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The cathedral was dark and solemn.
It was no longer a safe place to linger. Rubble still littered the floors of what once was holy ground, and the flickering lights of the makeshift torches could have hidden any given ambush. Dedue was not sure if this sad church could provide sanctuary to anyone’s soul.
The restoration efforts had not even reached the halfway point of cleaning the debris away. The broken stained glass windows were probably forever beyond repair. The monastery was a bleak shadow of its former glory, yet Dimitri stood before the errant stones as if the altar was still there.
With a heavy heart, Dedue watched over him as he had vowed to do. While his presence might not have brought Dimitri any peace, he could not leave the prince alone with the bad company of his own thoughts. He stood guard in case he needed to gently dissuade the prince from some unsafe course of action. The professor and his friends had told Dedue to rest as much as he could during his free time, but this tug at his heart would not leave him be unless he followed his prince into the ruined chapel every night.
Everyone he has spoken to since his return at the Great Bridge of Myrddin had said, with great sadness in their voices, that the monastery was in ruins, but in a way, the cathedral still stood tall and proud. The war and destruction had not stripped away all of its dignity. The same could not be said of the temples of his own gods. Old bitterness washed over Dedue. He bit his lip, closed his eyes for a moment, and waited for the feeling to pass. He felt somewhat disoriented. After spending the past years reunited with his people, these feelings were harder to push away than before. Same with dealing with dirty looks the monastery staff gave him during the day.
How did he ever shoulder all that as a teenager?
The question was purely rhetorical, he knew how. The reason stood just a few meters away from him, pleading forgiveness from his dead father.
He had always known Dimitri wouldn't be his. Couldn't be his. Pretending anything else would have been useless. Even if the world had been a thousand times kinder for the both of them, crown princes didn't belong to the sons of blacksmiths. But hearts had a tendency to want more than they could have. His mind could raise objections and make lists of rational reasons why this could never be, and his heart would still ache. No one loved more than one who was not used to being loved in return.
His only hope was to be Dimitri’s instead. His servant, his shield. Nothing more. As a teen, he had not hoped for anything more, but during their separation, he had found some misguided courage to see love in where he had not previously been quite brave enough to. Dedue sat on the pew, working on his sewing project. Needlework kept his hands busy and his mind focused on what could be mended. Dimitri would be here for hours. Possibly till the morning came and the professor would send someone to look for them. That wouldn't be the first time. Or the last.
“You must be disappointed,” Dimitri said suddenly.
Dedue looked at the stitches in his spare tunic, not seeing anything faulty. Perfect, even rows after rows. Not that Dimitri would have known even if there had been something off. He did not know much about handcrafts. It did not sound like his too common pleas to his ghosts either. He was talking to Dedue, no doubt of it. Dedue lifted his gaze to meet Dimitri’s, but the prince was still facing the pile of debris.
“Disappointed, your highness?” Dedue asked tentatively.
“Of me,” Dimitri clarified, which only served to confuse Dedue further.
“I could never be disappointed in you,” Dedue stammered.
He did not know what had made Dimitri think of that, but it couldn't have been more untrue. His love was the only thing in the world he was sure of. All he had ever wanted was to make Dimitri’s path a little softer.
Dimitri turned around. His unwashed hair stuck to his face, and his remaining eye was bloodshot. He kicked some rubble away from his feet. The sound echoed in the cathedral that the thieves had robbed empty. Dedue had to work hard not to flinch when Dimitri’s eye met his. He carried the anger and pain of thousands in his gaze only. Dimitri’s strength had never been in how much he could take before breaking. Just like Dedue, he had been thoroughly broken by grief long ago.
The glossy image of the perfect prince had finally cracked, and everyone could see what Dedue had always seen. Something sad, twisted and broken. Something small. Dimitri had never been made of gold, or porcelain or anything beautiful and poetic and breakable. He was bloodstained iron. Forged in fire.
“You died for me, and after five long years, I have nothing to show,” Dimitri said.
Dedue wanted to meet this outburst with honesty. Physically looking up to Dimitri felt strange, foreign. Dedue carefully set his sewing project aside on the pew and got on his feet. Dimitri had grown much since they went to school here, but Dedue still comfortably towered over him.
“I am not dead nor disappointed”, he said, “I am sad.”
The horror on Dimitri’s face made him regret his words.
Dimitri trembled visibly. He opened and closed his armored hands in some attempt to ground himself into the moment. Dedue worried Dimitri might dig the claws into his palms. Those hands could, and had, broke steel and tear through bone and yet Dedue wanted to hold them. He had last held Dimitri’s hand when he had lost his entire world. When they both were miserable teenagers, clinging onto something real. Dimitri’s gentlest grip had always been almost strong enough to bruise.
“There is nothing for you here,” Dimitri spat out.
Dedue considered this statement. He had friends here. Important and dear friends. But all the same, he didn't come back for them. Dangerous words formed in his mouth. He had to stop himself from saying something as dangerous and stupid as ‘I love you”.
“You are here,” he said instead.
Home was where the heart was, and for the longest time, he had been convinced he had neither.
When after five long years, the word of Dimitri’s whereabouts had reached his ears, he had not hesitated for a moment. He missed his people and the ease being with them had brought him but he knew where he belonged. He’d live through Dimitri’s each and every nightmare rather than ever again go on without him. If the world thought it could keep them apart, it was sorely mistaken. There was nothing Dedue wouldn't do. He had chosen his path long ago.
Dimitri stared at him wordlessly. But he was definitely focusing on Dedue and not on his phantom voices, and Dedue counted that as a small victory.
He had found his purpose in Dimitri. Seen something larger than life, something beautiful amid all the loss and tragedy, in him. Piled all his hopes on the shoulders of a fourteen-year-old boy. But he had been a child too. Awkward, soft teenager. Neither of them had been equipped to deal with any of it. They were both so broken that even glued together, they barely made one whole person. It was all unfair.
Moonlight scattered by the broken stained glass windows hit the prince oddly. He glowed in otherworldly light as he was one of the ghosts he often spoke of. And yet, he was flesh and blood.
“The dead need me,” Dimitri whispered in a raspy voice.
“So do the living!”
Dedue hadn’t meant to raise his voice, yet it echoed in the empty cathedral. He had never yelled at Dimitri before. Everything Dedue had done, everything he had been, had been for his prince. Had it, had he, been enough?
His throat went dry, and yet he had to speak. He opened and closed his mouth a few times before finding his voice.
“I would never hold a failure against you,” he said, “but if you have abandoned my people, abandoned what you had promised me, I need you to tell me now.”
“I would never,” Dimitri stammered, clearly offended by the mere idea.
Hope would be Dedue’s undoing. It was dangerous to hope. The idea that there could be happy endings for either of them anymore was unfounded. But even now, in Dimitri’s sadness and anger, he found hope. If Dimitri was broken beyond repair, then at least he would keep the pieces safe and sound.
“Then nothing had changed,” Dedue said, “and so, here I will stay.”
“Sometimes I think you know me better than anyone, but then you still look at me like that,” Dimitri said.
Even at his so-called worst, Dimitri was just as Dedue had always known him. Now there was just no pretending to be anything else.
“I see you as you are, that is all,” he said.
The silence between them seemingly lasted forever. The gloomy church awaited for the dawn, indifferent about the tension between the two men. Then the tension eased from Dimitri’s shoulders.
“I missed you,” he whispered.