Community Zine

This only seems to make him more upset.
“I wouldn’t be so easily overwhelmed by something like aff—something like romantic
sentiment.”
This is starting to feel confusingly personal. Dimitri isn’t sure where he slots into this
conversation anymore. He’s not entirely convinced, but he supposes there’s no way
they could figure out the actual source of Felix’s loss of control.
“I understand,” is all he can bring himself to say.
Felix nods, quick. He clasps his hands behind his back, turns back to the window.
Then pivots and glances off to the fireplace to the far end of the room. He scratches at
the side of his thumb with a fingernail.
This is an interesting sight. Felix is not the type to fidget. It’s one of the many tendencies
that they try to train out of noble children in their youth, and Felix trained
very well.
“Are you concerned about the other lords?” Dimitri asks.
Felix shakes his head. His fingernail digs in a little further.
“Felix?”
Felix seems to freeze up, considering something, before he acts all at once and very
quickly.
He grabs Dimitri by the sides of his arms and moves him, bodily, until they’re facing
each other. It takes Dimitri back to when they would practice grappling techniques,
back when they all sparred regularly with each other during their monastery days.
Indeed, there’s something to Felix’s face that makes it look like he’s squaring up for
something grievous.
“Oh. You really don’t need to push yourself if you don’t want to. You have nothing to
prove with me.”
“I know that.”
Felix’s ears are bright red, dark enough in color that Dimitri is convinced he’d be
able to feel the warmth if he reached over. Dimitri is feeling quite warm, himself.
The look in Felix’s eyes—of vague terror—confirms this.
“I’m going to kiss you,” Felix explains, “And then we’ll use that as proof to see if
what happened earlier is due to the affection.”
“Okay,” Dimitri says, because there isn’t much else to say to that.
This is new for them. They haven’t kissed as of yet. When Felix puts it like this, it
sounds very weighty of an event. Dimitri feels that he is still not entirely convinced
that this is happening. He wonders if it would be too obvious if he reached over to
pinch himself.
They stare at each other for a moment longer.
“You’re going to have to lean down,” Felix says, through grit teeth.
The implication of that statement, along with Felix’s less-than-amused expression,
makes Dimitri lean in a little too quickly. His forehead bumps against Felix’s just
hard enough that he feels a little bit of pain—but no shock.
Felix seems to realize this as well, which only makes his face darken even more.
“If this is actually it,” Dimitri hears him muttering, “If this is actually it...” Felix
glances back to him. From this very close distance, the gold of his eyes looks quite
stunning. “Close your eye.”
Dimitri obeys.
He’s pretty sure that he stops breathing, too, up until the moment that he feels something
very soft press against his lips.
He does manage to register, in the back corner of his mind, that there is no electric
shock this time. This realization is quite small and insignificant to him in the
moment, considering the massive, sweeping wave of affection that swells in his chest.
For that reason, it’s actually quite instinctual what he does next—turns his face just
slightly, kissing Felix back.
It’s like kissing a thunderbolt. He blacks out blissfully.
Dimitri isn’t sure how long it is until he wakes up from his stunned state. When he
comes to he finds himself sitting on the ground, staring off blankly in front of him,
his hand being held much too tightly by a very, very angry Felix next to him. The
first thing that Dimitri thinks, consciously, is that it’s quite cute that his ears are still
bright red.