Chapter Text
Dedue’s eyes, stony and cool as pale jade, cut through the haze like a beacon. Dimitri, forced to move as if through a dust-storm, couldn’t quite pull his gaze away. The days had ground on into weeks, the weeks approaching a moon now -- and so, time’s wheels had crushed into dust the mad, magical thought that Dimitri would turn the corner and everyone would be alive. The hallways of the castle were thick with the fine powder that, hovering in the air, dispersed the light into a million little motes. The hope still crept back in at times, crueler than ever, but mostly it had died, leaving him hungry for another thought, another hope, another way to pull himself forward after the tragedy. But because he could see the eyes of the boy he’d saved that day in Duscur -- after the attack, before anything but the monstrous vengeance of soldiers, during blood and fire still burning under Dimitri’s scarred skin -- that was at least something to watch over. And he needed to.
How like a mountain, those squared-off features! A cliffside, stony and impassive, looming up somewhere well beyond Dimitri’s head. Dedue had feelings, whatever that placid face he wore now proclaimed -- these few weeks had been too intense. They’d shown glimpses of a heart holding itself desperately together. Dedue had cried with him and apart from him. Dedue had reached for him like a lifeline, with eyes full of fear. Dedue’s shoulders had softened with relief when Dimitri suggested that Dedue might be able to secure a place with him by entering his service -- informally agreed to, a few days out from all the ritual that would make it legal, indisputable fact.
But when those moments passed, Dedue’s thoughts became locked behind that face. Now, as they walked down the hallway in one of the castle’s upper floors, it might as well have been a sculpture in brown marble. There wasn’t an absence, Dimitri was sure of it: his eyes stared with a pain Dimitri understood too well. They had both lost everything. No, Dedue had lost far more. But what Dedue wanted in repayment for that, really wanted, Dimitri couldn’t see. If he had anxiety or trepidation of what they were planning, DImitri couldn’t see. If Dedue was really only here out of some false obligation or survival instinct, some basic need for a place to live and food on his table that would have taken anything, Dimitri couldn’t see.
Dedue cleared his throat. He’d come to a stop behind the lagging, shaking steps of the prince. Dimitri’s efforts to guide him to a particular set of rooms had run afoul of Dimitri’s peering, his searching, up at the gangly young boy behind him.
“Are you tired?” He leaned down slightly, bringing the face Dimitri had been staring at for the last two corridors close enough that Dimitri could spot its dark shadows and see in Dedue’s eyes his own reflection.
It didn’t look much like him anymore, Dimitri thought. The weeks following the tragedy had drawn his skin more snugly to his bones, burning away some of his childhood softness. It didn’t belong to a man, not by a long shot -- but nor was it the face of a sweet young maiden, as someone had once called him. It was too hollow, too sunken, too shadowed. I’m a corpse now. Maybe I didn’t survive after all. The thought bobbled around, unbidden and tinged with regret that soothed and relief that pricked his heart in a delirious blur of feelings.
“...I must be,” Dimitri said hopefully. Recovery was frustratingly slow going; It was true that he wasn’t always sure his legs would hold him and his head hurt from bad sleep. His injuries -- from a mix of fire and blades and being knocked around the center of violent chaos where coaches had been knocked onto their sides and horses had gone wild -- had been so severe that for some time he was mostly bound to his bed (time had come unspooled. His sleep was shallow, fitful, occasionally medically-induced; poor punctuation on his days and nights that only served to muddle moments into paste). He’d gotten out for his father’s funeral, but that had been about it until the last few days, where he’d been allowed to walk around some. He couldn’t nearly call himself fully healed. He shifted the sling that carried his broken left arm in its splint and wax plaster, causing spots in his vision to rise up with the fresh pain. Bad. OK. Bad. His knees agreed, quavering under him as he took a step -- or tried; the step somehow didn’t align, his foot hitting the ground far later, far further ahead, far more shallowly than expected. He didn’t fall, but slipped and sank, shaky as a baby deer. Dedue’s arms reached out for him, but he’d leant against the wall first.
“We can stop. It is not important,” Dedue decided after watching the wobbly prince.
“Dedue, you cannot be serious. It’s important that you have a room; you cannot just keep sleeping in whatever space is available.” Dimitri was really hoping that Dedue’s expression would show a hint, just a trace, of humor. He actually had no idea what humor looked like on him. But he wouldn’t be learning now. If anything -- maybe concern, in the little furrow of Dedue’s silver-white brows? His mouth hadn’t changed at all, his eyes perfectly grave.
