Work Text:
Baby, put on heart-shaped sunglasses
'Cause we gonna take a ride
I'm not gonna listen to what the past says
I been waiting up all night
Take another drag, turn me to ashes
Ready for another lie?
Says he's gonna teach me just what fast is
Say it's gonna be alright
i.
Dimitri had never broken up with anyone before, and the way he’d seen it play out countless of times in all of the romcoms that Ashe and Ingrid watch, or the tragedy that is Sylvain’s life, he had expected something incredibly dramatic and life-changing, earth-shattering in the way it just changes someone’s perspective on love, life, the world, a person.
What actually happens is that he sends a text at 23.45 saying, I’m sorry, I don’t think we should go on together. I want you to know that you’ve been a great and wonderful partner, I’m just not looking for something serious right now.
After that, he turns off his phone. He goes to work. Work is: disassembling his rifle, patiently removing the bolt with his gloved hands before moving to set all the parts in particular order over the table like he’s still in the military. He loses himself in the routine of it, the smell of oil permeating the air and becoming comforting as he applies it to metal. He takes his time. He has music playing in the background, Ray Orbison crooning as he rattles off the parts and assembles everything together.
When he’s done, it’s past midnight, and he decides, out of curiousity, to check his phone.
One message, from Claude.
All it said was: Noted. Thanks for letting me know.
Dimitri dry-fires his rifle, and finds that it gets stuck anyway. Stupid old thing.
Gun to his head he would say that the reason why he broke up with Claude was because of his work. He’s busy. It’s dangerous. This matters little when he and Claude have the same line of work, just in different circles: Claude working for the Alliance, he for the Kingdom, whatever such fancy words mean in their lineage. They were born in this bloody heritage and their job was to carry it towards its fanciful end, towards its violent end. His involves Edelgard, his half-sister with the bloody axe. Claude wants to tear down their borders entirely and introduce new players in the field, sweep the pieces off the board in the name of reform. A bloody revolution. Dimitri wants peace. Whatever it takes.
But none of that precludes silly things like falling in love, or whatever excuse he has for using such words. He likes to think that there’s reason for it, but it’s difficult for himself to admit it. So if pressed, he will say: “in my line of work it’s best if I disassociate with Claude.” He will say something like: “It’s better if there’s no interference or conflict of interest.” And lastly, he will conclude this by saying: “it’s a hazard to be involved with another gang when I don’t fully know what Claude’s motives are to begin with; only what people have spoken of regarding his motives, which we all know we can’t trust at all.” These are all perfectly reasonable responses, which is why he detests each one of them.
For all that he scolds Sylvain for sleeping around too much, Sylvain, at least, knows what he wants. He can’t even say that for himself, every interaction a Russian roulette.
(Then again, Sylvain would also tell him, that’s the thrill of it.)
This is how the two of them met, allegedly:
On a Blue Lions mission to infiltrate a factory being suspected of producing IEDs for the Deers, as one of the many nodes for the Alliance, Dimitri fires round after round tracking a modified SUV with a gun mount overhead. They’re catching up on this vehicle, Felix driving like a madman intent on ramming the end of it, when a pink-haired girl comes out with a battle axe on her shoulders, hurling it right into the dashboard.
“Incoming,” Felix snarls, and swerves hard to the left so the battle axe misses them and knocks over a piece of the highway railing. Dimitri is dizzy, momentarily, but his hands are shaking as he takes his rifle, and mounts it on the left shoulder of Sylvain’s seat. “Sylvain, get down.”
“Fuck, I hate it when you do this, bossman.” He obeys. Dimitri doesn’t say anything. Hilda has disappeared into the tinted windows, and Dimitri inhales. Exhales. Fires.
He hits the side of the SUV and it almost veers off to the edge. “Missed the damn driver, do you even know how to aim, boar?”
“I’m trying,” Dimitri snaps.
Lost that turn, because on the next minute, he gets an answer in the form of a bullet clipping his shoulder.
Blood on the windows.
“Shit.” Felix could tear the wheel from the car.
It’s Sylvain who reaches over to hold Felix’s wrist and prevent him from spinning the SUV off the road. With a steady voice, he asks: “Dimitri, you alright?”
