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Dimitri woke in silence.
More accurately, the silence woke him. He'd grown accustomed to the warm whisper of Dedue's breathing by his side: a slow reminder that he was safe, that his husband was safe, that here, in this moment, he could relax his guard and rest.
That rhythm had gone. Dimitri lurched upright and seized his husband's shoulder, launched from sleep into rabbit-hearted panic, fearing the worst — then Dedue jerked away from his hand with a ragged gasp, flung himself off the bed altogether and crashed to the floor with his legs tangled in the sheets. Dimitri lunged after him, startled; Dedue flinched, recoiled with a strangled whine, flung up an arm to shield his face.
The shock, like freezing water, thrust Dimitri into full wakefulness. He pressed a hand to his eye, inhaled slowly, quieted the roar that burned in his chest. When he felt more like a man and less like a beast, he leaned towards the edge of the bed with caution and care, watching his husband's wide eyes and heaving chest.
"Easy, love," he murmured, and stretched out his hand.
Dedue's gaze flicked from Dimitri's hand, to his face, and back again. Trembling, he reached back to take Dimitri's hand in both of his. The sight seemed to confuse him — he frowned, his brow furrowed.
At last, his eyes cleared. He focused on Dimitri's face, and recognized him. The terror faded with the mist of the nightmare. "Dimitri," he croaked, broken.
Heart wrenching, Dimitri slipped from the bed to join his husband on the floor. Dedue crumpled into his arms, buried his face in Dimitri's shoulder, and wept — still quiet, even now stifling the noise. Dimitri could do little but hold him as he cried; stroke his hair, curl his fingers over the back of Dedue's neck, rub his palm in slow circles along Dedue's spine.
"Hush, my love," he rumbled, voice pitched low in his chest, a reminder that they were both grown and all their fears far in the past. "I have you. No one will harm you now. If they try — "
His lip curled over his teeth. The beast snarled in his heart, bitter and bloody-tusked.
"If they try," he growled, "I’ll tear out their poisoned hearts and leave them for the crows and dogs. If they would harm you, they have no right to live."
Another quiet sob against his shoulder, but Dedue relaxed all the same. Dimitri nuzzled into his husband's hair, kissed his temple, closed his eyes on the hot sting of his own tears. Time had buried their fears, and yet he hated those who had done this. Hated that Dedue, his husband, his love, beautiful, brave, and far too gentle for war, still woke in terror after ten years of peace.
"And no," Dimitri added as an afterthought, "no one will harm me, either."
That was it, it seemed. Dedue hiccuped, half a laugh. "Still so slow to consider your own safety."
"Can I help that I would rather lose my own life than you?" Dimitri huffed.
"Perha — aps I feel the same," Dedue retorted. The lines of the old argument might as well have been rehearsed, more ritual comfort than a true disagreement.
"Well then," Dimitri said, completing his part, "we'll each have to live. Is that agreeable?"
"Hah. Very well, your Majesty."
" — stop that, I'm your husband — "
Dedue chuckled, albeit wetly. Dimitri snorted.
"Incorrigible. Come back to bed, love, and tell me what had you so frightened."
Dedue leaned into him, and made no move to get up. Dimitri sighed. “If you insist,” he said, and pressed a fond kiss to his husband’s cheek; he folded his legs, scooped Dedue into his arms, and stood. Dedue curled into him, one arm wrapped around Dimitri’s shoulders, the other tucked against his chest, knees drawn up to better fit in Dimitri’s grasp.
It was enough, for a moment, to stay like that.
Dedue liked to be held, to feel delicate, precious, safe; Dimitri liked to hold him, to feel the most important person in his world warm and solid against him. Dimitri’s crest-borne strength could serve some gentle purpose, or at least, Dedue had said he felt protected in Dimitri’s arms. Dimitri could hardly doubt him, as his husband’s pulse slowed and the last of the teary hitches smoothed from his breath.
“I will be alright,” Dedue said at last. His breath fluttered soft against Dimitri’s cheek. Dimitri hummed and settled him carefully back on the bed — when Dedue tried to sit up, Dimitri pushed him down with a hand on his chest and a stern look.
“Let me fuss.” Dimitri cracked a small smile. “It’s only fair.”
Dim light deepened the shadows around Dedue's eyes and mouth. " … I suppose I can allow it."
Even as Dimitri advanced into his thirties, neatness evaded him. Still, he gathered up the covers from the floor and spread them back over his husband, straightened the rumpled layers and — well — tried to fold the edges squarely. He glanced up for judgment, face scrunched in valiant determination, tongue-tip between his teeth, and found Dedue already watching him. His efforts earned him a smile with all the warmth of a spring thaw — Dedue's true smile, the one reserved for those he called family, an expression not of his mouth but of a warm crinkle around his eyes, a wrinkle at the bridge of his nose, a softening of the otherwise austere planes of his face. Worth a thousand failed attempts at tidiness to see that smile.
Dimitri caved to the ache in his heart, and leaned down to kiss his husband's forehead as he tucked a fold of the quilt securely around Dedue's waist. "My love," he murmured, his voice hushed even in the quiet of their bedchamber. "My dearest, my honeyed heart, my starlight — "
Dedue cupped a hand around the back of Dimitri’s head, and muffled his affectionate babbling with a kiss. "My love," he sighed against Dimitri's mouth, worth a thousand of Dimitri's endearments for how rarely he spoke it aloud. Dimitri could only kiss him back, slow and deep; climb onto the bed, straddling his husband's belly, and pepper his face with kisses until even the lingering tear-tracks faded.
