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After the Empire toppled, the former members of the Blue Lions class had all agreed to stay in Fhirdiad for a while to support one another and assist with the restoration efforts. Gilbert and Dimitri have secured accommodations in the castle for each one of them, but Felix can’t remember the last time he’d slept in his own room. Towards the beginning Dimitri had told him there was no need for him to leave — “feel free to stay here for the night,” in that sincere cadence of his — and that first night turned into several nights, then several weeks of nights. Now Felix routinely sleeps beside Dimitri under the silken sheets of his massive bed, as though he himself is the second king.
For that matter, he’d sleep beside Dimitri even if they were lying on hay bales in the corner of a barn. Felix had spent too many restless years having accepted his best friend was dead to let Dimitri out of his sight to self-destruct again. He must protect the king in any way he can to make up for that lost time, even if that means allowing the restless man to cling to him in sleep with his fits of nightmares.
It’s the end of the day again, and Dimitri has stopped telling Felix that he's free to stay, because he stays regardless. They both meticulously remove their respective armor, a slow and deliberate process they both take pride in as a matter of routine more than anything else; and as usual Felix showers first, because Dimitri offers the shower to him first, and Felix is always too tired after a day of training or policy debate to argue about politeness. He has dried and brushed his hair to the best of his ability and is in the midst of stepping into his sleep clothes when Dimitri emerges from the bathroom in a towel, lines of water glistening across the rivets of scars on his skin and hair completely unkempt.
“Your hair is going to knot permanently if you don’t take care of it,” Felix says idly. “Don’t you even brush it when you get out of the shower? It looks so… ratty. Ugh.” He’s never considered himself a particularly vain person, but there’s a big difference between pinning one’s hair up every day to look decent and doing less than nothing.
“Oh, um…” It’s clear Dimitri is taken aback by the comment, and Felix realizes the thought hadn’t once crossed his mind. Actually, he’s not even sure he’s seen Dimitri look in the mirror once since the two of them began… cohabiting.
Dimitri hastily runs his hands through his hair, wincing when his inept fingers snag at the tips, and Felix decides right then and there that he can’t take looking at this incompetence any longer. “Let me deal with it,” he demands, standing up and draping his own towel around his shoulders. “The back looks absolutely dreadful, and it’s already drying like that. What kind of pitiful king greets his subjects looking like a mop?”
“Deal with it?” Dimitri echoes, looking startled like a child about to run away from a bath. “Y-you mean… cut it?”
Felix shakes his head. “No, I have no idea how to do that without fucking it up more. I meant brush it out for you. Actually, maybe wash it again first. It’ll probably hurt less to get those knots out if it’s wet — what are you looking at, stupid boar?”
Dimitri’s lips are twitching as though holding a smile back. “I did not know you had it in you to… fuss so much.”
“Fuss?!” No, no — he is absolutely not fussing. Fussing is for nagging mothers and overbearing girlfriends and grandfathers that squeeze your cheeks at family reunions. Not Felix Hugo Fraldarius, calm and collected swordsman (who also happens to be blushing indignantly right now). “I just can’t stand to look at such neglect. It makes me sick.”
“Sure,” Dimitri says, and it’s obvious he doesn’t buy the fake excuse at all. Mercifully, he lets the matter drop. “Where should I, uh, go for this?”
“Bath,” Felix says curtly, pointing in the direction of the door from which Dimitri had just emerged. Dimitri just stands there, unhelpfully still, and with a heavy sigh Felix steps forward and places both his palms on Dimitri’s bare back, shoving him towards the door. “Let’s get this over with.”
As Dimitri stumbles forward to situate himself on the side of the bath, still a bit stunned, Felix rummages through drawers until he finds a hairbrush with almost no hair amidst the bristles; it appears to rarely have ever been used. “ Please tell me you at least washed it.”
“With shampoo?” Dimitri asks, which inspires no confidence in Felix at all. “Er… I honestly cannot remember. I think I do, usually, but… sometimes, my mind just — ”
“Don’t finish that thought. I get it.” Hearing that makes Felix more sad than angry, and he presses his lips into a thin line. There’s a stepstool on the other side of the bathroom which he carries over to situate beside the bath and sits beside Dimitri. “Lean your head back.” Dimitri complies without another word, and Felix turns on the faucet, carefully positioning Dimitri’s head so that the water runs down his matted locks and not his face and chin. “You need to — to take better care of yourself,” Felix mumbles with less bite to it than he’d hoped. “This really is hard to look at.”
“I know,” Dimitri says. “I’m sorry.”
Scoffing, Felix slicks his fingers with a dollop of shampoo and then runs them through Dimitri’s hair, the texture of which is as stiff and strawlike as he feared. With the tips of his fingernails he begins massaging Dimitri’s scalp, and it hits him that this entire ordeal is unbearably domestic. I’m supposed to hate this kind of thing, Felix reminds himself halfheartedly, but Dimitri is supposed to be dead, and Glenn is supposed to be alive, so supposing isn’t very accurate these days.