“I’m alive.”
“Alright. Good boy. You, focus on the road. It’s just a bullet, that’s not going to stop us.” Sylvain takes his own handgun. “Felix, do me a favour and slide back to the left of their van. Out their line of sight, rush to clip the tail light. Boss, can you still fight?”
“I can.”
“On my count, give me a burst.”
“Alright.”
“Same time that happens, Felix, I need you to speed up and reverse.”
“Are you serious – ”
“Do you trust me?”
Dimitri knows a lost argument when he hears one. Felix grits his teeth. Doesn’t answer, because he knows anything he says won’t be honest, anyway. Or too honest, as is the case sometimes.
The fight plays out like this:
23.30 Felix, who has the former training of a street racer who’s never been caught in his life, slides to the back of the SUV, out the Deers’ line of sight, and then rushes to clip their left tail light.
23.31 The car spins 90 degrees. At the same time, Dimitri releases a burst of automatic fire, which hits the door on the passenger’s side and takes out their headlights, the blunt end of the bumper becoming riddled with holes. The windshield taking a few hits and shattering.
23.32 The panicked silhouette against the Deers’ window makes shadows illuminated by lamp posts, and Sylvain takes aim with his handgun.
23.33 Sylvain fires two shots.
23.34 He breaks the windshield entirely on the first. And on the second he hits the driver, blood spraying against glass.
23.36 Felix establishes distance as the SUV stops in the middle of the highway.
“I’m out of ammo,” Dimitri says.
“We still need to take their shit – ”
The back door opens and a bike revs up angry, headlights full blast, riding out. Twin pigtails in pink, and a second rider behind her.
If there’s one thing Felix is better than driving, it’s sharp things. Daggers and blades and swords. The minute they went past them Felix leaps out of the car, takes a dagger, and hurls it like it’s an Olympic sport.
It hits Hilda square in the chest. Sylvain fires on the tires; they fall. Dimitri comes out of the car with blood dripping down his arm, but he doesn’t care, and when three of them step out, it’s to corner a Deer on the road.
“Fuck,” Claude says, bearing her weight in his arms.
“Not bad, Deer,” Sylvain says, smiling.
If there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s hunting. And as far as Dimitri is concerned – it’s good for his friends to have hobbies.
This is how the two of them actually meet:
Dimitri knows deerly__ because he watches his cam shows regularly. He streams on Friday nights. He’s his top patron. Tonight deerly__ has on lace lingerie that he’d paid money for, funded by the several other wallets he’s got floating around that he uses for this express purpose: savouring the fall of lace against soft skin, so delicate that he wants to tear it apart with his hands. His cock aches.
Dimitri takes a slow sip of his whiskey as he watches deerly__ snap the band of his garters against his skin.
deerly__ murmurs something over the mic. His voice is soft. A deep, rich, buttery tone. He doesn’t really pay attention to what he says to his audience, he doesn’t care. He cares about the fact that he can see the trail of dark hair on his lower abdomen which he longs to kiss, touch. To take his cock in his mouth while he slips one, two fingers generously in his tight ass. deerly__ says he works out often.
Dimitri strokes his cock throughout the entire show, thinking of him, spilling down his thighs when he comes, biting off a scream. Does it again for deerly__ as he decides they were good enough for a bathroom show, soap suds all over his body he wants to hold. Fuck him, he thinks petulantly. Fuck him.
deerly__ hey, daddy, thanks for the tip tonight. Generous as always.
lionhearted. Pleasure’s mine. Tonight was a fantastic show, you were beautiful as always.
deerly__ you can have a personal show if you double your tip, daddy.
Nobody’s going to forgive him for funding the Deers with his vices, which is exactly why he does what deerly__ asks him to do. It’s fine. Money’s no question. Besides, he knows other people had it worse than him: Felix blows it on whatever shady tracking device he uses in his father’s company to keep track of their movements, it’s his way of saying he cares; and Sylvain blows it on whatever he wishes, things that are enough to conceivably kill him but don’t: women, drugs, alcohol, more sex. Ingrid staunchly supports an opera singer. She supports her burgeoning career and elegant assets the way Dimitri supports deerly__ right now: emotionally and physically.
deerly__ do you want me to call out a name?
lionhearted. Daddy’s fine.
