Work Text:
There’s only a few stragglers left awake that night as Dimitri makes his way over to Claude’s tent. They’re hunched around a low fire and laughing, and he finds that he still remembers the words of the tune one of them is performing for the others, dancing with his sword in its sheath and failing to hide the small bottle of gin poking out of his pocket. Dimitri hums it to himself as he walks to chase the small bit of nervousness in his gut away.
When he moves apart the entrance flap of the tent he doesn’t see Claude at first. He’s kneeling on the ground and fiddling with something underneath the large wooden desk right in the centre of the room, before he moves over to a small shelf squeezed next to his cot that has more books on top of it than on the shelf.
Dimitri raps against the tent walls. Claude doesn’t look up from what he’s doing. “That you, Dimitri? Give me a moment, I’m trying to find those maps I wanted to show you.”
“How do your quarters always end up like this?” Dimitri asks, an amused note in his voice.
Claude only scoffs in response. “If you’re not going to help, then spare me the lecture, Your Kingliness. Actually, why don’t you go ahead and pour us something to drink while I look?”
Dimitri gives the tent a short sweep, and the place is such a mess of vials and decanters and various bottles that he’s not sure what it is Claude has in mind. But he’s not inclined to ask while Claude is busy fussing around the tent, so he picks up what looks like a promising pitcher of a deep red liquid and doles it out modestly into two small goblets before taking a seat at the large desk.
“Can’t find it,” Claude eventually says with a little huff, flopping down into the seat across from Dimitri. His hair is still swept back neatly, but a few strands fall into his face that he doesn’t bother moving aside. He’s wearing a loose white shirt tucked into a pair of pants tighter than what Dimitri usually sees him in. He looks so casual that Dimitri is a bit overwhelmed, and thankful that he had the time to slip out of his armour earlier in the evening.
“You get access to all kinds of fun things when you assume the throne,” Claude is saying, “and it just so happens I found a rather detailed map of Garreg Mach monastery, more specifically, its underground chambers. Y’know, nothing they’d have in the library. But I seem to have misplaced it somehow, I’ll have to show you some other night.”
“Don’t go to too much trouble,” Dimitri assures him, but Claude waves a hand and gives Dimitri a coy smile.
“For His Highness, anything. So tell me, what’s new, aside from well. Everything.”
Dimitri allows himself to chuckle at that, it’s hard not to in Claude’s presence, but if he’s being honest he’s not sure what he could say. So much has felt like a slog in the dark for so long that this new respite has him truly out of his element.
It isn’t Claude if he isn’t being observant. “Yeesh, I forget just how serious a guy you are. No need to look so dark, although I could have phrased my question a little better.”
“No, it’s not that. I’m just not sure what I have to say is anything interesting.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Claude says, resting his chin against his palm. He takes a good long look at Dimitri then, and Dimitri recognizes this look. He’s seen it on him during mock battles where he’s trying to assess the next best move, and most recently at Gronder Field where Claude had been on the receiving end of Dimitri’s spearhead. That thought makes Dimitri shudder, and he drinks from his glass for something to wash away the grotesque feeling threatening to rise in his throat.
Claude sits up in his chair and stretches.
“I see you’re not getting much sleep lately, as per usual.”
Dimitri’s lips tug upwards at the corners. “I could say the same to you. I never knew you were up in the libraries at night. How did we never cross paths?”
“Well, I wasn’t trying to be found out. Unlike you. I think at some point the whole monastery knew about you, sure helped to keep them off my tail.”
“Shame,” Dimitri says, “I would have liked the company.”
There’s a pause where Claude clears his throat, somewhat suddenly. “Well I’m here now,” he says, “we’re in my nice warm tent, they’re serenading us outside.” At that Claude makes a gesture roughly in the direction of where the soldiers were still fooling around, having switched to something more crooning and forlorn.
“I know this one too,” Dimitri says, straining to hear the lyrics.
“I heard you humming, yeah,” Claude grins. “You really never were the best singer during morning assemblies.”
Dimitri finds himself blushing a little at that. He hopes it’s not too noticeable in the low orange light. He refrains from pulling at his collar to dispel the embarrassment, something Claude would definitely notice, and allows the heat to remain in his face hopefully not too conspicuously. It’s actually a little too warm in the tent, Dimitri realizes, as if the air was heavier in here than outside. There’s a few candles burning around the place that emit a woody scent, and he wonders if that isn’t some sort of hazard, or if that’s what’s making him feel so warm. Dimitri starts to look around rather absentmindedly for some kind of opening in the tent he could maybe open when Claude speaks again.