The tension melts from Dimitri’s shoulders, and he sighs audibly. “That feels heavenly,” he murmurs. “Your hands are so gentle.”
Does Dimitri understand it’s nigh impossible to respond to such sincerity with any dignity? An ugly sound leaves Felix’s throat, which he tries to cover up with a cough — which of course doesn’t work, since he hears Dimitri laugh after. “G-good,” he chokes out, subsequently humiliated by his own tepid response. “I mean, I’m not doing it to make you feel good. I’m doing it to — to — oh, just shut up.”
“I stopped talking a minute ago,” Dimitri teases. It’s an extremely benign tease, too; yet it’s enough to make Felix’s stomach squirm.
With a huff, Felix continues to run the shampoo from Dimitri’s scalp to the tips of his hair, satisfied as he watches the knots slowly loosen. Once he’s done and has rinsed out the rest, he uses his other hand, his dominant hand that’s usually gripping the hilt of a sword on the battlefield, to pick up the handle of the hairbrush and tentatively run it through those golden locks. Immediately he hits a snag and Dimitri winces, but he pulls through anyway, snapping a few strands of the other’s hair in the process. It gets easier with each stroke, Dimitri’s hair softening and reverting to something presentable.
He’s no expert when it comes to hair, but it is a bit worrisome that Dimitri had neglected his own so much. Felix thinks he had better keep tabs on that from now on, not just Dimitri’s hair but how well he’s taking care of the rest of himself. Without a bit of nudging in the proper direction, Dimitri may slip back into an unreachable place, and the thought is too much to bear.
Dimitri touches his own hair then, a surprised noise emitting from his throat. “That feels a lot different. Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Of course I didn’t.” It annoys him for some reason to be told what he already knows.
“You know, Felix,” Dimitri says, and something in his voice makes Felix brace himself. “Your attentiveness lately, to me. It is actually…” He turns to face Felix halfway, a smooth lock of hair falling across his forehead. “Quite cute.”
“Hrrnnhh?” The noise of mortified shock that escapes is an inhuman one as a feverish flush blossoms from his neck to his ears. There’s still a barrier in Felix’s mind that prevents his mouth from forming the return words you are the cute one ; but the barrier begins to crack dangerously, and he shoves the overflowing sentiments back in hurriedly before the dam bursts. “There’s nothing cute about me having to wash your hair,” he hisses, and the words come out thick and stilted. “It’s sad and pathetic. Get ahold of yourself.”
“There are simple things I cannot always seem to do on my own,” Dimitri says quietly. “Things I cannot remember. As shameful as it is to admit it, I went years without so much as a shower, or even a glance at my own appearance. I grew detached from myself. Sometimes I still cannot recognize the reflection I see.”
Felix swallows heavily, unable to muster a response.
“You more than anyone see me for who I am,” Dimitri continues, and now he’s blushing too — which does wonders for Felix's already severe emotional crisis. “Even the bad parts. Especially the bad parts. No matter what, you always confront me when I stray. You do not look away from the things I have done… and yet you are still here. Words cannot express my gratitude.”
Then how and why are you still talking?! “I only washed your hair,” Felix says, utterly disgruntled. “Stop talking about me like some kind of savior. It’s gross.”
“You are better than a savior,” Dimitri says. “You are just… yourself.”
The man has no shame, Felix thinks, but he suddenly feels so faint at Dimitri’s words. Deep down, as much as it pains him, he’s always yearned for Dimitri to praise him in such a manner, even when they were children. ...No, it’s not deep down at all — it’s right there on the surface, and Felix is ashamed that after so many years of training and constantly working to surpass his own strength, he’s still fundamentally the same sap whose blade loses its purpose and direction without the boar to protect.
He yanks Dimitri’s hair, hard. The man doesn’t even flinch. “Take care of yourself,” Felix commands. “I won’t always be around to help you with such menial things.”
“Is — is that so? I was actually, ah… hoping you would be.”
Oh.
Just say something rude, anything, Felix begs himself, but he’s not angry, just confused and honestly a bit afraid. “Dimitri, I, uh — ” His gaze falls again on the hairbrush, the strands of Dimitri’s hair curled around the bristles — and while his mind goes blank his hand also slackens, the brush falling to the floor with a clatter. “I’m done,” he says in a miserable whisper. He can’t even bend down to pick up what he dropped, limbs frozen in place.
Dimitri stands, clutching the towel around his waist. “I am going to get dressed,” he mumbles, expression pained and movements halted. “I apologize for —”
“Don’t.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t apologize.” Still Felix stares at the floor. “I’ll — I’ll be here.”
Dimitri leaves the bathroom a bit too quickly, and Felix wraps his arms around his knees, squinting as his heartbeat continues to escalate dangerously.
And all the while, the words always around echo through his head, stretching out a new path before him, now visible after so many years obscured by the fog.