once, before smacking him.
12.
Anything that was happening before stops at noon for lunch.
On the rare occasion that Claude is still entertaining petitioners, Felix will drag Claude out of the room regardless of the situation, leading to Claude shouting one last quick judgment before he is shoved out of the audience hall. If Felix has wrestled Claude into training, training stops as soon as Felix smells lunch. It helps that Claude always asks the cooks to make something hot to deliver to wherever he is exactly at noon, so there is no mistaking the time.
At this point lunch is one of ten different meals, but it’s always something that Felix enjoys, because…
“You actually look like you’re enjoying yourself,” Claude remarks, chuckling at the way Felix just shovels food into his mouth. Eating quickly or messily is not offensive in Almyra and certainly not in Claude’s Almyra; rather, it is a compliment to the chef and the host.
“Hmph.” Felix pauses to down half a glass of water. “To be strong you must eat.”
“You sound like Raphael.” Claude eats slower than Felix only because he spends too much time watching Felix eat. “Though he wasn’t wrong.”
“Shut up and keep eating.”
13.
When Claude was young, Nader told him that if Claude became king, he could have whatever daily schedule he wanted as long as it was predictable. Thus, unlike the Academy days where they had classes from morning to evening with rarely a formal break outside of meals, and unlike the war days when breaks were taken whenever it felt reasonable to squeeze one in, as king Claude now has a formally scheduled nap hour from 1 PM to 2 PM.
Of course Claude isn’t the best at actually getting to sleep right at 1 PM; oftentimes he has had too much fun during lunchtime teasing Felix to want to stop and lie down, but when Felix warns Claude that he has less than an hour to nap at this point, Claude starts getting horizontal. He pulls Felix down with him, of course. Felix used to grumble about taking naps like this but nowadays Felix might be more eager for these naps than Claude.
“Seriously, I’m glad I can do this every day,” Claude says. “The Academy was the worst without naptime…”
“You only have 50 minutes,” Felix grumbles.
“Fine, fine.”
Claude closes his eyes and a minute later he’s snoring.
14.
2 PM arrives and Claude enters the audience hall, Felix right behind him. Felix hates the afternoon session because it is almost always worse than the morning session. The afternoon session is either a bunch of visits by various ministers of this or that to spew nonsense or a meeting with all of them at once. Yes, Felix knows what all their titles and official duties are, but in reality every single one of them is full of shit. Claude talks with each minister using the fake smiles and overly polite words, while the real work happens in the papers they exchange. Really, everything could be done 5 times faster with 100% less bullshit, but it’s just the way diplomacy works in Almyra according to Claude. When Claude adds that Faerghus politics surely wouldn’t be too different, Felix scowls but he can’t deny that.
While Claude is never excited for the afternoon session, he never loathes it like Felix does. It’s like a game to him at this point. He can learn a lot about a minister from how they converse and use that against them if necessary. Maybe in 10 years there could be more honesty, but right now…
15.
“Felix, please go out and train,” Claude hisses. “I can’t have you murdering anyone in here.”
Felix is likely in a particularly bad mood because the discussions about the upcoming spring festival have narrowed down to what colors the banners should be. Claude can see from Felix’s sharp glare, from the way his fingers grip his sword hilt, that Felix needs to leave right now, even though it is barely past 3 PM. Claude understands Felix’s frustration, as even Claude couldn’t care less about what shade of green is best. While Felix isn’t a fan of festivals in general, Claude mostly just wants the festivals to be fun, but of course every year the discussions are like this. Hell, every time some public festival needs to be discussed, someone has to use it as their chance to flex or maybe try to curry Claude’s favor…
“Felix, please,” Claude repeats quietly.
Claude knows Felix hasn’t left yet due to his stubbornness, but Felix knows that Claude is plenty capable of murdering everyone in this room if need be. But it won’t be necessary, because no one is getting murdered over festival planning.
“Fine.”
Claude sighs in relief when Felix finally leaves.
16.
“Phew…”
Claude always feels stiff after the afternoon session ends, whether it ends right at 4 PM like today or closer to 5. Something about the old guard and their stiff ways makes Claude also feel old and stiff, even though he’s still in his 30s. Claude stretches his arms overhead and it feels like his back extended back a few centimeters. He swears that if he doesn’t stretch regularly, he’d shrink from all of these meetings.
“Did they finally leave?” Felix asks, entering the room a mere minute later. He either paced outside the audience hall the entire time or returned after blowing off some steam to pace. Claude knows this because one of the other guards let him know quietly, saying Felix was being “very cute”.
