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It’s cold. It’s always cold. Dimitri huddles into himself, pulling his body away from the creeping sunlight and the breeze that accompanies it. A long night of chasing vermin has done nothing to ease the ache in his bones, even if he feels better knowing that the ruins are, at least temporarily, bandit-free. Still, sleep eludes him. He stares listlessly into the dark and tries hard not to make eye contact with anything that might be staring back.
There are bodies on the stairs. They have been there for some time, strewn about where they fell under Dimitri’s lance or his fists, carelessly littering the ground like the discarded toys of a particularly spoiled child. He hadn’t been bothered by them before – it had felt only right that he should be subjected to their company – but now he would catch the glimpse of a gloved hand out of the corner of his eye and his heart would jump into his throat and choke him until he looked harder and saw the stain of Imperial red upon their armour. This fear is the professor’s doing, even if he can only blame himself for the way that it rattles him. Loss is familiar, but he doesn’t know what to do in a world where the dead can return in flesh and bone, can stretch out their hands and touch him. A part of him wants to hate Byleth for daring to return. Why now, after the land has rotted and the people have suffered for five years? Why now, after the people responsible for guarding the masses and giving succour have scattered to the four winds to find him? Why now, after Dimitri has nothing left to give, after the world has already claimed the one life he was able to save as penance for his cowardice – after he has already traded a man as good as Dedue for his own wretched life? Why now, when he has steeled his heart against loneliness and he cannot fathom being worthy of the pitying gaze that now dogs his waking moments?
No one who has died has ever come back before and Goddess knows that now, of all times, Dimitri doesn’t deserve it. It’s inevitable that he will lose this too, another life slipping through his fingers. He fears the moment when he will look for Byleth only to find him lying among the corpses on the floor, dead once more, some higher power realizing their mistake. He doesn’t know if he could survive it.
Footsteps echo up the winding path of the stairwell and Dimitri stiffens in spite of himself, feeling pathetic and feeble as he clings to stillness until a figure crouches before him, blotting out all but the slimmest halo of light.
“Dimitri.” The first word that Byleth has said to him in hours and it trails off, withers in the air and the shadows on the man’s face seem to deepen for the loss of it. Byleth always was quiet. Dimitri remembers that he used to find it somewhat off-putting, but now he clings to it as a reminder that Byleth is alive. The dead are never silent these days. “Dimitri,” Byleth says again, pausing to lick his lips, as if needing to gather the strength to speak to him, “there are people at the edge of the monastery grounds. Armed. I didn’t get a good look at their banner.”
Dimitri groans as he forces his body to unfold, numb fingers tight around his spear as he uses it to lever himself to his feet. Byleth makes space for him, uncertain, before rushing back in once it’s clear where his intentions lie. “Get out of my way.” The words are hard and grating, but Byleth doesn’t flinch, not even when Dimitri pushes him aside with a hand that he has seen snap the bones of lesser men. It’s Dimitri who startles, drawing back, tongue held still on the edge of apology. His hand fists agitatedly at his side; he will not touch him again, he is capable of at least that much decency.
“We can’t beat them alone,” Byleth says, patient and calm, like he’s still speaking to his student. Maybe they can’t. Dimitri is not a stupid man; he can see the grim reality before him, the tactical frailty of his position. He never would have tasked any soldier with facing such poor odds, but he is not a soldier and he dares not stop marching forward lest his resolve weaken and leave him with no path to follow. This is all he knows how to do now.
Byleth fades beyond his periphery before heaving an uncharacteristically agitated sigh and following. Something in Dimitri’s gut stings, phantom pain sharp and sudden, but he doesn’t pause in his steps. If Byleth is determined to follow him, then he will not waste time trying to dissuade him.
I wanted your guidance – so many times these past years. But you weren’t here to give it to me, he thinks, unfair and ugly and spiteful. Now we all must live with the consequences.
The battle is an ugly and chaotic affair. As Dimitri had suspected, the Imperial army has finally come to put him down, but their numbers are beyond what he had anticipated. He wonders if Edelgard had given the order, even as a small, weak part of him tries to quail at the idea before being roughly silenced. Her man, Hubert, likely wouldn’t have given him time to fight back had he been holding the leash. It would have been the smart play.
