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If there is one thing Dedue has learned over the course of his lifetime, it is that war changes the bonds one has with others irreversibly.
After all, who had he truly known before the earnest war effort, much less before he came to Garreg Mach? Those he might now tentatively call friends would have stayed unknown to him in all other scenarios; even his bond with Dimitri has strengthened, defying the pressure of hardship that has come to rest on them both.
Claude, however, has never been a man Dedue had thought he would know. Whether due to their differences in station, nationality, origin, or loyalties, Dedue had thought some doors closed forever. He had been content with this, even, quietly determined to do what he could for his oldest living friend and let all other sleeping dogs lie.
Since returning to Dimitri’s side, however, life has been a never-ending series of surprises. In this case, he supposes he ought to be grateful—this surprise, at least, has the potential to be a pleasant one.
Claude had wanted to disappear from Leicester immediately after Derdriu had been secured. Dedue knew the look in his eyes all too well, having seen it on the faces of both himself and his liege lord throughout their mutually troubled adolescence. Still, a transferance of power is not actually as simple as speaking the words, and wounds already bandaged—Gronder, Dedue thinks, chest tightening—have begun to bleed anew.
(And he cannot forget the fresh wounds, either. How close had the Empire truly come to breaking the proud Riegan heir?)
So Claude had stayed, and in doing so had consented to holding as much of the recovering armies as he could manage on Riegan land—the last good deed it will do under his name. As Claude’s former classmates, Dedue and the other Lions are granted rooms in the family wing.
“We practically are family,” Claude had joked to the professor as he’d brought them all to their lodgings. “Some of us just happen to be more estranged than others.”
His smile had not reached his eyes.
Dimitri has already given his thanks to Claude for hosting them, of course, but as he attends to more matters that had fallen by the wayside during his…convalescence, it has fallen to Dedue to convey that gratitude once more—and to ask if there is anything they might do for Claude before they go.
Dedue does not rest so far from where the leader of the Alliance lays his head down, but the storied halls of the Riegan estate bear progressively down on him as he walks by. He has never managed to fully embrace the architecture of Fódlan’s three largest nations; only the tapestries hung carefully on the walls lend any warmth to the cold stone environment.
Claude’s door has little to distinguish it from the others he’d passed, save that it’s at the end of the hall. Had Claude ousted the old Duke Riegan from his chambers when he’d taken his place in the Alliance, or had these been his rooms from the beginning, unchanged throughout the years?
When Dedue knocks, Claude doesn’t even ask his identity before he bids him enter, voice as light and breezy as it had been when they were students.
Dangerous not to check, Dedue thinks, but then, hasn’t Claude already proven himself capable of surviving all manner of dangers?
Not as well as Dedue had thought, apparently; when he enters, the first thing he sees is Claude laid up in bed, more bandage than man.
Dedue only barely manages to stifle a gasp—he had not realized Claude was this hurt—but Claude, laid up in bed with more pillows than Dedue has ever seen in his life, only smiles, manner easy as he invites Dedue in.
“Dedue!” He’s all smiles, this leader among men, his eyes crinkling at the corners; Dedue wonders how Claude always manages to look so sincere. “What a pleasant surprise. I hope the Leicester estate is to your liking.”
“It is as agreeable a residence as anyone could hope for.” He dips into a shallow bow, more out of habit than anything, and watches Claude’s eyes flash at the sight. “Forgive me for disturbing your rest.”
“What’s there to be forgiven for?” Claude’s recovery is flawless; he slumps back, gesturing to the mess of bandages idly, old scars on his chest peeking out from between them. “I’m not going anywhere, so it’s good to have some company, even when it’s clear he’s here for business rather than pleasure.”
This is accompanied by a wink, though Dedue finds it far less lascivious than the practiced and polished ones Sylvain doles out so carelessly. Perhaps Claude really is as playfully charming as he appears; Dedue had always assumed it to be an act, but he can see no advantage in being charmed now.
Unless, of course, Claude is forever hedging his bets, which isn’t so unlikely, after all.