Claude always acts like he doesn’t know this, though, giving Felix a wide smile. “Yep! I’m all yours.”
“Good. It’s finally my turn with you.”
Claude laughs. Considering their next destination is the training room, Felix’s words are not romantic at all, but Claude acts like they are anyway.
“Stop it, Claude,” Felix grouses.
Claude only laughs harder. “Make me.”
When Felix shoves him against the wall, Claude considers his goal achieved.
17.
“Another hour?” Claude pants as Felix strikes Claude’s training axe with his training sword one more time.
“You do run a country that glorifies strength,” Felix replies. “Now strike back!”
Claude raises his axe once again, his muscles protesting. He isn’t really complaining. Actually Felix and Claude will train in a marathon session at least once a month to simulate prolonged combat. Just because they haven’t had a conflict with Fódlan in over 10 years, their main rival in the past, it doesn’t mean war will never come again. Byleth will likely outlive Claude, so Claude isn’t too worried about Fódlan coming after him, but other countries or internal strife…
“Don’t get distracted,” Felix warns as Claude almost misses parrying another strike. “Or you’ll die.”
“I won’t die,” Claude replies, dancing away from Felix’s strike instead. Any time Felix scolds him during their training, it’s obvious as the sun that it’s due to worry. And Claude’s reply is not one of cockiness but a resolve to do better. He’ll do better, he’ll survive, he’ll keep Felix alive…
“I won’t die,” Claude repeats, cracking his axe against Felix’s sword. No matter what it takes, he’ll live…
(He won’t be another Dimitri.)
18.
Because Claude had shown too much cheek earlier, Felix trains him a quarter past 6 PM as punishment. He can’t go beyond that, not when his stomach is threatening open, loud rebellion. After one last round, Felix drags Claude into their small dining room, thankful that they aren’t entertaining any dinner guests tonight. He’s so hungry he could probably eat a wyvern. He picks up his fork and...
“Felix, dear, you don’t need to eat so fast,” Claude teases, reaching for a napkin. Normally Claude doesn’t mind if Felix eats vigorously, so Felix wonders if there is something on his face. Just when he figures it out, Claude’s napkin is already brushing the spot a centimeter from his mouth.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Felix grumbles as he looks down at his plate currently lacking in rice. He steals a scoop off Claude’s plate.
“Hey!”
Felix smiles. “Too slow.”
Claude laughs. “I guess so.” His smile morphs into a dramatic pout. “But what if I get hungry because I missed that scoop of rice?”
“Fine, I’ll get you a cookie.”
But only after Felix finishes eating first. Otherwise he’ll find no food left on his plate when he returns…
19.
The time between dinner and bedtime is normally their only truly free hours each day. Unfortunately this means that everything Claude wishes to do during the day is shoved into these few hours, and one of these things is wyvern riding.
Really, Claude should put wyvern riding into his morning routine, but perhaps Claude’s wyvern is just as adverse to mornings as Claude is. Still…
“Do you really have to fly her like this? We just ate you know.” Of course Felix is sitting right behind Claude, because how can he be Claude’s husband and not be used to wyverns? Felix has begrudgingly accepted that even if he won’t have to fly one to fight (he refuses to), he’ll certainly be transported on one.
Claude laughs, not caring that they have just flipped 3 times in less than a minute. “I know you won’t throw up on me.”
“It doesn’t make it any less unpleasant,” Felix grumbles, tightening his hold on Claude’s waist.
“What do you mean? Isn’t it fun?”
“When we’re not upside down, maybe.”
That is all he will concede, even if being up in the sky together, far away from everyone else… Is kind of nice, sometimes…
20.
Claude likes to spend an hour reading every night when he can. Felix enjoys this quiet time even if he doesn’t read and instead does everything from polishing his swords to organizing Claude’s desk. Occasionally, like tonight, he writes a letter in response to Sylvain or Ingrid’s.
“Do you miss them?”
Even now Claude still asks this question when he spies Felix writing a letter. Felix frowns.
“No. It’s not like we could’ve spent our days together.”
“What do you mean? You could’ve married one of them.”
It always irritates Felix when Claude speaks like that. “I chose you,” he growls. “Now shut up and read.”
When Claude doesn’t go back to reading, Felix sighs and gets up from his chair. He sits down next to Claude and kisses Claude’s hair. Claude leans back into Felix and closes his eyes.
Felix strokes Claude’s hair. It’s stupid for Claude to still be jealous over an affection that Felix never had, as if Felix would have never chosen Claude if Dimitri hadn’t descended into madness.