Dedue had come back with him from Duscur -- which, now, nearly a whole moon later, made Dimitri feel guilty. He hadn’t been thinking straight -- all that had been in mind was that if Dedue vanished from his sight, he had failed; Dedue was dead; he was alone. He’d clung to Dedue, the idea of Dedue, as tightly as he could. And Dedue had seemed to do the same, seemed to share that fraction of understanding of what had happened to them both, seemed to want to go with him and out of the madness and bloodshed that had been his home. So it hadn’t even occurred to Dimitri to think it selfish at the time. How shameful; while he was bedbound, with his uncle in charge, with -- with things being as they seemed to be now, there’d been so little he could do to provide for the boy he’d dragged across a country. Dimitri could ensure he was allowed to stay, but not keep a watchful eye on where he stayed, or how people treated him. He’d heard snippets, seen traces in bruises and exhaustion. He didn’t like them.
But! Things were different now! Surely, right? They had to be.
“The room is still ready. I can wait to see it.”
Dimitri righted himself, letting out a breath he hadn’t been aware he’d held in him.
“I can rest later, after I’ve shown you there. Really. It won’t be too hard,” Dimitri insisted. Dedue’s brow tightened, and he stooped down close again. Dedue was cruelly a tall for only being a year older, a figure of shoulders and elbows and great stretches of long bone, held up on a large, unfilled frame. He was taller than most grown men Dimitri knew -- taller than Gustave, taller than Rodrigue, taller than his father. Dimitri was still called cute and doll-like by people, and it just wasn’t fair. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t change that. It was as if no amount of strength or skill would make people stop calling him cute until he grew taller. ...But then, what did it really matter anymore? Even that indignation rattled around in his chest without hitting any real feeling. Dedue offered the prince his arm.
“Then please, let me help.” It wasn’t until Dimitri accepted the arm, leaning against Dedue’s left side, that Dedue’s brow unfurrowed, and Dimitri himself felt a little wave of relief. They set back off again, coming before one finely-carved oak door in particular. It wouldn’t have been distinguishable from any other in the wing, save in its exact location.
“Ah, I’m sorry… “ Dimitri bit down the waves of apologies that crowded on his tongue. There was so much he ought to say, and could never say. Not to the living. “You’ve followed where we are right now, right? In relation to other places in the castle, I mean.”
“Hmmm…” Dedue closed his eyes and considered it. They were two turns from the staircase that ran through the wings of the castle’s personal quarters, where the windows shed beams of bright afternoon light from the west into the rooms. The first floor was for more common servants that kept the castle running, near to their work. The third, where they were, was for slightly more rarified staff -- the chief butler, the head maid, the Sensechal, and key members of the king’s personal guard -- it was an incredibly dizzying experience, Dimitri had found, walking through these halls and finding them so empty. Many residents of this floor had been ground away into nothing, too burnt to even bury. But the second, directly below… “...It is similar to the way to your rooms from the same stairs.” Dimitri nodded.
“Excellent. This room is directly above mine. It’s meant for my chief retainer.” Dimitri had asked a few maids to clean it up the day before, after Dedue had agreed that he would enter Dimitri’s service-- and thus, earned a right to this room. It had belonged to Dimitri’s nurse, when he was younger, and most people would have assumed its next occupant would be Felix. But now, that would never happen, not for the future Duke Fraldarius (even Glenn had had a separate suite of rooms that fit his station even when acting as a knight). And so it was free for Dedue. A mixed feeling rose up in Dimitri’s heart as he removed his hand from Dedue’s arm to retrieve a roll of blue velvet from his belt-pouch.
“I can’t accept this.” Dedue’s eyes widened as they flicked across the velvet roll, Dimitri, the door. He didn’t sound mad, but when he settled on Dimitri, he wound tense, shoulders squaring so tightly they tugged at Dimitri’s heart.
“Oh.” Oh. Oh . His thoughts skipped briefly. This was Dedue working up the nerve, wasn’t it? He really wasn’t comfortable. Maybe he’d rather be somewhere else -- he almost certainly wanted to be doing something else. He needed something else. Of course he did. Oh. Dimitri’s cheeks went first pink, then flushed so red the color reached his ears. How embarrassing.