“Even still,” Dedue says, two beats too slow, judging by the curve of Claude’s smile. “I’ll make this brief. His Highness wished to convey his gratitude to you once more, and to offer the former Lions’ service to you if there is anything you might require before your departure.”
What an expressive face, he thinks as Claude’s eyebrows do something that turns his whole face rueful. It’s a wonder he can lie at all with features like that.
“If I said there’s nothing I need from you, there’s no way Dimitri would be satisfied, right?” Claude answers.
Dedue nods, hardly sheepish in the least.
“Then, assuming your injuries aren’t too awful—” And oh, Dedue doesn’t like the faux-coquettish dip of his eyes— “Maybe you could play nursemaid and entertainer until I recover?”
If Dedue were a prouder man, he might be affronted at such a request. As it is, he’s still silently looking for a slight hidden in the words when Claude’s gaze lifts to meet his own.
“Of course, I don’t mean actual nursing. You’d have no obligations, and I don’t expect your servitude.” Another charming smile, quick as lightning. “I just don’t want to be bored. Besides, you’ve always been interesting to me.”
And what is the harm, really? Claude will be gone in just a few weeks, and Fódlan will be in Dimitri’s hands soon enough.
He might as well pick Claude’s brains while he has the chance.
Claude is a better patient than Dedue would have expected.
Conversation with him is not a requirement of this duty, though Claude clearly had been even more attentive at the monastery than Dedue had initially assumed; he asks about gardening and cooking more than Dedue would have expected from someone who seems to know so little of either. Even his remarks on the former Deer are amusing—for Dedue, who could not have honestly confessed to being close enough to care for any of them, this is a miracle unto itself.
Claude has also proved himself an able teacher, much to Dedue’s surprise.
“I can only manage so much gossip,” Claude had said when he’d directed Dedue to the chessboard stowed away in a chest of drawers. “I need mental stimulus to keep these brains working, you know.”
Unable to stop himself, Dedue had raised an eyebrow, sending Claude into a laughing fit that transformed him into—revealed him as—something bright and sharp and magnetic, at least until his stitches pulled.
And occasionally, as if to entice him to stay, Claude will offer up insight as casually as if it were information on his third favorite breakfast food. They are seemingly little things—Baron So-and-so likes this tea, Count Something once bet an absurd amount of money on an Adrestian racehorse, and other such trivialities—but Dedue has lived with Fódlan politics too long not to recognize these gifts for what they are: ammunition stockpiles. One arrow can only fell an enemy with preternatural placement and strength, after all, whereas dozens ensure that at least a few will hit their targets.
When he delivers this information to Sylvain, who has made himself the shadowy master of such things, there is always a gleam in his eyes that makes Dedue glad of both his and Claude’s allegiance.
(“Have I ever told you you’re my favorite?” Sylvain says when Dedue notifies him of an influential Ordelian merchant’s weakness for Adrestian rum.
“No,” Dedue answers wryly, thinking of sharp elbows, hands callused by the hilts of swords, and heads made for the burden of crowns. “That would be a lie.”
A laugh startles out of Sylvain, a little ugly and all the truer for it. “Yeah, maybe so. But the more you bring me, the more I start to think you’re someone’s favorite, alright.”
Dedue doesn’t dignify this with a response. If Sylvain wants a reaction, he’s come to the wrong man.)
Slowly, without quite realizing it until it’s too late, Dedue begins to open up to Claude in turn.
Though he has more friends now than he had upon initially arriving at Garreg Mach, there is a comfort he feels with Claude that he has never felt quite so quickly. Dimitri was a special case, after all, and though Dedue will always consider him a brother, there had been a certain innate understanding they’d lacked for years beyond the Tragedy itself.
With Claude, though, he rarely needs to explain himself, and that feeling is a joy beyond all description.
Recovery is an arduous process for everyone, whether heir, prince, or otherwise, and Dedue has never been good at sitting idle. He and Claude have so little time together, relatively speaking. Even with a war beating at their doors and the weight of Claude’s unspoken ambitions bearing down on them, Dedue wants so badly to give as much as he gains.
He starts with the soup.