Dimitri discards his spear as it splinters and snaps in his hand. Seeing him disarmed, an overeager soldier is quick to try to rush him. Dimitri pauses only long enough to retrieve a new weapon from the man’s fallen body before moving onward. The commander is somewhere in the distance, barking orders from safety while his men bleed and die under Dimitri’s feet. He looks forward to killing him.
There is a shout from his left – a familiar voice, though too far away to make out the words with any precision. He and Byleth had been separated in the melee sometime ago, Byleth shouting something about the western flank before disappearing. He had not bothered to search, seeing the red glow of the Sword of the Creator often enough to stave off any errant concern, but hearing the desperation in such a usually dispassionate voice makes his feet pause in spite of himself.
That is when a wave of heat rolls over him and the surrounding vegetation, overgrown from neglect, catches fire.
Dimitri coughs into the crook of his arm, hearing the panicked screams of men caught in the flames rise up around him. He is still trying to reorient his surroundings, blinking away the water rising in his eye, when a hand grabs at him. Dimitri lashes out without looking only to feel the strike forcibly deflected. The hand seizes him again and Byleth’s stubborn face swims into view. “Let’s go.”
Dimitri shakes himself free, just careful enough but firm. “Not yet.”
“It’s not worth it, Dimitri.” Byleth grabs hold of him with both hands, sword clattering to the ground. Dimitri grits his teeth against the force of his own anger; of all the foolish –
Byleth staggers with a surprised grunt, knees buckling as he falls against him. Dimitri catches him more out of shock than intent, keeping him from sinking to the ground. An arrow has pierced Byleth’s leg from behind and though Dimitri looks, it’s impossible to place its source through the smog. He hesitates for a moment, hearing the shouts of the enemy commander drawing closer, blood singing for blood. He knows how those he lets walk free – how his failure will weigh on him later. How the ghosts will berate him for it.
He scoops Byleth into his arms, as careful of the injured leg as he can be in his haste, though it doesn’t stop him from hissing with pain, and retrieves the discarded sword. Then he leads them both through the flames.
It’s cold. They had been reluctant to light a fire, fearing discovery, but now that dark has fallen he wonders if Byleth regrets that choice. If it were just him, Dimitri would have no problem scouring the forest for suitable wood, but a strange fear has seized him. He had thought it would have left him once they were far enough for the air to turn cool and clean, after Byleth had used scraps of his overcoat to bandage his wound with efficiency born of practice. Byleth had even been convinced to drink one of their few on hand vulneraries; the wound will no doubt heal before seeing any risk of infection. Even so, Dimitri cannot shake the fear that if he leaves, even for a little while, Byleth will not be there when he returns. It might be better if he isn’t, objectively, but Dimitri cannot bring himself to shirk the reassurance of his presence. It makes him feel like a child.
So, they sit together while the night grows colder around them, waiting for the relief of dawn. Dimitri struggles to minimize his own shivers, self-conscious in a way that he has not had cause to be for years. He doesn’t know what tomorrow will bring, where he should go from here, what these moments of rest will cost him. He has not wavered from his goal since the day he saw the Flame Emperor’s face and shattered her mask beneath his boot; that he has allowed sentiment to waylay him now carves a sick pit within his gut.
Something shifts within the dark and Dimitri tenses on instinct until he hears the change in Byleth’s breathing, sees the way an identifiable man-shape shuffles toward him. Only to start again when that man-shape sits next to him, weight settling against his shoulder. “I’m cold,” Byleth says, an almost slurred, bleary quality to his voice (once upon a time, Dimitri might have dared enough to tease him for it). His breath puffs over Dimitri’s face, almost scalding through contrast. “And I can hear you thinking.”
Dimitri shouldn’t allow it. He shouldn’t. Pins and needles strike at his arm where Byleth’s head rests, but it’s nothing compared to the warmth that radiates from that point of contact. Dimitri has not felt warmth for a very long time. Dimitri lets his head fall back, trying to keep his breathing slow and gentle as Byleth sinks further into his side, heavy with sleep. Come morning, Byleth might regret getting so close to him, might finally come to his senses and realize what Dimitri has become. But tonight –
Tonight, Dimitri closes his eye and lets the beating of his selfish heart drown out the voices that call to claim him.