“Do you recall that one time during assembly when Sylvain... are you alright?”
Dimitri blinks back into focus to look at Claude, who is now looking at him with an eyebrow raised.
“I’m fine,” Dimitri says, a little hurriedly. He hopes he doesn’t sound too prickly, he’d been trying to work on his tone recently. To Dimitri’s surprise, Claude just nods and goes back to chatting lightly. He’d fully expected his usual bout of questioning, of which he had never really been good at rebuffing until he was chasing Claude away, so he sits there in silence. He finds that he can’t really tune in to what Claude is saying. He feels a little antsy, irritated even, and the tent has become almost unbearably warm. The singing outside has ceased, finally, thankfully, because the cool silence allows Dimitri to follow along Claude’s smooth voice even if he’s not listening to the words. He vaguely wonders if it’d be alright to take his overshirt off and this thought preoccupies him until he realizes that Claude has stopped talking.
“You’re more on edge than you used to be,” Claude says, with that lilt in his voice that says he’s taking notes in his head. “Seriously, what’s got you looking so stressed? It’ll become permanent.” Here Claude gestures to his own forehead, and Dimitri relaxes his face, not realizing his expression had turned into something of a glare.
“I thought I could get you to loosen up a little, but you’re still so worked up, huh. Has something in my tent caused some offense?” It takes a second for Dimitri to realize that Claude sounds weirdly sheepish about this question, so Dimitri takes a moment to look around the tent. Aside from the clutter, there’s a large tapestry on the wall with a distinctly foreign pattern, and while the furniture is largely distinguishable, a bed frame, a large desk, a cabinet and so on, the cut of the wood is quite different from what he’s seen before. He hadn’t really taken notice of anything in the tent aside from the clutter and Claude on his knees, shuffling around in the mess, when he had first entered. He doesn’t really understand the question, so he shakes his head.
“No, no nothing like that, I’m just…”
“We can call it, if you’d like. I didn’t even have what I wanted to show you,” Claude says, going back to sounding nonchalant, but Dimitri gets the feeling that he’s just not being upfront again. He used to fall for it in the past, but he’s come to understand now that Claude simply wouldn’t let on that things bothered him if he could help it.
“No, sorry I, I was just feeling a little warm all of a sudden. I’m not a fan of the heat.”
Claude gives him an odd look. Dimitri guesses he must look silly considering it’s a cool night, but Claude just chuckles. Dimitri doubts he buys it.
“Well I’d never have guessed,” he says, “you’re wearing that thick black shirt. And you’re always wearing that heavy black armour, too. I’m surprised you and the rest of your group haven’t fried in the heat.”
“Ingrid is pretty bad with it, her face turns quite red.”
“I’d say much like yours right now. Are you sure you aren’t just drunk?”
Maybe that’s it, Dimitri thinks. He’s never been drunk before, never really had the time or the occasion for such a luxury. Claude seems to find this new bit of information amusing, because he reaches for his own small goblet, yet untouched, and gestures for Dimitri to take up his own.
“I didn’t take you for a lightweight, Dimtiri. Let’s have one together then, and then I’ll spare you from drinking any more.”
Claude leans in, then and hooks Dimitri’s arm with his own. Contrary to Claude’s intentions, Dimitri finds that he is able to relax even less this way, if anything the soft press where their arms touch only makes him feel warmer. He glances at the low neckline of Claude’s shirt where it droops as he leans just a little bit forward to match Dimitri’s height, then after a short count they empty the contents.
Dimitri feels as if the liquid immediately courses throughout his entire body, nothing like the slow warmth from the chamomile tea he’d drink on cold mornings back in Fhirdiad.
He sits up a little straighter in his chair, and takes a look at Claude who is standing up now, no longer speaking, with his brows furrowed at his glass.
“Is something the matter?”
“Yes, well. Dimitri, what did you have us drink? Because that definitely wasn’t wine.”
Dimitri looks at Claude dazedly for a few seconds, before scanning the place for the exact pitcher he’d poured from. When he locates it on the tray, he points at it without a word.
Claude comes over to where Dimitri is seated and lifts the pitcher, turning it over in his hands. Then there’s a clear look of realization on his face, before he looks as if he’s deep in thought.
After a short while Claude says, “Well, if my calculations are correct, there’s nothing in here that will kill us. It’s the other thing in here I’m worried about.”