It’s a simple dish, at least as far as his own tastes are concerned—just broth, hominy, beans, and tomatillos, not to mention whatever spices he can sneak from the Riegan kitchen’s amply stocked pantries. If they’d been at Garreg Mach, with full access to its greenhouse, he could have done more, and he says as much to Claude upon presenting it to him, heart in his throat for reasons he can’t quite name.
“‘Simple,’ he tells me,” Claude teases as Dedue presents the bowl, leaving it at his bedside table for easy access. “And yet there’s a garnish and everything. If this is your simple, I’d love to see how much effort goes into the complex.”
Dedue isn’t much for impatience usually, but something must show on his face as he bites his tongue. A laugh trips off Claude’s tongue, warm and genuine. For the first time he can remember, Dedue doesn’t feel put off by the sound coming from someone other than a Lion—even with a part of his own heritage laid out in the open, steam curling lazily from the bowl that contains it.
With nothing more than a wink, Claude gathers a heaping spoonful (Mama would approve, Dedue thinks, then wonders why that would occur to him), blows on it, then shovels it into his mouth. Dedue knows the eating habits of a soldier well, knows how little they can afford to be picky. Even if Claude hated it, he would still eat anyway.
But Claude closes his eyes to let the flavors envelop him before he even begins to chew. The steam has brought heat to his face, but it’s the food that makes him look blissful. A knot Dedue hadn’t even realized had formed begins to loosen in his chest.
“Good?” he asks. He can’t quite help himself.
“Fantastic,” Claude groans around a swallow. “I hadn’t realized Faerghan food could have this much depth.”
Habitual hesitation bites at Dedue’s tongue, but he pushes past it. There are people in his life that have not only accepted but embraced the facets of him that come from the land of his birth, and anyway, he’s never liked lying about his homeland.
“It usually does not.” His characteristic frankness makes him sound nearly offended at the thought. “This is a dish from Duscur. My mother used to make it on colder nights, or when any of us thought we might be coming down with something.”
“Family recipe?” Claude asks. There is something that looks like earnest curiosity in his eyes.
“Village recipe,” Dedue corrects. “But it amounts to the same thing.”
For a moment, all is quiet as Claude studies him with eyes far too knowing for Dedue’s comfort. This look he knows all too well; it is gratitude, and it makes his heart ache.
“Thank you for sharing it with me, then,” Claude says, all the sharpness of his face and mind turned unexpectedly soft. “I’m sure I’ll be better in no time.”
Not long after the first bowl of soup, Dedue enters Claude’s room to see him tossing a pair of dice.
“Betting against yourself?” His voice is as dry as a desert. That Claude greets him with a smile despite Dedue’s tone isn’t unexpected; the sincerity of Claude’s answer, however, is.
“Gambling that you might be willing to take pity on a poor invalid and play a little game with me, actually.”
Perhaps Dedue is losing whatever edge he once had that made others keep their distance; perhaps he hasn’t had that edge since he first set foot in the Riegan estate.
Either way, he sits gingerly at the foot of Claude’s massive bed and says, “Well? What game is it?”
A delighted smile spreads across Claude’s face, wider and a little more asymmetrical than his usual playful smirks. With something almost masquerading as detachment, Dedue notes that one of Claude’s teeth is slightly crooked. He wonders who else might have noticed that—who else might have cared to notice it.
“The game’s hazard,” Claude continues, barreling over Dedue’s train of thought. “And it’s fairly simple.”
Claude keeps the rules simple and concise, paying more attention to the concepts than the actual numbers required to throw in or out. Used to games with Sylvain—who regularly cheats in any game where he can get away with it—Dedue asks how he can be certain he’s nicked or outed.
Perhaps sensing just who Dedue is thinking of, Claude leans over to his bedside drawers, grimacing as it pulls at his lingering stitches and fishes around until he comes up with a piece of scrap paper.
“There we are!” he exclaims, brandishing it at Dedue imperiously. “Your own personal cheat sheet, drawn up by Claude von Riegan himself.”
Main between 5 and 9 inclusive; roll to win!
2-3; out :(
11 or 12…
And on it goes, detailing each possible numerical scenario in perfect detail, complete with characteristically Claude-like embellishments.