Keeping it professional, keeping it cool, Dimitri thinks as he wipes down his thighs and his hands.
ii.
Claude has been a prisoner of the lions only once, and it was back when Cornelia still ran things and Dimitri a powerless heir. His uncle was spending their money in inefficient operations that nearly runs them to the ground. Meanwhile, rumours of the Eagles stockpiling ammunition and supplies in their gangs, training their people round-the-clock ot be good and efficient both in the public and the private sphere persisted for years that they were a bogeyman to Dimitri. Not knowing when Edelgard will strike, knowing that she will be prepared when she does, it’s enough to drive him insane. And the quiet complacency that they’re forced under is unbearable to him.
After cornering Claude in the highway he’s brought back to Fhirdiad where he is imprisoned. Little roughed up. Riegan’s going to pay for their little heir to come back, and that’ll come at the price of the Daphnel lands. But they will pay.
Dimitri’s cleaning his rifle once more when Sylvain comes back with coffee for the two of them. He drinks his black; Sylvain has a size-venti abomination. “Coffee.” “You think they’ll kill him?”
“House Riegan wants him alive, so no.”
“Yeah, but Cornelia can easily just say that that technically doesn’t mean he can’t be returned in a coma, or something.”
“That will plunge us to war, and the Lions are in no position to have one right now.”
“You think she cares?”
Dimitri frowns as he wipes his hands in a towel. “I hope she does.”
“What do you think?”
“I think it’s a waste to give the Alliance a reason to hate us any further.”
Sylvain hums, drinking his coffee. He then adds, “Felix thinks they want him dead.”
“Why?”
“Riegan doesn’t have any spare heirs. Their position hasn’t been strong in the Alliance for a while. If they kill him off, Gloucester takes over, who’s also more amenable to the Eagles down south.”
Dimitri says nothing as he finishes assembling his rifle. Cocks it. Dry fires on the side. It doesn’t catch. “Felix makes good points.”
Sylvain tosses a key card on his table.
Dimitri looks at it, then at him.
He waves as he leaves. “I wasn’t here.”
“… no,” Dimitri says, pocketing the card. “Of course not.”
The thing is, Dimitri actually hates guns. They’re so inefficient, and requires maintenance so much that he’s constantly irritated by them. But there’s no denying that they’re useful, and so he keeps one grudgingly. What he really prefers is a lance, like he’s some prince of old; because of that, Felix has taken to calling him your highness rather sarcastically. Your majesty when he’s feeling particularly irritated. For Dimitri’s part, he’s always gracious whenever Felix promotes him in his anger, which never fails to set the man off entirely. Sylvain just finds it funny.
Nobody’s going to know who killed their own guards with a lance, however, considering how unusual of a crime that was. With help from Ashe he moves through the cells quietly, hallway to hallway with the cameras playing a loop from months ago, instead of keeping track of what he’s up to. A lance is also easier to clean.
He gets to the cel for the Riegan heir and opens it. Claude is there, laying on his cot and staring at the ceiling; he bolts upright when he sees him, preparing for an attack, until he sees the blood on his face.
Dimitri tosses the card towards him, as well as a pouch containing several other things: gun. Keys. Cash.
“Didn’t know I was being moved,” Claude says evenly.
“You’re not,” Dimitri replies. “Anyway, deerly, this venue doesn’t suit you at all.”
Claude looks surprised, momentarily, before he schools his face to something more neutral. Dimitri wipes the blood from his face with the back of his hand. “Hurry.”
“And if this is a trap?”
“I’m not Cornelia, Claude.”
“No. You’re Lambert’s heir.”
“Meaning?”
“You can easily kill me.”
“Either you die here or you die on the border.”
“Not very good prospects.”
“Claude.”
“I’ll choose the one with the nicer view.”
Dimitri is exasperated as he leads him out. “I’m trying to save you.”
“What for?”
“Why are you asking? And now, of all times.”
“Just curious. Just because we have the time.”
