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“Dimitri isn’t the one who killed your brother. I am.”
“No, you- he-“ The girl shook, a small dagger clutched between her hands. Byleth had cornered her in the chapel. He’d overheard her talking to her brother, recognized the name on her lips with a cold shiver down his spine. She spat Dimitri’s name with such venom, and he couldn’t stand idly by while she planned revenge on the wrong man. He knew it was unrealistic to expect her to give up on revenge, to understand that on the battlefield people were killed and others were left behind. The ‘professor’ had no wisdom to offer a grieving girl, and no excuses to give. “He promised he would come back,” the girl, Flèche, spat. “I have to avenge him, I must!”
“I know.” And just as Byleth knew he could not offer any placating words to this girl, he knew he would not try to avoid her revenge. He was tired, exhausted. It felt like he hadn’t slept since he returned, pulled out of the river. Thrown into a war against children he helped raise, with motives on all sides nothing but folly. Dimitri was so different now, consumed by revenge and uncaring of his comrades. Looking into his eyes felt like drowning in a frozen lake.
Something in his eyes made the poor girl hesitate for a short moment, but then she steeled herself.
“For my brother,” she whispered, shifting her grip on the dagger into something more purposeful and plunging it into his stomach.
Dimitri was wandering the monastery, like a ghost in one of Lysithea’s stories. Sleep did not come easily nowadays, hadn’t since those peaceful months at the monastery where it felt like nothing could harm them with the Professor in charge. He was making his way toward the chapel. It felt like a joke to pray there after all he had done, but the voices in his head were quieter in the hallowed halls of the goddess.
Suddenly, as he approached the church gates, a girl rushed past him, knocking against his shoulder. She stopped only long enough to identify him before letting out a horrified gasp and fleeing across the bridge. He paused, but she didn’t interest him enough to give chase and he passed through the vaulting gates into the monastery’s crown jewel. It was silent, lit only by the moonlight from the open roof, which streamed down in silver ringlets to illuminate a dark shape slumped on the floor and a crimson stain surrounding it. Dimitri’s heart seized in his chest as he recognized the body.
“Professor!” he shouted, and he was crashing to the floor beside the man before he remembered moving. Byleth was lying supine, hands clutched around the knife in his stomach with a tight expression of pain on his face. He stirred as Dimitri pulled his torso into his lap, groaning softly. “Don’t move, Professor.” How could this have happened? His mind flashed back to the small girl that had crashed into him, the blood on her hands that his brain hadn’t registered until too late and a rage too potent to put into words filled his chest like a physical weight. Byleth had faced foes that would have had even Dimitri shaking in his boots without so much as a twitch in his expression. There was no way she could have done this unless... Unless Byleth wanted her to.
“Dimitri..?” Byleth asked faintly, his eyes squinting open. “You-?”
“Why?” Dimitri interrupted. “Why would you let this happen?” Byleth was hurt. He came out of battles far bloodier without a scratch, and now he was forced to sit here and watch Byleth bleed. His eyes fluttered closed, one hand falling from the knife’s hilt to the ground.
“I’m tired, Dimitri. Everything is wrong.” His grip tightened around Byleth. He couldn’t be tired, the Professor couldn’t lose his way because he was all they had. He was all Dimitri had. No matter how monstrous Dimitri had become, no matter how irredeemable he thought himself, Byleth was there to lecture him, guide him back to the right path.
Byleth’s eyes opened again as something hot landed on his cheek. Another tear fell, and he watched, amazed, as Dimitri’s face contorted in the most sincere emotion he’d seen on the man. He was eerily reminded of the time, five years ago, when he was the one crying over a body. Carefully, he reached up with one hand and brushed away the fast falling tears, cradling Dimitri’s face with a feather-like gentleness.
“Professor. Byleth.” Dimitri’s voice was shaking. “You can’t give up yet.” He leaned his face into Byleth’s hand, reaching up to hold it against his skin with one of his own. Byleth laughed softly, the pain on his face making way for something softer.
“I just can’t leave you alone, can I?” He turned his face into Dimitri’s stomach, breathing deeply. “Something like this won’t kill me.” He wasn’t sure anything could, anymore. Wasn’t sure if that made him more of a monster than Dimitri. “But, maybe you should fetch Mercedes.”
Dimitri thought about it, but leaving for even a moment suddenly seemed impossible. “I will do you one better,” he decided, reluctantly dropping his hold on Byleth’s hand to slide an arm under his knees. With no visible effort, he gracefully rose to his feet with Byleth in his arms. Byleth’s eyes widened slightly, and he looked rather flustered as his hand instinctively grabbed at the fur on Dimitri’s cape. “I will take you to her myself.” He turned, careful not to jostle his precious burden, to make his way to the dorms. After a moment’s hesitation, Byleth broke the silence.
“Just like five years ago.” He mused. It took Dimitri a moment, but he recalled a very similar thing happening after the battle in the Sealed Forest. Back then, he’d carried Byleth on his back. He looked down, unable to hide a self satisfied grin. Some things, he supposed, were better now.