“You had this at the ready?” Dedue asks, glancing up to see Claude watching him eagerly, chin propped up on his hand.
“Wrote it up just for you, big man!”
Dedue carefully does not examine how either the gesture or the nickname make him feel. “Then I suppose it is only right that we play.”
Even now, they are conscious of the war outside these walls. They gamble for petty change only, though Claude has a way of making each roll seem more dramatic than it truly is. Hazard is technically a game of luck, but Dedue wins nearly every time.
“How are you doing this?” Claude asks, slumping back against his headboard as Dedue rolls the chance for his fourth straight victory.
“Would you tell me if the roles were reversed?” Dedue fires back. There is a lightness in his chest that is foreign and precious. Even faking irritation, Claude can’t stop grinning.
“Absolutely not,” Claude concedes, and gathers the dice for Dedue to roll once more.
It’s not surprising that Claude is a consummate conversationalist, of course. He’d charmed everyone he’d met at Garreg Mach, and Dedue is not the type to be dazzled solely by a handsome face. Even still, there’s something delightfully novel about this, playing the games of nobles with the gold of commoners, letting tidbits of honesty slip as though neither Claude nor Dedue has anything to gain with silence and falsehoods.
Dedue tells Claude of his sister, speaks of her in butterfly kisses and giggling mischief instead of in the grief that so often tries to consume him. In return, Claude speaks of his mother, charming and tempestuous, gentle as a flower and as fierce as any storm.
“They call her the Demon Queen,” Claude says, grinning ruefully. “But there’s never been a person she couldn’t wrap around her finger if she wanted to.”
Like you, Dedue thinks.
And then his mind catches up to what Claude has said.
“Queen?” he asks, hands stilling mid-shake. His grip slackens, and the dice go tumbling down.
It’s a nick.
Dedue’s win.
Claude studies him, calculating eyes under long lashes. “Of Almyra,” he finally answers, lips quirking in a strange sort of half-smile.
There is… surprise, possibly, that rockets through Dedue at this revelation. When he thinks about it, though, is it truly so shocking a revelation? Where else could a once-lost Riegan heir go, except back to the home so removed from Leicester—from Fódlan—that even old Duke Oswald couldn’t find him for years? How else could Dedue account for the uncanny understanding Claude’s always managed to have with him, or how Hilda’s ignorant tongue seems redirected when in his presence?
Perhaps Dedue had always known, but either way, he finds himself a little jealous of Claude. The respect he holds, the skillful way he maneuvers past stereotypes and into a class all his own… It's a little like what Dedue wants for himself.
“Whatever your reasons for coming here are,” Dedue begins, tongue halting and clumsy in his mouth but no less earnest for it. “And whatever your aims may be, I believe you are brave for having strode into the belly of the beast to do so.”
For a moment, unshakable Claude seems taken aback, as if, even knowing Dedue as he now does, he couldn’t have conceived of such a reaction.
But how many people could he have trusted with this truth? Whatever the number of viable candidates may have been, there must have been at least triple the number that would have used his heritage against him.
Perhaps Dedue’s position and reputation as a man of Duscur have finally done him some good; even if there wasn’t so much trust between them, developed and nourished by this near-constant companionship, his status makes him as likely to reveal Claude’s secret to another as the four stone walls of this room.
Claude’s usual facade drops over him again, a teasing grin playing at the corner of his mouth. “Me? It’s not that impressive to take a nice leisurely stroll over the border, you know. Besides, I have it good here. I’m definitely not suffering in a bed like this.”
“Claude.” Perhaps Claude sees that Dedue will grant him no quarter on this avenue; his eyes widen, and for one absurd moment all Dedue can think of is a cornered fawn. “I will not tolerate anyone speaking so low of you even when that person is yourself. Especially when that person is yourself.”
Claude sways forward, shocked, but whether he is forming a retaliatory bit of wit is impossible to determine when Dedue is too busy adjusting to this new view of that now-familiar face.
Have his eyes always been so green? he wonders, then calls himself a fool for allowing his mind to wander so.
But Claude is all he can see. Dedue’s breath catches in his chest. He stills, frozen by an emotion he couldn’t name even if pressed.