“Ah. I see. I… I apologize, Dedue. Of course, I understand. I don’t want to force you to do something you weren’t comfortable with only out of need or some whim of mine,” Dimitri’s mouth went on more or less without him.. He was disappointed. He was mortified. And in a way deeper than his wobbly steps, his aching back, his sleepless headache -- a hollow exhaustion rang through him like he was a bell being struck. “I won’t be mad about having to change plans; I’m sure we can think of, well, something for you, please, don’t worry.”
“...Dimitri…” Dedue’s face went momentarily into a state slightly too neutral for Dimitri to grasp, not while Dimitri was trying to hold on in spite of the blow. “...Did I do something so wrong?”
“Huh?”
The face resolved itself into worried brows, an anxious tightness to his eyes. A hurt.
“I am...unfamiliar with such things. But if there is something for you to be mad about...”
What? Huh? What? Dimitri’s brain sputtered out against the seemingly mutual confusion. He had to stop himself from squeezing the roll of velvet, or its contents would be useless. Instead he leaned against Dedue, body going slack.
“...Dedue, what do you mean?” “Please, could you explain?” They asked each other in near-unison. Dimitri’s head drooped forward as he sighed.
“...I think. I may have gotten -- well, a little carried away.” That stung to say “What I mean to ask is, what are you refusing? No, is this truly what you wish to do with your future? To serve me and stay here in that way? It might be hard, you know. I don’t want to limit you, but I don’t know if I am, and I know that there’s... a lot of convenience in simply going along with what I say. But I want to ensure you that you don’t have to. I’ll do whatever I can for you, regardless.”
Dedue nearly took a step back, but caught himself before he could pull Dimitri along. Instead, he reared higher a little, the motion hanging incomplete and silent in the air while he eyed Dimitri.
“If you tell me this is how I might freely stand by your side and be of use to you, protect you as you protected me, then it is enough.” Dedue’s answer contained such certainty that it might have slathered itself over Dimitri’s injuries like a balm. “That is what I have to do… What I want to do. I’m sorry if I made you think otherwise.”
“...I’m glad,” Dimitri sheepishly admitted. He couldn’t put words to the relief that he felt, the sense of spinning whirlpools suddenly smoothing out into calm waters. He could keep knowing Dedue was alive. He didn’t have to keep falling. “I apologize for the confusion… But what’s wrong with this room, if that’s what you’re refusing?”
Dedue averted his eyes. Was that a tinge of color on his cheeks, or a trick of the lamplight?
“I am... “ He paused, trying to parse the sentiment. “Not the person for such an honor.”
“How so?”
“To be called chief among your men is…” Dedue couldn’t quite finish, only moved a hand vaguely, as if the gesture could sweep up all the things that made it beyond him. There was only air there.
“It’s what you will be, Dedue.” Dimitri’s surprise melted before he could speak -- and when his voice trembled with the change of mood, in its awkward, half-changed state, it cracked a little. Because -- no matter how you looked at it -- “You’re the only one left.”
It burnt in his throat; the words smashed the world into fragments. But he had to. Everything was just a cloud of dust, a rolling fog. If he shut his eyes, it was gone. His breath caught itself higher and higher in his throat, jumping up it bit by bit like it was escaping him.
“Dimitri...” Dedue’s voice was very low and rumbling. A hand hovered, its warmth radiant, over his shoulder. Then, a butterfly’s lightness -- it rested there.
“It’s nothing.” Dimitri blinked until he could see properly again.”I’m fine. What I mean is… It is the right room. It would be very nice to have you here, besides, and you deserve good quarters, you know.”
Dedue removed the hand from Dimitri’s shoulder quickly, and instead holding it out to accept the item in Dimitri’s hand.
“Thank you. I am sorry to have upset you,” Dedue said, earnestly. Dimitri unrolled the velvet onto Dedue’s outsized hands, covering calluses with a deep blue field. And at the heart of that roll were two keys on an iron ring, one slightly larger than the other, carefully polished.
“The larger one is the key to the rooms; the smaller is for the passageway.” Dimitri pushed on without acknowledging that apology -- Dedue had nothing to apologize for, so keeping that topic alive would only make it hurt more.
“Passageway?” Dedue took the larger key as instructed and turned it in the lock at Dimitri’s nod.
