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Language:
English
Series:
Part 2 of DimiClaude; canon but established relationship AU
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Published:
2019-08-24
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1,677
Chapters:
1/1
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20
Kudos:
234
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20
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2,283

Finis

Summary:

Claude wasn't stupid enough to think their relationship was likely to last. But he hadn't thought it'd end like this: with a war and an apology.

(Reading "Epistolary" is not required to enjoy this fic, but it does maximize the hurt if you do.)

Notes:

The days leading up to college move-in does things to a person. In this case, it made me churn out two fics on opposite side of the emotional genre spectrum. So yay..?

For those who have read Epistolary, you can imagine this fic to be the opposite of that. No humor, no fluff, just sad. This fic was really an outpouring of my own emotions written in an hour or two, which explains why it's saturated with flowery writing. I guess this is my own break up with DimiClaude for a bit, in a way, because I doubt I'll have much time to write once college starts. Or not. Actually I'm just lamenting the sleep I'm going to lose in favor of writing FE3H fic because I have sooo many fic ideas (DimiClaude and otherwise) that I'm dying to get on paper and share with people, even if they're trash lol. But we'll see.

Anyway, hope you enjoy!

Work Text:

Claude searches out Dimitri in the crowd. It’s no easy task. The crowd is shifting mass of nervous energy, murmurs buzzing from student to student in waves, echoing the thoughts that have been bouncing around Claude’s head since they emerged from the tomb. 

Edelgard is the Flame Emperor. The Empire’s declared war. Edelgard is the Flame Emperor. The Empire’s declared war.

He hates being up here on this pedestal of a space, right next to the archbishop as she delivers the news about to shatter a century and a half’s worth of peace in Fodlan. His housemates seem to feel the same. Claude watches them fidget or look away, faces crumpled with anxiety. Disbelief. Even Lorenz, the most attention-basking out of all of them, betrays a current of uncertainty with his tightly-knotted arms and rigid stance.

They’re just students, most of them barely of age. Students trained for battle, familiar with blood, yes—but not prepared for a continental war. Students do not belong next to the side of the archbishop as they hear that they must be prepared to give their lives to the battle ahead, and then the war beyond that.

But Rhea insisted. ‘You’re witnesses,’ she’d said. 

So they’re pushed out of the tomb, pushed onto this stage, and pushed into the war. 

The only upside is that Teach doesn’t look any happier than the rest of them do, being up here. She’s never liked attention much. Especially attention from Rhea. 

Well, there is one more upside. The height of the stage makes it a good vantage point. And it soon proves useful—it takes about a minute after Rhea breaks the news for him to locate Dimitri, who is a bright streak of golden blond pushing against the current of the masses that is slowly swelling forward, closer to the stage in hopes of more news, of a silver lining. Dimitri is the only one moving away—and Claude can guess why. Dimitri has mentioned his relationship with Edelgard to Claude in the past, after a teasing remark that Dimitri might like Edelgard more than his actual boyfriend. 

Dimitri had rolled his eyes, had laughed. Seeing a flash of Dimitri’s present expression, completely contorted by a dark scowl, it’s hard to imagine Dimitri having ever laughed.

Claude watches him disappear towards the Knight’s Hall. Even in the tomb, watching Edelgard warp away—he hadn’t felt as helpless as he does now.

When Rhea finally dismisses them, the crowd immediately falls into chaos but stays knit together in fear, refusing to disperse. The staff members are dispatched to herd the students back into their dorms.

Byleth stays back. Instead, she calls to Claude, “Did you see Dimitri? He looked—”

“I did.” Claude doesn’t need the details of what he saw repeated back to him. “I got him, you should go help out. Thanks, Teach.”

Byleth nods, worry not quite gone, but appeased. Claude has always been encouraged by how much she’s been invested in his and Dimitri’s relationship from the beginning. And now, he needs every ounce of encouragement he can get.

The Knight’s Hall is dark and empty. No—it feels empty. It’s not actually empty—Claude knows this, because he sees the lone figure hacking away at the training dummies at the far wall—but the sight is haunting. The rhythmic thwack of the sword may as well be the footsteps of ghosts.

“Your Princeliness,” he calls with humor he doesn’t feel. “Didn’t care to stay for the afterparty?”

“Go away, Claude.” Dimitri doesn’t even break his concentration at he says it. 

Claude’s eyes wander to the training dummy. Most of its body is untouched. But its neck. The wounds there are so deep that the dummy’s trachea is composed of barely two or three threads. The grooves in the wood that serve as the dummy’s head support is on the verge of breaking apart.

Even as the slashes continue, it is only the neck. Only, always the neck.

“I thought you needed a bit of company.” Claude’s gaze wanders back to the dummy. He feels a little queasy. “This, what you’re doing—it doesn’t help.”