Really, if anything, Claude is the one who can have anyone, and yet he chose someone like Felix. And, even undeserving, Felix will never give him up.
21.
When 9 PM rolls around, Claude puts down his books and goes into the bath once again. Well, Felix will drag him there if Claude forgets, being Claude’s very handsome keeper.
If Claude’s mind is in overdrive, he’ll talk while they are in the bath, while Felix massages Claude’s body. Felix rarely replies with words, but Claude knows he’s listening by the way he squeezes Claude’s body harder when Claude says something he doesn’t like. It’s never painful; for someone so strong, Felix is always aware of Claude’s limits. Yet at the same time, he never treats Claude like he’s fragile.
It’s hard to verbalize how this all makes Claude feel. To not be distrusted, feared, or pitied. To be cared for, understood, and supported. To be a human and not an agenda.
Instead of saying all that, Claude turns his face and searches for Felix’s mouth. He cups Felix’s face and kisses Felix firmly. Felix sometimes will apologize for not being a good communicator, but Claude has his communication issues too. This kiss is an apology, until Felix takes control and presses Claude against the tiles. Okay, if this is what Felix wants, Claude will give it, willingly, always.
22.
Dry, clean, and dressed in sleepwear, Felix and Claude are ready to go to bed. They should be asleep within minutes. However this often doesn’t happen without a little prodding from Felix’s end.
Claude has a habit of picking up a book or some papers, some so-called “light reading” to help him fall asleep. Felix is not fooled, not anymore. “Light reading” never means reading something for 5 minutes and then setting it aside. “Light reading” never translates into relaxing enough to go to bed.
So Felix acts stubborn. Claude has to at least be lying down on the bed before Felix will do the same. If Claude is staying up, Felix will stay up too, glare at Claude, mutter under his breath.
If it is truly something important, Felix obviously wouldn’t act like this. He would be actively helping Claude with his work. They’d stay up as long as necessary, and Felix would probably help by retrieving some snacks and coffee. But 99 out of 100 times Claude has completed what he needs to do in the other 16 hours of the day.
(Because Claude does amazing work, he has earned his sleep, and thus he should be sleeping.)
23.
If it rolls to 11 PM and Claude is still not asleep, Felix will actively threaten Claude. By now the night guard are well into the swing of their shifts, so Felix is just Claude’s husband.
“If you don’t go to sleep I’ll force you to,” he says to Claude. Then he brings out Claude’s sleeping potion. Even if Claude rarely engages in potion-making nowadays, Felix knows the stash is always ready for whenever it maybe needed. And because Felix has spent more hours than he can count keeping Claude’s room organized, of course he has found where Claude has hidden everything from intimate letters to secret poisons.
(Claude said, after they got married, that everything here is theirs to share. Felix took those words literally.)
“Oh? Have I been bad then?” Claude will say cheekily if he’s being playful or if he’s truly not sure he can fall asleep on his own. Felix by now is able to tell the difference, but he pretends he doesn’t for Claude’s sake. He manhandles Claude, pressing him up against the pillows. He pops open the vial, puts a little in his mouth, then kisses Claude with an open mouth.
“Good night, Claude.”
24.
Claude is sleeping. If he didn’t make it to a sleeping state on his own, Felix has helped him get there. It doesn’t hurt that Felix is a great body pillow.
Claude doesn’t dream much when he sleeps. He used to, though, dream about death by some stranger. Now he has no reason to reach for the dagger under the pillow when Felix will grab it first. Of course before Felix there’s the night guard who also wish for Claude to live, because Claude has not earned their loyalty with money but by truly giving them and their families a better life.
At Garreg Mach, Claude didn’t worry as much about assassinations as he did about getting every ounce of information he could about Fódlan before he would return to Almyra. So often he was awake past midnight, and sometimes he’d find fellow leader Dimitri also awake engaged in similar endeavors.
(It’s too bad such a sweet boy had such a tragic end…)
Claude doesn’t like to spend too much time thinking about past what-ifs. His present life is a miracle and the future looks bright.
(And he doesn’t like to think about the many ways he could have failed…)
1.
When 1 AM rolls around, Claude is still deep in sleep. The bit of sleeping potion is doing its job, or maybe it’s just a trick. Claude doesn’t bother to ruminate on this further; it’s better not to dismantle the one thing that gets him to sleep peacefully through the night when he starts overthinking.
