Felix had been staring him down since Piers had walked through the door. The earth adept was sitting on the bed – whittling a lump of wood into gods knew what. The point was, Piers hated when Felix carved on the bed. While Felix's projects would doubtlessly result in amusing and artful trinkets, the residual wood shavings detracted from the comfort of their otherwise soft sheets, and they were impossible to get rid of. Piers didn't know how it never bothered Felix when weeks later they would still be laying in a bed tainted by splinters, but it never did; it made only Piers writhe in restless agitation. As such, it was Felix's prime method of provoking him into a fight. Between ruining their pleasant nesting and the vitriolic air Felix was exuding, it was apparent the man was pissed. Not that he would ever verbally express it – he would just sulk and make life difficult until Piers properly assessed the issue and remedied it. This time though, Piers didn't need to assess the issue, he knew full well what it was, he was just doubtful that he could actually fix it.

Piers opened his mouth to say something, but realised he needed to spend more time considering how to approach this battle, so shut it again and tried to think tactics. Felix raised an eyebrow at this and made a pointed flick of his knife as a sliver of wood rolled to join its brethren on Piers' side of the bed.

"Ah-" Piers cut himself off, again. He hoped that maybe his attempt at speech would assuage Felix, but judging by the look Felix gave him before he turned back to his material, it seemed that he'd not been appeased. "You know I— we didn't exactly have a choice."
Felix steadied his hand and eyed Piers, imploring further explanation. Not that he appeared willing to accept whatever excuse Piers could offer anyway.

"Well, you see, what exactly could I say; 'fuck off, there's no way I'm letting her on my boat'?" Felix blinked. In his opinion, Piers very well should have said that. "Okay fine, I know you would have, or maybe just not said anything and left without her, but I mean, what else could I do? Kraden's off cooing to me about how lovely and sweet it is that we're in love-" Felix's gaze shifted from scepticism to acid and Piers concluded he would downplay that detail in future. "But like, she's Mia's daughter, and Kraden's about to go on some perilous mission or something and I don't know. We're the safest fosters."

"Why is it 'we'?"

Piers really loved Felix's voice, it was a shame he probably wouldn't have the pleasure of hearing it much for the next few days unless it was employed to say something deliberately bitchy. Felix would probably refer to his angst with a less effeminate term, but in all honesty, Felix was bitchy.

"It's 'we' because everything's 'we'." Felix raised his eyebrows. "You know it. I mean, we live together – sort of, you know, we sail around together – we eat together, we travel together, we sleep together and now we have to deal with her together."

"'We' didn't adopt her."

Piers felt he really should have laid his last statement out with more tact. He'd described it so that him and Nowell seemed conspiratorial even to himself. It wasn't that personally Piers minded the girl, despite her presence being more effort than he was accustomed to, but looking at the situation from Felix's perspective, he could easily acknowledge the sheer gravity of this offense. Essentially; Piers had gone and invited some hussy to get involved in a life they both very much wanted to keep their own; and without any prior consultation to top it off. Felix shook his head and shrugged as if to coax out a more valid defence, because so far he wasn't too impressed by Piers's justification.

"Okay, I know. It was stupid, and I promise I will grovel at your feet for the next decade, but Kraden's gone, and I couldn't very well tell him I had to pop back to the ship to ask you if it was alright, so we've got her. I really am sorry but she's sleeping now and I really don't want you to hate me for the remainder of our lives."

Felix sighed and rolled his eyes, but made a disengaged attempt to brush the wood shavings off the bed. It wasn't particularly fruitful, but Piers knew it was more the sentiment of the gesture than the productivity.

"Only a decade?" Felix muttered. While it seemed humorous, it was probably just as much a joke as a demand for Piers to extend the grovelling period. It was a good sign that Felix was speaking at all though.

"Fine, I'll beg your forgiveness eternally." Piers made a foolhardy move and invaded the six feet of personal space Felix had made for himself. Considering the knife in Felix's hand was still in his palm and not lodged in the wall or Piers's head, he deemed the outcome successful. It was with caution that Piers proceeded and dared to sit next to Felix, but aside from the brunet shuffling a couple inches away, Piers wasn't actively punished for his boldness.