“What is it?” Dimitri asks, not bothering to worry about his tone this time. He thinks he feels himself starting to panic but remains calm. It’s weird, the feeling of it is definitely there, but at the same time he feels sluggish, as if his emotions are separated from him by a thickening fog.
“One of my latest concoctions. Remember what I said about having access to all sorts of fun things? I got a bit curious about the various plants that weren’t allowed to be cultivated in the greenhouse because of their... effects, amongst other things. How did you not taste that something was off?”
Dimitri flinches at that. He juggles the answer around in his head, and then somewhat defiantly explains that he hasn’t tasted anything in years.
Of course Claude doesn’t look the least bit surprised. “Well that explains it. Do you recall that day I cooked something for you in the kitchens, and you thought it was delicious?”
Dimitri’s face goes even redder. “I apologize.”
“No need,” Claude says, placing the pitcher down on the table. “I remember that day fondly.”
Dimitri is quiet for a little. “Me too,” he eventually says, and Claude sighs. He leans against the table and folds his arms.
“How are you not completely knocked out? That was your third glass…” Claude sounds more and more like he’s talking to himself than to Dimitri. “I suppose you are quite stocky compared to me, which might be why I feel rather...” and with that he promptly shuts his mouth.
It’s Dimitri’s turn to give Claude a curious look. By the way colour is rising in Claude’s face Dimitri gets the impression that he’s starting to feel that coiled, agitated heat too.
“Rather…” Dimitri prompts, and Claude looks up at the ceiling of the tent rather than at him. Something about that goes right to Dimitri’s heart.
“I see now,” Claude says instead. “This is why you were so unfocused. It really is getting warmer in here.”
“Should we get a healer?”
“Nah, have you ever gotten high before? My guess is that it’s more like that than us having been poisoned.” Dimitri doesn’t find that reassuring at all, especially at the way the heat enveloping his body starts to lick like a flame in his belly.
“You know,” Claude starts, and Dimitri does not like the sudden mischievous tone of his voice one bit. “I haven’t been able to investigate the effects of this one yet, if you wouldn’t mind assisting me…”
“Claude, really? Is now the time?”
“I’d say it’s the only time. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Rather, we’ve already gone and drunk the stupid thing, and we don’t really get to spend any time together, either. Might as well not waste the opportunity. ”
Dimitri is unconvinced, but he is here to spend time with an old friend. Who knew when he’d be able to do this again, if at all?
Dimitri hadn’t even realized he’d stood up at some point, but when he sits back down with a sigh Claude is visibly pleased.
Claude makes for the pitcher again, and pours himself just a little more. Dimitri moves for his own glass but Claude wags a playful finger at him. “No more for you,” he says, and Dimitri decides to not question whatever the parameters of this experiment could possibly be as Claude raises his own glass to his lips again.
“What does it taste like?” Dimitri asks, struggling a little to keep his voice relatively flat as he watches Claude’s throat.
Claude licks his lips thoughtfully. “A bit gross, actually. Mostly like a lot of roots. I’m going to need something that masks the flavour.”
“Mhm,” Dimitri agrees, not really listening.
“But it works rather fast,” and here Claude pauses to give Dimitri a quick, contemplative onceover that remains on his chest. “Even on someone large like you.”
Then Claude is suddenly reaching for a quill and a book lying on the table and moves over towards his bed, shuffling some of the books around so that he has somewhere to sit. Dimitri watches this all with poorly suppressed amusement, he can’t help it. Leave it to Claude to use their current predicament as a means to advance his research.
“How are you feeling?” Claude asks, still scribbling away.
“Very hot. I don’t suppose your tent has a window we could open?”
Claude’s hum is negatory. “I quite like the heat, actually. It feels nice and familiar. Do you mind if I check something?”
“Not at all.”
“Come over here for a second, please.”
Dimitri is shaky on his feet and he wonders if that’s why Claude has him be the one to move. Claude is nudging his shoes off and makes space for him on the small cot, sitting up against the tent wall. Dimitri sits down and Claude immediately leans in, and Dimitri tries not to flinch.
He places a hand against Dimitri’s neck. It’s an extremely welcome sensation, and Dimitri lets out a breath that he didn’t realize he was holding at the touch of Claude’s fingers, gently running underneath where his hair falls above his shoulders.
“It feels much like a fever would. But that can’t be all there is to it, otherwise it wouldn’t be banned,” Claude mutters, tapping the quill against his mouth.
“Well, it does feel very much like a recreational drug,” Dimitri immediately responds.