“We don’t – ” Dimitri slams the entire lance through a guard’s chest; his strength pushes it through layers of armour, body and bone. Claude turns pale as he remembers who he is: the Blaiddyd’s monster, the true King of the Lions. “- we don’t have time.”
“I won’t repay you for this.”
“I don’t expect you to.”
They make it out in the open air. Claude looks back at him, his eyes cool as he appraises his bloody form, the lance in his hands.
“Stay out of my territory, Deer.” Dimitri turns away. “It’s for your own good.”
He probably shouldn’t be surprised that deerly__ kicked him out after that, which kind of stings, really, but Dimitri doesn’t begrudge him for it. It’s better this way. It’s annoying to have to look for a secondary back up face to wank off to, but also, he reasoned to himself that if the only reason he’s annoyed is because he lost some spank bank material, well, maybe it was right to be terminated to begin with. To compound his problems, he seeks Sylvain, which keeps Sylvain on an even keel for all of three weeks until he remembered why he can’t be with Sylvain: he gets jealous too quickly, though Sylvain was loyal to him all that time; also, Felix starts honing his swords frequently around his training space for no damn reason. He doesn’t even know why. He thinks he needs to lecture Sylvain about his apparent unavailability but he’s not sure he wants to be part of that conversation, so he decides not to.
Ingrid yells at him in that way she’s trying not to yell. “You and Sylvain,” she’d told him accusingly. “Will be such easy marks for a honeypot operation.”
“… are we not going to talk about that opera singer of yours? Because I’m pretty sure she knows about our national secrets, Ingrid.”
“We don’t have that kind of relationship,” Ingrid says haughtily.
Felix throws a card. “Why am I even here,” he grouses.
“What’s her name again?”
“Shut up!”
“How’d you find about his channel? Did Sylvain recommend him or what?”
Sylvain did, in fact, recommend his channel, way before the two of them put two and two together and realized who was on the other side of the camera. Sylvain did the smart thing and bailed, because he doesn’t shit the bed too much when he’s deep into the thick of things. Dimitri isn’t smart, and that’s why he’s feeling annoyed that he lost membership to a private channel. Parasocialism at its finest, except he nearly killed the guy. He thinks that ought to count for something. He’s not about to put Sylvain in front of the firing squad, however. At least, not in front of Felix and Ingrid. “I actually found him of my own accord.”
“What, where. You don’t use social media.”
“I’ll have you know I’m proficient in social media, actually.”
“Yeah, what’s wrong with you? He has a really polished linkedin.” Dimitri smiles. Ingrid grins and the two of them toast. Felix, disgusted, shakes his head.
“Whatever. If you found him on your own, that’s even worse. You’re telling me when you need to fucking relax, you turn manic and despondent and look for characters like Claude von Riegan.”
“Felix, tell Dimitri what happened to you in the summer of – ”
“No.”
“What happened? What do you want to tell me?”
“Boar, I have nothing to tell you.”
“I’m here, babes.” Sylvain arrives with a case of beer for everyone which he sets on the side, and starts throwing several cold ones from their cooler to the other three. “What are we talking about?”
“I want Felix to tell Dimitri what happened that summer with the stupid operation the Eagles got him in.”
“Oh, haha. Saints. Don’t be like that, Ingrid, that was really dangerous.”
“Exactly.” Felix calls.
Dimitri raises an eyebrow. “Oh, now I’m supposed to accept Sylvain as an authority? Ingrid, tell me.”
“Boar, if you don’t fucking shut up – ”
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean? Why can’t I be an authority?”
“-- Felix got caught in a honeypot operation by Linhardt thinking he was going to meet some rando off Tinder until he realized it was Hubert.”
Felix is drunk. Felix slams the can on the table and glares at Ingrid. “Do you wanna go? Do you wanna go right now?”
“Babes, I just got here, why are we fighting again.”
Dimitri shrugs. “I didn’t do anything.” He throws down his cards. “Also, I win.”
Ingrid groans. Felix snarls at him: “Fuck off.”
“I’m going home, by the way.”
“Wait, aren’t you Felix’s ride?” Sylvain tosses him his jacket, and he takes it gratefully.
Dimitri sighs. “No, I don’t think I want to be.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m thinking he has other plans.”