Claude inches forward again—
And winces, hand flying to his side as he withdraws.
Immediately, Dedue shifts back into action.
“You should not be exerting yourself,” he insists, rising to help Claude lie back. “Sleep. You need your rest if you intend to accomplish all your goals.”
By the mutinous look on Claude’s face, he wants to argue, but the pain wins, and he subsides with no further comment.
Whatever the tension had been between them, it’s now lost. Dedue tries to tell himself it’s for the best.
(Even if a curious ache blooms in his chest, twisting through him for the rest of the day before sleep finally, finally claims him.)
Claude has nearly recovered from his wounds; it is almost time for him to leave.
In some ways, Dedue is glad of it. Claude is a distraction at a time when Dedue can ill afford it. He needs his full focus to aid Dimitri in stopping Edelgard, and as things stand, he’ll be lucky to recover even half of it from Claude’s unknowing clutches.
Mostly, though, he finds that he’ll miss Claude.
There is much to do before the Faerghan army can leave Riegan land and Derdriu behind, and though Dedue is not required to accomplish most of it, the relief on Dimitri’s face when Dedue offers his assistance is more than evident. Dedue has always been the industrious sort, and both his nature and his need for survival have given him a head for logistics that would rival most born and bred nobles. He coordinates the march with Dimitri and the professor, works out kinks in the requisition system with Annette and Mercedes, monitors information-gathering efforts with Ashe and Sylvain, and even assists Felix and Ingrid in training recruits (though only when he has to). He keeps himself busier in these final days than he has been in the rest of his stay combined.
This does not banish the thought of Claude from his head.
Still, he masks his preoccupation well. It’s only when taking tea with Dimitri later that his split priorities are called into question.
“Are you well, my friend?” Dimitri asks, eye trained steadily on Dedue as he sips his tea. He has an uncanny knack for seeing through Dedue’s unaffected facade at inconvenient times, and though the question itself may seem innocent, Dedue knows how this will end.
“Naturally,” he says anyway. It is good to have this Dimitri back, even if he does come with his fair share of predictable fraternal annoyance. “And you?”
“I am.” Dimitri’s gaze gentles, but remains unwavering. “Though I’ve noticed that you do not seem much like your usual self these past few days. Has something happened? You need not strain yourself in my company.”
A wry smile twists at Dedue’s lips, though there he means only to tease. “As you never strain yourself in mine?”
Perhaps five years ago, this would have embarrassed Dimitri enough to keep him silent on the subject, but neither of them are the men they used to be.
Instead, Dimitri treats him to a rare smug grin and replies, “So be my good example, Dedue, and tell me exactly what it is that has you all in knots.”
Whatever historians and bards may one day call Dimitri, it seems he always intends to be a pest first and foremost in Dedue’s company. “If I tell you, will you leave it alone?”
“If that is what you wish.”
And damn Dimitri for being so earnest that there is little choice but to comply. “I find… that I will miss Claude’s company when he departs.”
“Oh?” There is a keen interest in Dimitri’s voice that Dedue immediately distrusts; it reminds him of his sister, mischievous and playful. “I hadn’t realized you two were so close.”
“A natural consequence of spending so much time together.”
“But you have never been driven to distraction by Sylvain’s or Mercedes’s absence. Even Ashe does not elicit this reaction in you.”
Something in Dimitri’s tone suggests he understands the issue all too well. Irritation flares in Dedue’s chest momentarily, but then, if he cannot confide in the man who has become family to him, who else does he have?
(You have Claude, says his traitorous heart, but he makes a concerted effort to ignore it.)
“Indeed.” He tries to make more come to his mouth, to clarify what this means, but even saying this much has cost him more than it should.
How fortunate he is that Dimitri can interpret all Dedue leaves unspoken.
“Whatever else may exist between us, whatever we may have sworn when we were children who had endured the unimaginable…” Ah, it hurts to look at him, to bear the full weight of Dimitri’s sincerity, but Dedue tries, if only because it’s always been worth it. “I hope you know that all I have ever wanted for you is for you to find your own happiness and embrace it with outstretched arms.”