Claude pauses his tapping and looks up at Dimitri, clearly stunned. “Oh? And His Highness would know?”
“I lost a bet I had made with Sylvain. I can’t remember what it was, but my punishment was to...” And Dimitri pauses when he notices Claude has put the quill down, chin once again resting against his hand, mind working a mile a minute.
“Come on, what are you getting embarrassed about?”
“I’m not embarrassed! At least not by my story. Have you noticed that when you’re curious about something you get a ravenous look in your eye?”
“I think the crown prince indulging himself—”
“I lost a bet.”
“—after losing a bet would interest anyone. Perhaps I just find you interesting. Anyways, after you lost one of your many bets with Sylvain...”
“Right, yes. He and I were in his room, and as you can imagine, he had me turn around while he dug around goddess knows where looking for a tiny rolled up chew he had, the taste of which he informed me was dreadful.”
“And?”
“And?”
“How was it?” Claude throws his hands up, frustrated. “Did the goddess float down from the cathedral fresco and give you a big ol’ kiss? What happened?”
“You really should watch how you speak about the goddess,” Dimitri frowns.
“And you shouldn’t leave one in suspense for so long, but we all have our flaws.”
“It was... alright,” Dimitri decides after a pause. “I don’t know if I would do it again. I don’t think so.” He felt a little more relaxed, sure, that had been Sylvain’s intention. But he hadn’t liked the feeling of being so slow, not at a time where everything had felt so dire. Not when it still does. “At some point trying to have the most simple thoughts became a chore. I’m sure you know.”
“And what does that mean?” Claude says, raising an eyebrow.
“Was your goddess example not from firsthand experience?”
“Nah, I’ve never done anything of that sort. I’m a good boy, I don’t take drugs in monasteries like a certain someone, and I was rather busy at the time.”
Dimitri just groans. “I don’t know how I let Sylvain goad me into so many bets with him.”
“Methinks he enjoys sullying your chastity, milord.”
At this Dimitri scoffs, and Claude starts writing in his book again.
A silence passes between them. Dimitri finds that he’s restless, so he kicks off his shoes and starts counting all of Claude’s toes to distract himself from their current proximity on the bed, anything to keep his mind off of the heat radiating from the two of them in waves.
Claude speaks up suddenly, and quietly. “I mean, why else would he have that little bet with you to go on a date?”
Dimitri looks at Claude, but Claude isn’t looking at him. He’s writing in his book.
“How do you know about that?”
“Why do you think anything you did as the heir to the Faerghus throne slipped by anyone at the monastery? I didn’t happen to hear if you won that one, though.”
“It was a… draw?” What a mess that had been.
“A draw?” Claude laughs. “What does that mean?”
“Ah, there you go again. So nonchalant about it too,” Dimitri smiles. “Soon my whole boyhood will be revealed for you to examine, and yet I haven’t heard a single thing about you.”
Claude looks up from his book and right into Dimitri’s eyes. It’s very striking. “Well, what would you like to know?”
At this Dimitri draws a blank, of course. He feels that there’s so much to know about Claude that he’s not entirely sure where he could start or how he’d say it. The past hour he’d simply been following whatever path Claude had been leading him along. At his silence Claude laughs.
“I’m flattered, but I know you’re not one much for gossip.”
“Fine,” Dimitri relents. “I met with two different people at two different points in time. We talked over a nice cup of tea, nothing particularly interesting. I was not interested in pursuing any kind of relationship, but the feeling was not mutual and I had to ask Sylvain for help.”
“Just tea?”
“Claude…”
“Sorry, I just thought since you’ve done drugs with Sylvain and all, he’d raise the bar a little. I’m surprised he let you go without having you—”
“Claude.”
“Your Highness?”
They stare at each other until Claude is the one to back down with an awkward laugh.
“Sorry, I’d be lying if I said I was thinking straight right now.”
“It’s fine. I didn’t take you as being interested in that sort of gossip.”
“‘Didn’t?’ I’m not, really. I recall saying I find you interesting.”
“Down to whether I’ve lain with someone before?”
“Maybe.”
“Have you?”
At that Claude’s quill audibly scratches against the page. Dimitri wonders what in the heavens he could be writing down this whole time, his own symptoms not changing much since they’d first acted up about an hour ago. The same scratchy heat, the same boyish desire to kiss Claude on the mouth, just once, the same one he thinks he might have had since seeing him again after five years, or from even before that. He wonders what Claude has been feeling, and doubts Claude will show him if he asks.