“Whoa. Whoa! Red card,” Sylvain says. “Get the fuck outta here, Blaiddyd.”
He’s laying low. Taking a ‘vacation’, which he hasn’t taken in years, but this time is his dad’s 40th birthday, and he feels it’s big enough of a milestone to take a vacation for. He doesn’t want to count how long he’s been dead. He thinks it’ll be easier if he doesn’t. The other reason: by now, Fhirdiad has found out that Claude von Riegan has disappeared under their watch and is looking for the usual suspects. As with anything that’s a group effort, it’s Felix’s turn to play defense for all three of them.
He gets a curious letter when he picks the mail up one day. No address. Inside is just a series of small sections of a map, cut out from a whole: four make a grid that covers the forest beyond Fhridiad. There’s a small slip of paper with a question on it: want to go on a date?
Dimitri doesn’t like work that involves precision and a delicate touch, his strength has more than ruined too many things for his liking. But he likes being busy, and he enjoys being challenged. A cursory search gets him the area that the map points out. The riddle is a bit easier to break: it involves knowing a bit of history of warfare in order to figure out. Two years. It fits a grid reference, and he maps it in the forest with a bigger map, a different scale.
That’s how he makes it to an apparent safehouse in the middle of the woods. It looks relatively picturesque by the rapids, but not entirely easy to hike through – he imagines one need to be familiar with such trails.
Deer are woodland creatures, after all.
A knock on the door and he smells coffee. And when the door opens, there Claude was, smiling.
“You’re late.”
“The weather was terrible, I’m sorry.”
“Oh sure. Hungry?”
That’s how it started, really. As far as first dates go, it wasn’t anything special and nothing spectacular happened. He ate, they talked, he slept on the couch. In the dark he listened to nothing but the noise of the woods, and wondered, more and more often, why they can’t seem to make this kind of peace last for themselves. Sure, nothing worth having is ever easy, but what’s pointless suffering for? They’ve held onto power long enough. They should be the first ones to walk away from it. Leave Fhirdiad to its people, instead of being under the thumb of the families that ruled it for far too long.
He falls asleep eventually, and wakes up late, and finds that he doesn’t mind it at all.
Sometimes it’s not as dramatic as a cabin in the woods. Sometimes it’s something like: an empty office allegedly for lease in a mix-used building. A stairwell. An abandoned car in the mall parking lot. Eventually Dimitri adds his own to their map: a guard shack. A public bathroom. A strip bar. A pub. A library. No evidence of it left, everything has to be burned as soon as the riddle is solved, but it makes for an interesting hobby.
Probably the most interesting one they’ve found themselves in was a gas station bathroom.
“Really, Dimitri? You couldn’t pick anything else?”
“I realized too late that I sent you the wrong coordinates.”
“How are you the leader of the Lions again? There’s a reason why they don’t give officers maps, you know.”
“Stop it.”
Claude can’t talk, not really, because Dimitri’s mouth is too good at shutting him up, and he fits nicely on the sink which he’s fairly sure isn’t clean but he’ll forego safety and cleanliness for the sake of getting laid. Actually it seems like he’s been doing that a lot lately: making a lot of compromises, making a lot of concessions.
Dimitri tears open his shirt and bites his skin, kissing the length of his neck up to the soft underside of his chin where he licks at his pulse, sucking on the skin some bruises to leave with. Claude fumbles with his pants, tugging them free and pushing them down. “Do you want me to call you ‘daddy’?”
“… no.”
“No?”
“I actually don’t like it when you call me that.”
“… then why did you ask me to call you that?”
“It provides some measure of distance.” Dimitri sighs. “And reminds me it’s a bad idea.”
“Oh. Well, that didn’t work out, didn’t it.”
“No, I was too optimistic.”
“What do you want me to call you, then?”
“Just say my name,” he murmurs. “I just want to hear you say my name.”
Dimitri would say it was the most romantic fucking he’s ever done, despite the location. He held hands with him throughout. Claude called out his name and he stumbled over his, hissing in silence as he came. Then after that: the drive back, the wind blowing freely through his hair as he sped down the highway in his car, Claude laughing and singing. It’s awful how comfortable he felt, which is why he reasoned to himself that it can’t last. Not really. Not when this war is going. Not when both of them are responsible for too many people, too many thngs. Which is why, kissing him at the end of the night, Dimitri feels such dread when he thinks, I have to end this before it gets completely out of hand.