The words linger long after Dedue leaves, as must have been Dimitri’s intention. After all, if even Dimitri approves, then what reason could Dedue possibly have to push these feelings to the side, to linger with words unspoken? He is not afraid of rejection; he has come to expect it over the course of his patchwork life. Claude has little and less reason to reciprocate, but he deserves honesty, Dedue thinks. He deserves to know there are those in Fódlan who will think of him dearly once he is gone.
But Dedue does have his dignity; he diligently wears away the hours before he normally visits Claude double-checking the requisition output lists. Mercedes lets him commandeer the lists with nothing more than a broad smile; he’ll have to remember to share a new recipe with her in thanks.
Soon enough, though, it is the appointed hour, or at least close enough that he can evade the most obvious signs of overeagerness. The halls of the Riegan estate have become as familiar to Dedue as those of the castle in Fhirdiad; he will miss them too, when they have all left it behind.
Three soft knocks on the storied wood of Claude’s door, and then Dedue enters.
There is a stark change from the careful order Claude’s chambers have maintained these past weeks: clothes are strewn across every surface, knickknacks are clustered together in groups Dedue can’t make heads or tails of, and several packs lay open, ready to be filled.
At the center of it all, Claude stands, his back to the door, tossing a pair of dice contemplatively.
“Come to help me pack, Dedue?” he asks, half-turning, the ghost of a smile flickering across his lips. “How sweet.”
“This was not my intention, but if you require my assistance, it is yours.”
At last, Claude faces Dedue fully. There’s a playfulness to his expression that Dedue has come to recognize as native to him, or at least habitual. Despite its regular practice, though, Dedue can’t quite force himself to believe it. “Oh? So what was your intent? Are you missing me already?”
Stoicism has always been Dedue’s greatest defense; he suspects it does him no good now. “Yes.”
For a moment, Claude can only stare.
Disarmed by honesty, are we? But Dedue understands. He hadn’t believed this kind of candor was in his nature, either—not in so naked a form.
“Good to know the old charisma hasn’t rusted while I was recovering,” Claude says eventually. His smile is even more false than the last. “I’d really have had something to complain about then.”
“You remain as… you as ever.”
A laugh startles out of Claude, pure and true. Tension drops out of his shoulders, a dramatic shift for a burden Dedue hadn’t even realized he was carrying. Perhaps it should be irritating, the idea that he still can’t read Claude as well as he’d like, but it only sends a pang of sorrow reverberating through his chest.
After all, when Claude goes, Dedue will no longer have the chance to learn.
“I assume you came here for a reason beyond missing the sight of my face?” Claude tries when his laughter clears. The last shards of his facade remain in place, but if anything, Dedue is endeared by them. Habits are hard to break, after all, and if Claude wanted to, Dedue is certain he’d have no trouble disguising himself more adequately.
“Mm.” But Dedue does not voice it. It seems a terrible imposition.
Claude tosses the dice again, almost as a taunt. “Gonna tell me then? We can always bet on it.”
“As if I have not proven that my luck tends to be better than yours.”
The banter is sharp, automatic. Even still, it eases something in him when Claude lets the dice fall on his bed, a challenging smirk on his face. “Main seven for a little extra dose, then.”
The dice roll for a moment, then teeter to a stop against a crease on the sheets.
Eleven.
A nick.
“Fair’s fair, you know.” Claude puts his hands behind his back, assuming the wide-eyed posture of the innocent. “You didn’t hear me complaining when I lost, after all.”
Dedue snorts, half amused, half resigned. “And you’re certain you want to hear whatever it is I have to say?”
“No doubts, no hesitation. Lay it on me.”
There’s no help for it now. “Then forgive me this self-indulgence, but I came to tell you… Should you ever feel lonely while in Almyra, I hope you can remember that there are those who will miss you just as much.”
Claude’s hands fall to his sides; his gaze loses its playful edge. “I won’t forget the friends I made for even a moment.”
“Selfishly, I wish for you to recall me as more than that.”
The words are out. There is no helping them now.
Claude is silent, mouth agape. How many times has Dedue surprised him now? He’s lost count.
