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Claude and Dimitri had been sitting in the gardens outside of Askr’s palace when they’d heard the news. A new “fell hero”--whatever that meant--had been summoned. They’d intended to ignore it and continue their little tea-time (as breaks like these were hardly common in Askr--something they’d learned in their months since being summoned), but a passerby (someone Claude didn’t recognise, but, then again, he hardly recognised anyone here) had run past, uttering an upset “ another Dimitri? ” and it was all Claude could do not to run off and leave Dimitri in the garden alone.
They looked at each other, somewhat confused, because what other versions of Dimitri were there ? Sure, Edelgard had been summoned in forms ranging from the Flame Emperor (which Claude really didn’t want to think about, all things considering), to her academy self, to during the war, even to after the war, but all the other versions of Dimitri were…
Still, he found himself asking Dimitri if he wanted to check it out, He’d agreed, and the silence on the way to the summoning room was somehow deafening. Claude didn’t know how much longer he could take it.
They’d found Edelgard standing by the door--the post-war Edelgard, that is. She seemed hesitant to go in.
“So you heard?” Claude found himself asking, noticing how she flinched at the sound of his voice. When she turned, he could see a horrified look in her eyes.
“There is not a single reality,” she started, moving away from the door, “in which mine and his ideals align...Knowing this, I cannot apologise for all the pain the me in his world has doubtlessly caused him…”
So she was still hung up on that, huh?
“I, just-” she cut herself off, moving even further from the door. “ What if it’s the Dimitri that I killed?”
“Hey, you’re not the only one here that’s committed a war crime,” he joked, hoping to lighten the mood. “Edelgard, in another world, I killed you. And in a different world to that, Dimitri killed you. You did what you had to for your ideals. Neither of us are holding it against you.”
Sure, Dimitri still had trouble speaking to, well, any version of her, but that, Claude had learned, was due to a whole different trauma. Being forced to kill what had been his only family left can’t have been easy on him.
Edelgard nodded, but she still seemed hesitant to enter the doors. “If he sees me, it might not end well,” she spoke. Claude understood. With a nod, he pushed the door open, ushering the Dimitri that had been standing beside him inside. He looked at Edelgard one last time before he entered, letting the door shut behind him.
The Dimitri standing on the summoning platform look as if he’d been dead, more or less. Covered in blood, stab wounds littering his body, along with cuts and a small number of arrows sticking out of him, he was standing there, holding Areadbhar within harming distance of anybody that dared come close to him. It was no surprise he couldn’t get the help he needed, with the way he all-but growled at anyone that moved.
Despite the dirt caking his face and all the blood splatters, Claude’s heart ached in a way that told him that this Dimitri was familiar . That this Dimitri was the one he had been forced to see die at Grondr.
Claude turned, leaving the summoning room in a panicked hurry.
--
Ever since King Dimitri had revealed the details of his relationship with his Claude, there’d been a sick, envious feeling in Claude’s gut. He was happy that there was a world where both he and Dimitri could exist, living happily with each other. Of course he was, but…
The fact that the world existed and wasn’t his...The fact that Claude had to wake up every morning, thinking about how much he missed holding Dimitri, had to sleep every night without his love wrapped around him...He couldn’t help but think it unfair.
What had they done so wrong in their world to not be allowed the same peace? What had King Dimitri done so right that it could be his reality?
In one of their tea times, Dimitri had revealed to Claude that his engagement had been a result of too much adrenaline after the final battle. They’d stopped Edelgard and were rejoicing, too much energy between the army, when his Claude had jumped on him, kissing him senseless before suggesting that they get married. Apparently, they hadn’t even told each other how they felt prior.
It made Claude laugh, sick. He had been together with his Dimitri almost since the year at Garreg Mach had started. Could Dimitri not survive Grondr if he was attached to Claude so?
The thought had haunted him since that tea session. Was he the reason that Dimitri had died? Did he only have himself to blame for the death of the only man he’s loved?
Of course, he could never hate King Dimitri for how things ended up. He couldn’t hate any version of Dimitri. All Claude could do was blame himself, cursing himself for being born into a reality that was focussed on Dimitri’s suffering.
The thought of how the world treated him made Claude yearn to touch him. As bloody, as dirty, as wounded as the Dimitri that had just been summoned--as his Dimitri--was, his arms ached to hold him.
So Claude left, on a search to find the man he’d lost years prior.
--
Dimitri woke to a soft humming and a hand stroking his hair. He jolted, trying to feel around for his weapon to no avail. He’d just have to--
Claude was staring at him, arm not moved from where it had been moments prior. The look on his face was unreadable, in a mask that Dimitri had not seen since they’d first met. Somehow, that..hurt.
After all Dimitri had been through, Claude was still his only weakness.
He moved on the medical cot, as far from Claude as he could manage, before uttering a raspy, “why are you here?”
Claude did not look hurt at the statement. All he did was pull back his hand so it was resting in his lap.
“I came to see you,” he spoke, careful, calculated. “Is that not allowed?”
“Why would you want to ?” he practically growled. Claude had no reason to see him. He wasn’t the man he had once been--he was barely a man at this point. A mere monster roaming in hopes of getting his revenge against a woman he’d once trusted.
Claude did flinch at that, but made quick work in covering his reaction. “You’re the Dimitri from the same world that I come from. Just wondering how you’re still alive, is all.” He’d punctuated the sentence with a shrug, as if it were an offhand statement, not him wondering why Dimitri wasn’t dead . As if it was what he wanted…
“Would you prefer that I wasn’t?” And Claude’s mask starts cracking--the tiniest frown visible on both his mouth and in his eyes. Dimitri had hit the nail on the head. “You wish I had died at the Empire’s hands, like I was supposed to have? That you would never have to see me again?”
The next thing Dimitri knew, Claude had launched himself forward, arms around Dimitri’s waist, face buried in his chest as he cried out a loud “ no! ”
The reaction shocked Dimitri--how could Claude still care for him, even now? Dimitri was not the man that he had been in love with. Surely Claude must know that.
“I never stopped looking for you during those five years, you know,” Claude spoke, muffled against the clean shirt they had dressed him in after he fell unconscious. “I didn’t find you until Grondr. Where you died, for real. I watched you die .”
Dimitri was...shocked. He hadn’t been to Grondr field since the mock battle back at the academy, and he was certain that he was still alive…
“But you’re here ,” Claude continued. “Somehow, you’re here ,” his voice sounded wet as he spoke, finally letting the mask break. “You’re here , so don’t leave me again, please…”
Somehow, Dimitri felt... guilty ? He left Claude alone to deal with both the war and the aftermath of his death. Despite himself, Dimitri moved so that his arms were wrapped around Claude, only to hear Claude let out a small sob.
“Please…” he was saying, voice wet with tears. “Please don’t die on me…change your future for me, Dimitri...please, live for me .”
Dimitri moved so that his hand was running through Claude’s hair, much like what Claude had been doing to him earlier. And, despite himself, despite not knowing if he would remember any of this when he returned to his world, Dimitri nodded.
“I will live for you,” he murmured, “I swear it.”