Message read: 23.45.
iii.
“What’s the worst way you’ve ever broken up with someone?”
Sylvain is the first to look at him. “Saints, Dimitri. It’s a Friday night. Why are you opening up with this?”
“Guys, shut up. My baking show is on.”
Ingrid has now taken to watching a baking show starring a friend of her opera singer ‘friend’. Her name is Annette, and she is very perky and sunny for a Friday evening. Felix likes to tell everyone who’s interested in listening that this show sucks, except that both Sylvain and Dimitri know that Annette has been signed on to the studio that his father owns and he is honour-bound to watch anything the Fraldarius conglomerate produces. So here they were, binging season 1.
“Anyway, to answer your question, in-person while there was a blizzard warning. My car froze, I couldn’t get the hell out of her apartment because we’re snowed in. She also didn’t help me when I got stuck in a snowbank. No sex was involved.”
“Why would there be?” Felix turns on him, annoyed. “I’d do the same. I’d kick you out the curb, snow or not.”
“Really, you’d do that to Sylvain?” Dimitri reaches for a can. He looks at Felix, his tone light, feeling combative because he’s drinking. This is why he’s not allowed to get drunk. This is also why he drinks. “Seems harsh.”
“Yeah, like wow, I can’t picture that for you, Felix,” Ingrid says.
Felix narrows his eyes. “What’s happening. Why are the two of you saying shit like this.”
“Anyway, Dimitri – your turn.”
“Oh. Formal text.”
“What the fuck, boar?”
“Wait … what does formal text even mean, Dimitri.” Ingrid frowns as she opens up a can and settles on the table with them to play cards. “Did you send them a memo?”
“Can you imagine?” Sylvain laughs. “Subject: end of relationship. First paragraph: ‘Owing to the current circumstances, we can no longer date.’ Three sentences detailing the reasons why. Comment and formal assessment. Signed, etcetera etcetera.”
Dimitri shakes his head. “You talk a lot of game, for a man who doesn’t even know his current unavailability.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Sylvain, shut up,” Felix snarls. “Are we playing or what?”
“We’re playing,” Ingrid says tersely. “But I want to know about this formal text thing.”
“It’s just as it sounds,” Dimitri says, sighing. “I said, ‘I’m sorry, we had a good time, I’m breaking up with you.’ Or something along those lines.”
Sylvain translates for the table: “He said, ‘I’m not looking for something serious right now.’”
Dimitri, annoyed, throws a fry at him. Sylvain dodges him gracefully.
“What did they say?”
“’Noted.’”
“Noted?” Felix nearly screeches on the table. He doesn’t know whether he should laugh or be affronted. “Who says noted during a break up other than you?”
“Well – ”
“Oh, right. You and your awful tastes in men.”
Dimitri glares at him. Ingrid sips her beer coolly. “Did you know that poor eating habits formed in childhood can carry into adulthood, Felix?”
“What’s that supposed to mean. Why are you – what are you implying.”
“Saints it’s like walking into a firing squad with the two of you, every night,” Sylvain says dramatically. “I’m just living here. Anyway, are you okay?”
All three of them look at Dimitri.
Dimitri holds his breath, exhales. Sometimes, he forgets that he has friends, until all of them remind him that they’re there for him, and will still be there for him no matter what. No matter his flaws. No matter the hardship or the danger. He has an entire world that’s just distilled to this table, if everything else falls apart in the future, and it’s for reasons like that that he wants to be better. To live without worrying whether Sylvain will come back every night, whether Felix has been pushing himself too hard, whether Ingrid will live in each mission she deploys to. He just wants to do better, be worthy of the kind of affection and loyalty he’s been handed to all his life, as if it were something he had awkwardly worn. He had kept himself warm throughout the ruthlessness of his adulthood with their trust, so blinding he couldn’t live without it. Which makes this recent predicament even more awkward as he realizes there are other ways of living without it, too, and only chasing pleasure for pleasure’s sake, making mistakes on his own terms. Why he ever thought of surrendering before he even had won anything, he’ll never know now. He must be, at the heart of it, an incurable coward.