(And yet it is not nearly enough. Dedue is used to disappointment, but he would do anything just to have the ability to outwit Claude’s expectations even one more time.)
“I’d ask you if you mean that,” Claude finally says, stepping forward lightly, as if Dedue is one of his deer, one that might spook at a sudden movement. “If you were anyone else, I really would. But you aren’t a joker by nature, even if you do have a wicked sense of humor, and you aren’t the sort of person that would mess with a guy’s feelings like that.”
“I would not see the point of making a mockery of such sentiments.” Most particularly my own.
The slightest hint of a laugh escapes Claude, as wry as always but so achingly, appallingly genuine that Dedue’s heart could burst. “Of course you wouldn’t. You’re a better man than Fódlan deserves, at least in her current state.”
“As are you.”
“Not all the time.”
Dedue’s fist clenches; he relaxes it slowly, his grip on nothing still unwilling to let go. “Often enough.”
“Always determined to see the best in your chosen people, aren’t you?” Claude has not once ceased his approach; now, he is close enough to lay a hand on Dedue’s forearm.
He does.
“How lucky am I to have made that list?” Claude continues.
Claude smiles now as he never has before, not in all the time Dedue has spent at his bedside—not even in the academy, when they saw each other daily and there was no war to weigh them down. Dedue has seen him brash, giggling, confident, gentle, calculating, unabashed, and even arrogant, but there is nothing quite like the infinite, gentle reciprocation that lifts the corners of his entrancingly expressive mouth in this moment.
“Lucky, indeed,” Dedue finally manages, his heart climbing out of his throat. “Though I wouldn’t discount your own efforts in achieving this… distinction.”
Mirth crinkles the corners of Claude’s evergreen eyes, and his hand—hot as a brand, and yet impossibly soothing—slides down Dedue’s arm to encircle his wrist. “Ah, even when you’re making fun of me, you make me feel like the future I want isn’t so far from my grasp.”
“It should not be,” Dedue replies, low and insistent for reasons he can’t quite articulate. All he knows is that some measure of his feelings are returned, and that there is nothing Claude cannot do if he works toward it.
(After all, he has secured Dedue’s heart without even intending it. Who could truly claim to be resistant to the combined forces of his quick mind and clever tongue when applied with intent?)
Claude’s fingers tangle with Dedue’s. He is already close enough that Dedue has to tip his chin down to see him, but he moves closer still, leaning up with his free hand coming to rest on Dedue’s chest and shortening the gap between them.
“No,” Claude agrees with a sigh. “It shouldn’t be, but it is, even though I have no doubt His Royal Kingliness will do his best to ensure my job is easier on this side of the Throat. You’ll have to help him with that, you know.”
“Oh?” Naturally is the answer Dedue almost gives on instinct, but there is a coyness to the tilt of Claude’s otherwise earnest mouth that has him wanting to extend the moment a little longer. On anyone else, it is an expression he might consider shy ; he treasures it more than he can possibly say.
“Of course. After all, the sooner I’m done, the sooner I’ll come back to you.”
To you.
What better promise is there than that?
Perhaps contrary to what the average person might expect of Claude, they do not press any further that day. Certainly their hands might have brushed a time or two more than strictly necessary, but their conversation had been as intimate as all of them have been since the first bowl of soup.
(You’re someone’s favorite, alright,” Sylvain had said, grinning like a madman. Dedue had ignored him, assuming he was being subjected to the same childish teasing he plagued all his friends with, but…
Even then, Sylvain hadn’t been wrong.)
“Off tomorrow, then?” Dedue had asked, and only years of pretense had allowed him to keep his voice even.
“Tomorrow,” Claude had answered, casting a look over his room, now bare and plain save for the bed, the drawers, and a tapestry of the Riegan crest. “Wish me luck before I leave?”
“Of course.”
Now tomorrow has come, and Dedue rises with the sun, his heart in his throat and the cavern that its absence creates turned to stone. There are few things he has ever truly found it within himself to want, but there had been a part of him that had hoped some deity or another might have seen fit to extend last night forever, just for the comfort of keeping Claude nearby.