A hollow laugh bubbles from Dimitri’s throat. “What I need is her head on a stick. What I need—” Dimitri swivels to face him. He is unrecognizable. During their time at the training grounds, even their time on the battlefield—he has never looked like this. 

Insane, Claude thinks, is the word.

“—is for you. To leave.” The last words are said in a snarl. The sword flashes in his hands, the blade littered with specks of hay—what would’ve been blood on a battlefield. 

“We’ve been dating for eight months and you won’t let me be here for you for a little while? I’m hurt.”

Dimitri doesn’t respond, but his eyes are pure ice. A clear enough sign of: I don’t give a damn.

But Claude doesn’t waver. He steps forward, eyes on Dimitri the whole time. “What you need is to take a step back and examine the situation. To rush headfirst into this would be as good as suicide. It wouldn’t do any good in fighting against Edelgard. It wouldn’t be good for you.”

This already isn’t good for him; for the Dimitri who only grew confident in hugs after two months of dating yet initiated their first kiss, who never fails to laugh at Alois’s jokes, who gets nightmares that he tries to hide. Who never says no to a stargazing date, never says yes to a archery session, who didn’t flinch away when Claude first said the word ‘Almyran.’ For the person whom Claude has come to love.

Dimitri steps forward, too. “You pretend like you know. But by coming here and telling me to take a step back, you show that you don’t know the extent of the betrayal she’s inflicted on me. There is no action to take but forward, as fast as possible, and lop off her head before she’s caused even more pain. More tragedy. But of course—” 

Dimitri takes another step forward, forcing Claude to take a step back, back towards the door he came from. Dimitri’s voice is a low growl as he says, “You’re an outsider. Nothing but. How would you know what’s good for me?”

Dimitri’s arm moves in a flash of silver. Claude flinches, reflexes honed enough that he ducks to the side without thought. A heavy crack resounds through the hall as Dimitri’s sword jabs itself into the wooden door behind him. Claude can’t be certain it’s in the position where his head was just mere seconds ago. He can’t imagine Dimitri would ever commit cold-blooded murder, but he doesn’t know anymore.

Dimitri’s right. What does he know? Claude came here, confronted Dimitri with no backup plan whatsoever because he doesn’t know a damn thing.

“Answer me,” says the boar prince. He might even be sneering.

“I guess you’re right.” Claude’s voice comes out cold, colder than he’d meant it to be. The last thing Dimitri needs right now is even more cold ( how would you know what’s good for me?) but it’s hard to prevent. All he can hear is the word outsider, an identity he’s come to embrace—reluctantly at first, but with the support of the people around him, it’s a part of himself he’s come to be proud of. But when it’s thrown back in his face, hissed back with a mocking lilt, it’s like he’s back in Almyra, reduced to nothing but insults and bruises under the feet of the uncaring. 

‘I’m shaking,’ Claude realizes. Out of fear or anger, he can’t tell. 

He could do a number of things. He could dash to Dimitri and wrap him in a hug until the cold is squeezed out of him or he passes out from asphyxiation or both; he could yank the sword out from the door and threaten Dimitri with it until he comes back to his senses; he could throw a punch, and another, until they know nothing but blood and bruises, until they forget about the war.

Or he could leave. Claude knows, by walking out the door and leaving Dimitri in the darkness, to be swallowed by it—it would be as good as a damnation. He knows this much, at least.

Eight moons ago—a lifetime ago, it feels like—he and Dimitri had given each other a chance. Not a promise to be together forever. Just—a chance. A chance to get to know each other. A chance to try out a relationship.

To Claude—slowly, it had bloomed into a promise. Never spoken aloud, but existent all the same in the small touches, the quiet kisses. But with this Dimitri—an unrecognizable Dimitri, looking at him with such disdain, spitting words with such loathing—he does an unspeakable thing. One that will keep him up at night, five years later, when all the world has gone to hell.

“Sorry, Dimitri.” Claude turns. ‘Dimitri’  tumbles from his mouth like stone, like the name of a stranger. “I’ll be leaving, then.”

And he does.

 

At the Battle of Garreg Mach, their eyes meet. Claude’s just taken care of the last of a battalion and scanning for more on the horizon. He spies Dimitri having done the same. And somehow, their eyes meet.

There’s nothing in Dimitri’s face but unwavering determination, as if his only goal in sight is Edelgard’s head. As if that wouldn’t be a feat worthy of hundreds of battles, of years of fighting and bloodshed. 

It strikes Claude that either of them might die here. And how Dimitri wouldn’t care, whether he or anyone else dies, because he’ll only be thinking of Edelgard’s head until it’s her head gone from her body or his own. To Dimitri, the deaths of today won’t matter unless it’s the death of Edelgard. And Claude despises that.

But still, even now—Dimitri, he thinks, looks beautiful.

With the ghost of a smiling Dimitri lingering in his thoughts, Claude throws himself back into battle.