Dimitri leans back on his chair and looks at the ceiling. “No.”
They’re quiet. The silence is oppressive, so Dimitri laughs awkwardly. What he wants to say is the usual bullshit: it’s better this way. What comes out of his mouth is: “no, I don’t feel alright.” He drinks to cover up the way he wants to talk even more.
“… have you tried talking to him again?”
“I don’t think I should.”
“Why not?” Felix looks at him skeptically. “It’s just talking. Nothing has to come out of it. All you have to do is be honest that you fucked up and apologize. Let him make the decision after.”
“And if he takes me back?”
“You’re that confident?”
“I mean, if he rejects me, then it’s not a problem,” Dimitri says slowly, the alcohol dulling his thoughts. “But if he says yes, I don’t know what I’ll do with myself.”
“… Dimitri, don’t be foolish,” Sylvain says, smiling. “You’ll do what any person in this world does in a relationship: their damn best. That’s all you can ask from anyone, really.”
Dimitri. Hey, listen, I know I broke up with you before and I’m sorry, but I’m having second thoughts and I have a feeling I made a mess. If you’re amenable to it, can we talk? If not, I’ll take that as our default state and I won’t bother you anymore. I just wish to explain my side of it.
Unknown number. Hi Dimitri, I’m assuming this is you. Sorry, Claude sold his phone to me. I’ll pass on the message though. – Ignatz.
Dimitri. Oh. Shit. I’m sorry. Uh, maybe don’t bother. Have a nice evening.
Unknown number. You replied too slow, sorry! I texted him already. He has your number now, so just … wait for a response, I guess? I gotta go, have a good night.
Dimitri throws his phone onto the floor, and slowly sinks into the hot water in his tub.
In the process, he misses three calls from Claude, so he gives up for the night and goes to bed.
He doesn’t hear from Claude for a while, and he thinks that’s for the best, until they end up in a shoot out with the Eagles as they try to take back a former Lions stronghold – Arianrhod. Dimitri plays sniper, being too recognizable to be on the ground. Sylvain is in their operations issuing warnings and orders from their actual HQ and Ingrid is the driver this time around. Felix is their main fighter. For this reason Dimitri rolls his eyes every time he hears their code names over the radio: honeybadger for Felix and darling for Ingrid and beloved for Dimitri. Dedue gets husband, which Ingrid said was unfair because she wanted husband and Felix stewed in private and ranted to Dimitri in the bathroom about it because he wanted that code name and Dimitri just wanted to piss. He tells him rather dully, facing the urinal, that he doesn’t want to get involved with the whole code name business.
Anyway.
Part of a sniper’s job is to lie still and wait: a bad trait that Dimitri is never good at. It requires patience, which he doesn’t have a lot of. At least he has Dedue by his side, as his spotter. Who is also unfortunately putting up with his worries that have nothing to do with the mission.
Dimitri stares at his sights with nothing in his view, not really seeing what he should be paying attention to. “… it’s just that it’s been weeks now, Dedue.”
“Boss.”
“I feel like – that’s as good as a ‘no’, right? He’s just decided it’s not worth pursuing and I should probably drop the issue. That’s what it means, right?”
Contact at your 6, Honeybadger, why are you being reckless? Do as Darling says and get the hell out of there. Regroup with her friends. Take the South exit.
“Probably. If you haven’t heard from him, and he’s changed phones, it’s reasonable to assume he’s not interested in rekindling your relationship.”
He sighs.
“I wish he’d just tell me. I really did mess up. I thought I was doing the smart thing.”
“You were.”
“It made me miserable, though.”
“It doesn’t mean you can’t be cautious. And you were being cautious at that time.”
“I think I hurt him.”
“It’s unavoidable.”
“… I’m really stupid.”
“… I don’t think you are, but I think it’s normal to miss someone you cared a lot for.”
“I wish I can just – ”
Beloved. Ten minutes we’re getting some friends.
Not now. Dimitri sighs. “- Roger.”