On another night, this might have led to sex. Not tonight — not with the nightmare still raw, not with fear still acrid in the air. The feverish moment sank into a warm, dark calm, the silence filled by twinned heartbeats, the quiet rush of two bodies breathing the same air. Their foreheads pressed together, anchoring. Their hands wound into each other's hair.
Without warning, Dedue rolled on his side and crushed Dimitri in a tight embrace. A moment's squirming freed one of Dimitri's arms so he could return the gesture, but it did nothing to ease the stab of worry as he felt his husband choke back another sob.
"You don't have to speak of it," Dimitri said, muffled against Dedue's chest, "but I am here, if you wish."
"Mm." Dedue's sigh ruffled Dimitri's hair.
A heavy pause settled around them while Dedue gathered his words. At last, he tucked Dimitri’s head beneath his chin, shifted to secure Dimitri in his arms.
“It is always the same," he began. His voice held steady, but his chest shuddered. "The day … the day we met. My father is cut down protecting my sister. My mother and brother impaled on the same lance. And then — then you — ”
He broke off, silent, trembling. Dimitri hummed. “Only a dream, love. I’m here.”
“You fall beneath the soldier’s blade. You do not rise." Dedue drew a slow, unsteady breath. “More soldiers run to the shouting. The woman with the bloodied sword points to me. They turn — they all turn — ”
He choked, pressed his face into Dimitri’s hair.
Dimitri’s hand curled against his husband’s back. “That is not what happened,” he said; a growl rumbled in the back of his throat, and his fist clenched in Dedue’s nightshirt. “I rose. I struck that soldier's lying jaw from her head, and I slew all the rest who would have dared to hurt you. Rodrigue arrived to heal my wounds. I — " He stopped to draw his own calming breath, to tame his snarling beasts. "Of all the blood that stains my hands — of all the lives I have taken since then, justly or not — those I cannot regret. You were a child."
"As were you," Dedue said quietly.
“As was I. And now I am a king, and you are a royal advisor. You were fourteen then; you are thirty-four now. And now, as ever, whoever might threaten you must first face my wrath.”
"And what of you? If something happens — ”
“I know, I know. I've no intention of dying until we're both old and senile.” Dimitri smiled wryly against his husband's collarbone. “Time has proven me quite difficult to kill.”
“No more close calls.”
“None I can avoid.”
Hard to tell if the sound Dedue made was a laugh or a sob. “I suppose that's all I can ask.”
“All anyone can ask, love.” Dimitri leaned up to press a kiss to Dedue's jaw. “ … you know I'm not all that stands between Duscur and another massacre,” he murmured. “Gaspard, Galatea, Gautier, even Fraldarius — that's fully half the Kingdom's lands. Annette and Mercedes command no small amount of respect. None of them would let it happen, even if I fell. It’s been so long coming, but … I truly believe this peace will last.”
At last, the coiled-spring tension unwound from Dedue’s spine. He sagged against Dimitri, kissed the crown of his head. “My mind knows, but my heart … I don’t think it will ever forget.”
The beast bared its fangs. Dimitri hushed it. His own burden to bear, the rage he could never fully leave behind; it would pace at the back of his skull like a caged lion until his dying day, but here and now, it had served its purpose.
“So remember,” Dimitri said. “Our loved ones leave us with so much more than their deaths — ” Pain spiked through his skull, and he twitched in the grip of the old reflex. Dedue squeezed his ribs, steadying. “ — thank you,” Dimitri muttered through grit teeth. As always, Dedue’s heartbeat helped, a rhythm to ground him, a drum by which to orient himself. The spasm passed, and the fog and the whispers cleared, but it left him limp and dizzy against his husband’s chest. “ … and their loss leaves its mark,” he sighed, catching the tail of his sentence.
He shrugged out of Dedue’s embrace and leaned back, propped himself up on one elbow so he could cup Dedue’s face in one callused palm. “The past cannot be undone, and it will never leave us, but the future … the future is the province of the living. It is ours to carve out, for better or for worse. We honor the dead, and our pain, by crafting a world where none need suffer as we did — and I swear to you that we will. This peace will last, because we will make it last.”
Dedue sighed. He raised a hand to cover Dimitri’s. For just a moment, his eyes fluttered closed. “Make it last … I can believe in that. Thank you, Dimitri.”
By the Goddess, Dimitri was a fool; after nearly a decade of marriage, the sound of his own name in his husband's voice still set his face and chest alight. Well, if he was a fool, he had no desire to become wise. He brushed his thumb across Dedue’s temple, caught in a smile like an avalanche, his heart so full of love it could break. “It’s what you taught me. Years ago, and every day since then.”
Dedue hunched his shoulders, half-turned to bury his face in the pillow. "All your kingly words," he muttered, muffled. Dimitri’s smile cracked into a grin — even in the dark, he knew the livid blush darkening his husband’s face.
"All of them and more for you, my love, and every one the truth." He shuffled up to tuck his legs beneath the quilt and drape his arm over Dedue's shoulders. "Does anything else trouble you, or shall we try to sleep again?"
" … mm … sleep." Dedue wrapped an arm around Dimitri's back, pulling him closer. " … I love you," he murmured against Dimitri's chest.
"And I love you."
He was beautiful at rest — not that Dimitri could see, with Dedue's head nestled beneath his chin, but by now he didn't need to. Hearthlight cast Dedue in gold as warm as his rare smiles, caught in his hair like sunlight, painted his features in all the noble grace he deserved. Sleep softened the edges of a man who should never have been forced to grow hard, and smoothed the furrows that years of stress and hardship had carved onto his face. To create even a temporary respite — a place for the day's tension to drain away, a shelter from the past that haunted them both — it set a hum in Dimitri's chest, the purr of a beast contented.
Lulled by the slow rhythm of his husband's breathing, Dimitri followed him into sleep.