Nowadays Claude really only sees the clock strike 1 AM when he’s celebrating the four yearly festivals: the spring, summer, autumn, and new year festivals. Even if the festivities will have officially ended by 1 AM, there is always “after time”. That’s the word Nader used to explain why his parents, his cousins, everyone would be basically unavailable while leaving in twos or threes for their rooms. It’s a euphemism for the intimate celebration that lovers engaged in after the public celebrations.
(Claude presumes he’s the result of one of those “after time” celebrations, based on his birthday.)
Claude doesn’t mind if everyone thinks he and Felix engage in some vigorous “after time”. Sometimes they do. But if Felix is too tired, sleeping in the same bed is more than enough. As long as he can hold Felix in his arms, that’s all Claude needs.
2.
Felix has only been awake at 2 AM during the war days.
If he’s dreaming at 2 AM, it’s often about those days. Sometimes it’s about the battlefield and the many soldiers he has slain, sometimes faceless, sometimes looking like his father, like Dimitri, like Edelgard. Sometimes it’s about everything else that happened during that time: eating with Sylvain and Ingrid in the dining hall, stopping at Claude’s door and checking for noise, barging inside and dragging Claude to bed…
Even before they became close, Felix just instinctively knew when Claude was staying up past 2 AM. Felix would sometimes even wake up in the middle of the night to drag Claude to bed. His reasoning was simple; if Claude, their leader, wasn’t sleeping properly, they’d all risk death by his stupid schemes. Until Sylvain informed Felix that Felix’s actions were signs of “feelings” and Felix decked him. (Because Sylvain was right.)
Even now Felix thinks it’s stupid that he fell in love during the middle of war. Even so, he doesn’t regret kissing Claude, and he definitely doesn’t regret that Claude kissed him back.
Love was probably the only good thing that came out of the war, after all.
3.
If Claude’s awake at 3 AM, he’s pulling an all-nighter. He hasn’t had to since the war, and even then he only did it once.
But before then, when he was young… He did it a few times just to know how it felt to be on his guard for a whole night. He then experimented with taking short naps throughout the night. He found he really should be sleeping at 3 AM; otherwise he’d be in the midst of a terrible dream, of phantom assassination attempts, sabotage to his wyvern, being tossed out with the daily garbage...
It’s also 3 AM when he dreams of Felix telling him he’s had his fill of Almyra and is heading back to Fódlan.
Claude overheard his mother talking to Felix once, apologizing to Felix for “making Claude this way”. Maybe it was supposed to be a reassurance, but for Claude it emphasized once more that he’s broken, messed up.
(That it’s easy for people to say they love him but harder to actually do so.)
He doesn’t really think Felix will leave at this point, 3 years into their marriage. It’s just some cursed 3 AM thoughts, right?
That’s why Claude sleeps.
4.
Felix is sometimes awake at 4 AM, though not so much recently.
If he is awake, he’s often thinking about an alternate life. He wonders what type of life he would be living without Claude, and it’s hard not to see himself as a mercenary heading towards an early grave. Maybe he’d be dead already.
Felix just knows he never could have stayed Duke Fraldarius to lord over people he didn’t really care about in a nation he didn’t really care about either. Felix has always found loyalty to individuals more than nations. Even being in Almyra for 5 years, he’s purely loyal to Claude. He likes that this doesn’t matter, that Claude has made it not matter. Claude made a place where Felix can be 100% himself.
To think he only came here because Claude offered his hand, asked him why not do something for himself? Told him he could just visit. Felix came out of curiosity. He had feelings too, but he didn’t understand it was love until later.
Still, he figured out love before Claude, even if Claude was the one who proposed. One day Claude will understand love. And Felix will still be at his side.
5.
It’s not 5 AM but rather half-past 5 that Felix truly gets up. If he’s awake before then, he’ll just close his eyes and breathe slowly, focusing on two things only: the warmth of the man holding him and the way the man sounds while sleeping, peacefully unaware that Felix is regarding him fondly.
Once again Felix finds his head lower than Claude’s on the pillow. It doesn’t make sense; if Felix is to protect Claude, then why is Claude more exposed? But this always happens, and if it’s because Claude is just that tiniest bit taller than Felix…
Felix grumbles. This is the man that Felix married and swore to protect, and he can’t even sleep in the right position.
He kisses Claude on the mouth softly before beginning the task of extricating himself from Claude’s embrace. He loves Claude but he also loves the feeling of swinging his sword in the morning, alone, in silence.
(Or because he loves Claude, he doesn’t want to miss this brief but important time to practice his sword.)
When it’s closer to 6 AM Felix will return to their room. He’ll wake Claude up and start another day.
Together, properly, with Claude.