He sees Claude on his sight.
Perfect in the middle of his crosshairs, his elegant hair slicked back, eyes determined as they were. Claude with his own rifle. Claude with that dagger on his hip. Claude with that form-hugging dress, moving like he was unaware of his own mortality.
His finger hovers over the trigger. Get out, he roars. Get out, GET OUT, I TOLD YOU TO STAY OUT.
Sylvain’s voice snaps him out of his nerves: Honeybadger, friends on 2. Darling, get out, we don’t know their intentions, it’s a lover’s only rendezvous.
But Claude remains, and just as Felix gets out of it – he raises his gun –
-- Dimitri almost squeezes the trigger –
And he fires it past Felix. Knocking an Eagles guard down.
Dimitri remembers to breathe again. Closes his eyes.
Opens it, to the sight of Claude, filling up his sight, and looking where he is. For a moment, he thinks of having met his eyes. He thinks he knows. He thinks he sees him open his mouth and call his name.
It doesn’t happen, and he leaves, and Dimitri relaxes. Shifts ever so slightly his hold on his rifle.
“Boss,” Dedue murmurs. “Are you alright?”
“… yes,” Dimitri says. “I’ll be fine.”
Party’s getting started, friends. In-laws are here.
In-laws refer to Ladislava and her henchmen, the most fanatic of the Eagles tasked with defending Arianrhod here from them on short notice, and Dimitri shakes his head at Sylvain’s voice in his ear. “Alright. Time to do some work, I suppose.”
Husband, are you ready?
“Anytime, babe.”
It actually sounds seductive when Dedue says that over the line in his deep voice, and Dimitri snickers when he hears Sylvain momentarily stutter, before he regains his composure.
Alright. Steady as she goes. Let’s do a lot of inappropriate things today, shall we?
“You know, we intercepted some interesting radio chatter,” Claude says, hands in his pockets as he meets him after, smiling at him. “Who’s the infamous 'honeybadger'?”
“Why don’t you guess?”
“Let’s see … it’s either Felix or Ingrid, and owing to how you Lions moved today … Felix.”
Dimitri smiles. “Got it in one.”
Arianrhod has fallen. Dimitri and the Lions are in the parking lot of a coffee shop downtown, meeting up with the Deer as they celebrate for the night. Claude meanders towards him, winning smile, a shirt that shows off his clavicles too nicely, a jacket that he suspects is his own. He hands him a coffee and shares some of his mini-donuts with him.
“And you were ‘husband’, I suppose.”
“No.”
“Oh.” Claude frowns as he chews on a mini-donut. “Were you ‘darling’?”
“Wrong again.” Dimitri leans over and takes a mini-donut as well, dunking it into his coffee before he eats it.
“Ah. Beloved.”
“Yes.”
“I should’ve known.”
“Not what you expected?”
“No.” Claude looks away. “You called me that.”
Dimitri’s face turns red. “Oh. … at the drive-in. Yes.”
“Now he remembers,” Claude says, amused.
“It was a long time ago.”
“It wasn’t that long ago.”
“You know what I mean.”
Claude sits against his bike, a sharp, black thing. He pats the leather seats. “Does this stallion like passengers?”
“It can take just one.”
He leans forward, bumping his nose against Claude’s, leaning forward, smiling. In a quiet voice, he says, “I was really foolish.”
“I didn’t begrudge you for it. You were being cautious. It’s not a bad idea to be cautious around the Deer.”
“I didn’t want to just treat you like that.”
“Well, that’s why we’re here.”
“I’m sorry about Hilda.”
“She survived. She still hates Felix, but … we’re hoping that under you, the Lions will change.”
He glances at their motley group. Felix and Ingrid, still laughing. Sylvain being turned down harshly by a Leonie who wants to beat his ass. Hilda having a heated conversation with Mercedes. Ralph talking animatedly with Dedue, who looks utterly charmed by everything he says. Ignatz laughing at everything Ralph says.
Claude slips an arm around his waist and pulls him close. Kisses him on the cheek and murmurs, “how about you take me around town, beloved?”
Dimitri smiles. He finishes his coffee and kisses him.
“It’d be my pleasure, darling.”
end.