"Look, really, I am sorry. I just didn't really know what else to do on the spur of the moment, and you know how Kraden gets."

Felix gave an unwilling but affirmative nod – it seemed that senior citizens were all under the impression they had the right to be unyieldingly obtuse simply because they'd accumulated more years than the meagre youths, and Kraden was certainly no exception to this stereotype. Fortunately, it didn't seem as though Piers had embraced that mentality yet. Felix concluded he would have to die if the other man decided to emulate Kraden's persona.

"On a happy note, Kraden's gone."

Finding light in unpleasant situations wasn't something Felix took kindly to. Piers reprimanded himself for attempting to articulate the optimistic twist and not, as Felix had once described, 'respecting his lover's need to grieve.' The man could be quite the prima donna when he chose to voice it.

"Without his student. That doesn't count as happy."

Reasoning with Felix wasn't the appropriate route to forgiveness.

"I could make it up to you?"

"No."

Piers was faintly taken aback by the fortitude of the rejection – Felix had even bothered to make a verbal statement to enhance the effect of his reclusive body language – but couldn't say he was entirely shocked. Felix was consistently resilient to sex when he was annoyed; whether that was in some effort to deny Piers pleasure or a simple lack in libido, Piers still couldn't say. But it was still upsetting Piers never got any passionately angry fucks.

"Okay, so I could make it up to you without touching you… making you food?"

"No."

Piers couldn't understand why he'd suggested that. He was a notoriously unskilled cook. He quite liked the food he made, but it seemed no one else shared his appreciation for his personalised Lemurian cuisine.

"Anything at all that wouldn't piss you off?" Piers sighed and lay back where he sat, expecting either no response or a snide one.

"Kick her out." It was amusing but similarly agitating how Felix could suggest that without a hint of irony.

"That's not an option now…" Piers stated apologetically. Felix glowered. "Sorry."

"You should be."

"I know, I know." Piers sat up to shrug his shoulders in exasperation. "What am I meant to do now though? I fucked up, I get it. Of all things, the last thing we need right now is Nowell nipping at our heels, but at least metaphorically, I got us stuck with just that. And we can't throw her overboard, Mia wi-"

"Why not? We're still docked."

"Mia" Piers repeated with emphasis, "Will kill me. Mercilessly. And I don't know about you, but that sounds bad."

Felix laid the wood and his whittling knife on the blankets, looking at Piers with a trace of pity. He quickly righted that – Piers had yet to prove himself worthy of Felix's pity again.

"Is she expecting you'll sleep with her?"

Piers knew what Felix meant, but bothered clarifying regardless. "Does Mia expect me to sleep with her? I doubt it."

The quip was about as well-received as the rest of Piers's apology.

"Does Nowell want to pin me to the mattress?"

Felix scowled but nodded.

"Probably, but, if it's any reassurance, she's not going to."

"I don't care for Mia's wrath if she does. She will be going overboard." The statement was delivered with such solemnity that Piers couldn't help but chuckle.

"I'm not joking. I can't, so you go tell her."

"Oh..."

Felix had realised Piers had been temporarily oblivious to this fault in the arrangement earlier in their conversation, but he was pleased that Piers was at least aware enough to understand now. Regardless, he put on a dismayed mask as if this oversight was a novel revelation to him.

The fact of the matter was that while Piers navigated the oceans, mapping unexplored heights, unravelling the mysteries of Weyard's Golden Age and relaying his invaluable findings to any citizens intrigued enough to listen, Felix navigated the oceans, avoiding all of the people who knew him as a celebrity he didn't want to be. He hadn't stayed on Piers's ship for three decades under some fallacy that it was the only place he could fade out – he could have easily found some minute island somewhere and the be free from seasickness' claws – but aside from maintaining his relationship with the Lemurian, Felix aspired to become a hermit. Piers was Felix's exception rather than rule, and he wasn't keen on revealing his continued existence to anyone but Piers. Unfortunately, this unwelcome addition to their crew meant Felix would need to make another exception, one he had no desire to make.

"We could tell her you're a deckhand?"

"Every person in Weyard knows the 'Warriors of Vale' by name." Felix didn't bother to disguise his contempt for the title.