“Yes. Well, I suppose it would be easier to show you.”
On the other side of the threshold was a large room, its walls panelled in a rich spruce wood and green plaster over the stone walls, which showed their true shapes around the curtained-off windows. Someone had lit a few oil lamps on the walls, and so they didn’t step into the darkness, but into puddles of lamplight that only lacked the glow of the fireplace’s fire. A broad green and brown rug covered the floor between the doorway and the 4-poster bed, keeping one away from the cold stone below.
Dedue stepped warily into the center of the room. He gently touched the chest at the foot of the bed, running his hands over deer and bears carved into the wood. He turned to spot the fireplace, the end tables, the shelves on the walls, the tall and heavy wardrobe.
As he circled, Dimitri lowered himself into one of the chairs by the fireplace, resting as he’d promised, and focused himself on Dedue’s expression. Eyes wide. Mouth tense, but as it tended to be. The suspense of that expression seemed unbearable until Dimitri cleared his throat.
“It’s a little bare, I suppose. Though it wouldn’t be difficult to fill it up to make it more comfortable…” Dimitri paused, trying to figure out what Dedue might want in a room. While this wasn’t lacking in any basic furnishings, it had nothing like personal effects. Dedue hadn’t been able to bring anything besides what he was wearing, and much of that was so burnt or damaged that it would be unlikely he could wear them again in anything like their original form. Dimitri didn’t know what had happened to them, only that he’d asked Gustave to please help, and Dedue had been wearing other borrowed clothes since. All that remained dangled from one ear, swaying as Dedue’s head moved. And Dimitri had no idea what could even hope to (not replace Dedue’s home, he wouldn’t insult either of them that way) help. Dedue had turned to look at him, and so -- “Weapons, perhaps?”
Wait, not everyone was interested in collecting weapons, even though they were so obviously interesting. It was important to respect other people’s preferences, after all. And Dimitri had always had more fun doing things than owning things outside of beautiful and interesting weapons, so now he wasn’t entirely sure what would suit.
“That...Please, do not worry about that.” Dedue came to stand by Dimitri’s chair. His mouth relaxed just a fraction, at last. “This is a wonderful room. I do not need much.”
“It wouldn’t hurt you to think of something,” Whether he’d wanted it or not, he’d felt something in him untense at that answer. He could have melted into the chair, he was so tired. “A few books, perhaps? They’d go on the shelves nicely, and, well, the castle has a wonderful library!”
Dedue’s cool eyes flicked away, taking the turn of his head with them, dipping down.
“...Ah. That would… Not be helpful.” Dedue shuffled awkwardly in place. “Reading is... not taught in Duscur often. I never learned.”
“Ah. I’m sorry, then.” There was a long and awkward silence that hung in the air, Dedue’s mouth moving slightly as if it were preparing a word and discarding it, Dimitri feeling like he’d stepped on something he ought to have known was there. While he’d heard the people of Duscur relied more than those of Fodlan on oral traditions and the teaching of parents, he thoughtlessly hadn’t considered what it meant . He couldn’t even say he knew how many people in Fodlan could read -- what good was he supposed to be as a king, without knowing that sort of thing? He closed his eyes and considered the situation -- there wasn’t much he could do about the mistake, but about the actual reality… He could be helpful in that. “Would you like to learn now? It might be useful.”
“I don’t wish to trouble you,” Dedue answered, feeling out his words as if he were testing the strength of a bridge. “But I would not mind.”
“It wouldn’t trouble me at all. Even if my arm or other injuries recover soon, I don’t think I’ll be able to really train or have much exercise anytime soon. Something useful to do would be nice.” Yes, that was a thing he could do, even like this; a thing to take what would otherwise be hours of trying and failing to rest and fill them with activity would surely let his feet hit the ground again.
“Then I think I would like to try.” Dedue gave a grave nod. A small smile brightened Dimitri’s face as he started to ignore the various protests that resounded through him at the prospect of leaving his seat. His back, where the flesh wounds had been the worst, yowled and flashed in fresh pain when he gripped the chair’s arm to try and push himself upright.
“Great! We’ll get started…” His vision spun again. His head bobbed with a feeling that the little movement was so much vaster than it was. But he was, in his defense, on his feet -- and would stay on them. Still... “Tomorrow, I suppose.”