Instead, he shifts closer to the other man on the bed, and Claude is staring hard at where the bed dips beneath Dimitri’s weight as he does so.
“Isn’t it my turn to ask questions, now?” Dimitri asks.
Dimitri is not an expert on the emotions of people, but he knows the look of being backed into a corner when he sees it. He almost wants to let up. Almost.
“I didn’t force you to answer,” Claude says, sounding petulant. Dimitri scoffs.
“I find it hard to believe someone who loves festivities as much as you has never fooled around once or twice. Even I have, and I was privy enough to the monastery’s rumour mill to know that people considered me a stick in the mud.”
“Come now. I wouldn’t go that far, or in that direction at all. You’re plenty fun to be around. Uptight maybe, but not in any bad way.”
“I appreciate it, but you’re trying to distract me.” At that, Claude looks off to the side with a nervous grin.
“You don’t like to talk about yourself very much, do you?” Dimitri says, voice low.
“I talk about myself plenty,” Claude frowns, defiant, but Dimitri has had enough of it, now. He moves his hand to tuck a strand of hair behind Claude’s ear. Claude shudders, and he’s not looking at Dimitri at all, but he closes the book with the quill inside and places it to the side.
“You make me sound like such a mystery,” Claude finally says, and Dimitri doesn’t fail to notice the way his voice seems to tremble.
“You don’t have to look so scared.”
“I’m not,” Claude says, and this time he doesn’t flinch as Dimitri moves in closer. “I’m not.”
He leans into Dimitri fully, then, and lets Dimitri wrap his arms around him. Dimitri catches his lips first, a young and triumphant boy, and Claude presses back firmly. Dimitri feels himself light on fire, the first moment of real clarity he’s had since drinking poison out of a wine goblet, and he doesn’t let up even when the kiss turns salty, nor does he say anything as Claude pulls away and tears drip from his eyes. He looks like he’s steeling himself for something, and Dimitri wants to laugh, god he knows the feeling, down to moments like this he knows it.
Claude leans backwards onto the thin white pillows and tries to pull Dimitri down with him. “Okay,” he’s saying, looking dazedly up at him. “Okay, sure, yeah.”
“We can stop.”
“Same to you,” Claude retorts with a roll of his eyes, and Dimitri is properly pulled downwards, opens his mouth hungrily, and hands reach into his sweaty hair.
Touching Claude feels heavenly. His entire body feels like it’s singing, and he knows now why the monastery would have banned something this potent from its greenhouse. Dimitri wonders if it’s all the more stronger by the way he’s only been this close to a person when he’s running them through with his lance.
Even now with the way Claude breathes against him, distractingly good at running his hands up his sides, those thoughts find their way in. Dimitri has never done this before, and he knows Claude has never done this before, and he understands that maybe this would never have happened if not for the foreign tingle in his veins telling him that what he wants right now is this smaller body underneath his. He wishes he could read Claude’s mind.
The way Claude touches him is more probing than it feels that he’s trying to provide Dimitri with any sexual gratification. It all feels good in his current state, heavy like syrup, and he lets hands ride up his shirt and a calloused thumb trace the hard planes of his stomach.
The shirt doesn’t come off, nothing does. Claude even gently lifts up Dimitri’s eye patch, just for a peek, before he lets it back down where it belongs.
Dimitri does things he’d never imagined he could have, not when things had gone so wrong, and he very much thinks that Claude is doing the same. It’s hard to focus when he’s thinking so hard on how maybe he could have been someone who would have loved to do this during times that weren’t so hard, maybe even with this same man in front of him too. The touching is easy right now because the chains are off, and he leaves bruises on Claude’s torso where his shirt has ridden up where otherwise he’s been so afraid of touching someone else he wasn’t trying to hurt.
The way Claude bites back a moan when Dimitri slips a hand in between his clothed legs, or how he moves his hand to cup Dimitri’s ass almost makes Dimitri want to cry, they’re both so guarded and he wonders if there’s something he could drink to be rid of that, too.
“You know, I think I might love you.” Dimitri says after they’ve felt each other up so much it’s starting to hurt. Claude looks pained at the statement.
“There was one morning during assembly where I happened to look in your direction during the hymn, and I caught your eye and you smiled at me, like we were sharing a secret.”
“We’re sharing one right now,” is all Claude says, and he moves Dimitri’s hand over his heart. He wonders how much of this is still part of the experiment, if it ever was.
“Learning anything?” Dimitri asks.
Claude closes his eyes and nods.