"So? People have been calling their kids after us for years. I mean not everyone – a lot of people still dislike us – but it's believable I'd have a deckhand named Felix. I mean, there's more than one Felix in the world these days."

"Your deckhand, the Earth Adept called Felix who matches the description of the 'Warrior of Vale' who's been absent the last thirty years. You're right. I don't think she'll make the connection."

"Okay, I agree, that might be a bit more obvious than I'd hoped… Um… Maybe if we just tell her the truth…?" The spike in Piers's pitch as he suggested this indicated he didn't think it any better a plan than Felix did.

"The man you're in love with is actually with another man. Your mum and all her friends have been looking for this man for thirty years. There's no way a spurned teenager would use that to her advantage. I agree, let's do that."

Piers was debating whether or not it was a positive that Felix had reverted to using complete sentences. While he found the sarcasm quite amusing, it was simultaneously derogatory and unhelpful.

"Fine. What do you suggest?"

"Throw her overboard."

"We've already established that's not happening."

Felix turned to look directly at Piers, his expression betraying little but disdain. Piers really hoped it was for the situation rather than him. Forcing his rationality to the forefront of his mind though, Piers knew it would be uncharacteristically petty for Felix to leave him over a single error, even one so dire as this.

"Felix, we'll figure something out. Please stop being so nervous. We'll get through this." An eyebrow was quirked as if to ask 'why'; as Felix saw it, there was much to be nervous about. "We sailed the world alone with Jenna and Sheba for a year, right?"

"And I haven't let either know I'm alive in thirty. Piers, whatever you say, this won't end well."

"I-"

"And it will be your fault."

Felix hadn't meant to sound so condemning, and both he and Piers were aware of that. The knowledge was somewhat irrelevant; Piers still stared at the ceiling and Felix still felt immeasurably cruel.

"Sorry, but I don't like this."

"I know, Felix." Piers threw his hands up and raised his voice. "I can't do anything about it though. Believe me, I would. I would do anything for you, and you know it. But I got myself stuck this time, and unfortunately you're in for the ride." He tugged at a clump of his hair and matched Felix's scowl.

Felix shuffled over to lean his head on Piers's shoulder during the ensuing silence. It was as consoling as Felix could be at that moment, so as small a gesture as it was, it was appreciated.

"How about this," Piers began after a while. Felix lifted his head to hear out the proposal. "I tell her that if she wants to stay on the ship, she has to keep a secret about something. But I don't specify what it is, and because she wants to be on the boat, and I'll try and be convincing, she'll probably say yes then… I'm not sure… You leap out from behind the barrels?" That last part hadn't been very well thought out and Felix stared in scepticism.

"Because I'm so prone to leaping."

The image of Felix prancing into his line of sight with a 'ta-dah' was not one Piers could envision with a straight face. "Possibly not. Aside from the leaping though, what do you think?"

"I still think she should go fuck off." Felix grumbled, but acquiesced. "If we can't get rid of her though…"

"Unfortunately not."

"I suppose then…"

Felix sighed and lay his head back on Piers's shoulder. The Lemurian automatically brought his hand up to stroke the Felix's hair, having resisted the urge to do so earlier.

"I can't believe what a fucking mess we're in."

Even though he knew Felix would fuss if he mentioned it, Piers did smile at that. Whether conscious of it or not, Felix had referred to them as 'we'.

AN: So I played and finished Dark Dawn around Christmas, and wrote a really sloppy draft of this around then, but then of course only got around to properly writing it now.

So this was a massive issue I had with Dark Dawn: What the fuck? Piers got with Mia's fucking daughter? (That was four exclamation marks there - that's how seriously concerned that made me.) In my opinion, that obviously did not happen, as probably indicated by my having written this, but dude. It's not even necessarily the age gap, because him and Felix have that too - it's the 'you do not hook up with the child of your friend' thing.

So yeah, considering it's so bleedingly apparent from Dark Dawn that Nowell's just being silly and invading Piers's and Felix's love nest (yes I just used that term) I think it's also bleedingly apparent that Felix would not be too psyched about it and that Piers and Nowell are not fucking, because man, that's just creepy.