To Dedue’s quiet, unreadable nod -- and the offer of his arm once again, which Dimitri waved off this time -- Dimitri elected to get to his final order of business.
“...I still haven’t shown you why this room, in particular, is for you.” Dimitri crossed the room, heading to a particular spot close to the wall that ought to have divided this room from the next. If you didn’t know what to look for, it looked like an ordinary wall panel.
“There’s still something?” Dedue’s expression opened in what Dimitri hoped was the good sort of surprise -- or, perhaps, he wanted to be the good sort of surprise.
“I mentioned a passageway, right?” Dedue nodded in response, but didn’t look like that had answered much of anything. Dimitri put his hand up on it. His hand. Hm. Yes. An experimental press informed him that, while he could feel the give it had, it wasn’t about to move how it should. That was a problem. “...I can’t open this with one hand.”
“What should I do?” Dedue hurried to stand just behind Dimitri, the heat of his body radiating onto Dimitri’s back in the slight chill of spring’s end, feeling all the more vivid against stiff joints and angry scabs. It was a strange comfort -- Dimitri had to ensure the fire was stoked in his room when he got back, if a little warmth like this was such a relief. His hand changed position and tapped a spot about an arm’s length (his arms, not Dedue’s, whose arm’s length would easily leave the panel behind) away from where his hand was, before it returned to his original position.
“And on three, you press up and back with me.” An affirming hm . “One, two, three.” When they pushed, the panel lifted, slotting into a groove just a little further back from the wall that let them push it to the side. And behind that panel was a small hollow. A bell hung from the hollow’s ceiling, just above an old wooden door. Dedue might have to stoop to use it -- for reasons of stealth, it was not a tall door. Dimitri stepped out of the way.
“Please keep a close eye on the key to this door. It’d be… A little dangerous, if someone untrustworthy got their hands on it,” Dimitri said while Dedue picked up the smaller of his two new keys.
“...I understand.” The click of the key in the lock, the swing of the door, the staircase down winding itself into view. The thin cord for the bell descended the staircase as well, vanishing into a quiet darkness. And at the bottom of that darkness was where the cord ended, in his room.
“I’ll ring for you, if it’s an emergency.” In case of emergencies, yes, of course. It had always been that way, or so it seemed, but looking back on it, Dimitri had called his nurse down for many trivial things. Embarrassing things, sometimes. Times he couldn’t get to sleep, or sick days, or times he’d woken up cold and lonely. It had been almost 7 years since those days, and he was 13, nearly an adult. That sort of childish coddling -- he shouldn’t want to have someone to call for that sort of thing again.
He stared down at the worn stones, feeling the years of footsteps in a little groove marking the center of the stairs. If he said what he wanted, he didn’t want to see the moment Dedue thought of him as immature. He didn’t want to look up and guess what disappointment or pity would be written, even so faintly, on Dedue’s face. To see with perfect clarity that this wasn’t how he ought to bear this, when everyone was looking at him to be strong. As if he didn’t know.
“...But -- however, you’re free to come down, as you like.” No matter how hard he tried to keep his voice level, it didn’t wholly succeed. Instead, the quaver he carried echoed down the stairs, bouncing back up and shaking anew against each step. A flush rose on his face as much for that as anything. “The passage locks at my end as well, it’s the same key, but I… don’t intend to lock it.”
“It would be wiser to lock it.” Dedue’s voice didn’t give away that disappointment, that pity, that mockery. It didn’t give away anything, which told him everything.
“I know that, I just...” The nights were colder and lonelier than ever -- and longer. He blinked and couldn’t see the stairs clearly, only a blurry tunnel of darkness that began at his feet. The night was still going on all around them. The world had come unravelled, and time had stopped meaning anything besides the slow pulverizing of hope. He just needed something .
“...However, I’m happy for the trust you’ve placed in me.” Something made Dimitri look up at that -- perhaps a little trace of nerves in the voice. Beyond the film of his tears, he knew what was there -- Dedue’s eyes, catching the light beyond the darkness, bright enough to cut through the shadows of the staircase.
“...I’m just glad to know you’re near.” Dimitri found it hard to read those eyes, the soft squint around their edges, the little squeeze that accompanied Dedue’s breath. But into that ambiguity Dimitri thought -- no, Dimitri hoped -- that he was as relieved as Dimitri was, to hear that said.