Time must always press forward, though, and Claude would not be Claude without endless ambition to drive him forward. Dedue dresses for days of travel as if nothing is amiss; if Claude is to leave, then the Lions must soon follow. Dedue will do his duty to king, friend, and country gladly, but first…
A farewell.
Dedue finds the soon-to-be-former Duke Riegan on a balcony overlooking the estate’s gardens, the very picture of noble grace, chin tilted up toward the dawn.
“You asked for me?” Dedue asks, lingering by the doorway, his tongue and his palms sweating.
(He has never felt quite this awkward before.)
Claude turns, a smile on his face too wide and soft to be anything but genuine. “So I did. Come and stand with me, at least for a little while, if you don’t mind. I’d like there to be less distance between us.”
Dedue expects a wink to mitigate that confession, but Claude faces him with the full force of his sincerity, and any natural reservation Dedue might have tried to keep up to protect himself is undone. He steps forward, one foot after another, his armor a greater weight than ever. Finally, he comes to stand at Claude’s side, an equal.
Silence rests between them for a moment, but it is a comfortable companion—an old friend. Dedue has always liked the morning hours, finding a meditative restfulness in the pale glow; here, it turns this new and fragile change between them sacred, just as it should be.
For once, it is he who breaks the silence.
“You asked for luck,” he begins, “And as far as I am able to grant you such a gift, I have and will continue to do so. But if you do not mind a speech from an unpracticed mouth, then I would send you off with this as well.”
Claude meets his gaze with a gentle fervor, all the deep-rooted surety of summer in that verdant gaze. “There’s no greater going-away present I could ask for.”
“Then I will say this. No matter how far you roam from Fódlan’s Throat, know that you will be in my heart as presently as if you were beside me. Trust does not come easily to me, but you have earned it a thousand times over with every long-held secret we have shared. I would not begrudge you if you found a more convenient heart to keep while you are away, but know that there will be none truer than mine. I would have your burdens be my burdens, your purpose become my own, and your successes be celebrated as thoroughly as you deserve. Claude von Riegan, I love you as a flower loves the sun that shines upon it. My adoration, should you accept it, is ever yours to take.”
Claude’s eyes are as big and round as twin moons. For a second, he is speechless, and Dedue finds himself nearly proud.
Then the man before Dedue says, “Khalid. My name is Khalid,” and that tempting, expressive mouth meets Dedue’s own with barely leashed passion.
Khalid kisses like he talks, both coaxing and unyielding. He gives ground only to reclaim it with a clever nip, and Dedue is gone.
(“You’re someone’s favorite, alright.”
And Dedue has never been gladder of it.)
When they part for breath, Khalid’s mouth is damp, the suggestion of future swelling reddening it in a manner that makes Dedue’s stomach flip. Dedue’s own lips spark with awareness in every nerve, and his brain is clouded and fuzzy, recalling one thing only.
Khalid.
“Your name—” Dedue breaks off. “You…”
The tilt of Khalid’s mouth turns sheepish. “Well, if you’re going to think of me as often as all that, I figured you should have the right name to do it with, you know? I can be a jealous guy, so I don’t want to share you. Even with Claude.”
“You misunderstand,” Dedue replies, and as he watches a tentative, wondering smile break out across Khalid’s face, he realizes there is a matching expression on his own. “I am only grateful to be trusted.”
“Well… for now, it’s a confidence best kept between the two of us, alright?” Khalid’s gaze drops to where his hand is resting against Dedue’s armor, but there is neither timidity nor apology on that puckish face. Instead, Dedue watches fondly as Khalid’s expression contorts into that of a sly fox, pleased with the prey it has cunningly ensnared. “After all, with a speech like that , you would have thought I was being proposed to, and there should be no secrets between husbands, don’t you think?”
Dedue rests a hand over Khalid’s, keeping it safe between his palm and his heart. Heat has risen to his cheeks with a vengeance, but his voice is steady as he says, “No, there shouldn’t be. I anticipate a detailed description of all your endeavors when you return, of course.”
As Khalid sputters, taken aback by Dedue’s native honesty, Dedue smiles, pure and true.
There are a number of things he will be waiting for, after all. Khalid just so happens to encompass every one.