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mlmdarkfiction · 4 years

Text

Long Lasting Solitude

For @pickingpixel

Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses

Pairing: Dmitri/M!Reader

Summary: That voice.You know that voice.It’s the voice you’ve had haunting your dreams for the past five years.Despite yourself and the pain your eyes snap open.“Dmitri?”

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Being afraid of people is nothing new for you. This fear has existed in you for as long as you can remember, and with seemingly no cause. It’s a lonesome existence, the life you lead, and you dread the loneliness just as much as you dread the thought of interacting with others.

It’s one of the things that causes you to eventually agree to go from the seclusion of your home to Garreg Mach Monastery. Though it had less to do with your own wants and desires, but those of your parents. You, their only son, bearer of Crest Macuil, have quite the future ahead of you if you played your cards correctly. As your parents, they want what is best for you, and what it is they want is for you to have a real chance in Noble society one day.

Adjusting to school was hard to do thanks to your fears. Everyday since you first arrived it felt as if your heart was going to escape your chest from just how hard it was beating. Living your whole childhood as a shut-in meant despite the closeness of other Noble houses, you’d never actually met any of the other students you were now studying aside. Still…Your fellow Blue Lion’s tried to be courteous to you in return.

And yet at every turn it seemed as if you just ruined things.

Your fears.

Your anxiety.

Even now when surrounded by others your own age you still can’t connect.

It’s lonely.

It’s embarrassing .

The more days go on, the more your thoughts turn from fear of others to anger at yourself.

Of course, they would never want to speak with you, befriend you, you’re a pathetic lowly thing.

You end up isolating yourself even more.

When you aren’t in class, or eating, you’re training.

All your energy and focus go into your Dark Magic.

You want to prove yourself, prove your worth. You’ve seen what the other students in your class can do, and none of them have dedicated themselves to the dark arts like you have.

Despite your shortcomings, at least in that regard, you are the best.

The other students have noticed your odd behavior of course. Some have simply brushed you off as not wanting company, while others are worried, and an even selector few (Felix) have decided that whatever is wrong with you is not their business.

And of course, Dmitri, Head of House, Prince of Faerghus, had noticed your odd behavior. Not only had he noticed, but he’d taken it to heart, somehow overlooking the fact you were just as skittish and shy around everyone.

He began to believe he had…slighted you in some way, and so he made a plan to make it up to you. He would not only apologize to you for his wrongdoing, but by the end of it all he was sure the two of you would be fast friends.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Unlike Dmitri, Dedue was more than aware that your behaviors extended to everyone, and not just the crowned prince. He had even gone as far as to try and relay this message to Dmitri, who just seemed incapable of understanding.

And so, when the time came, and the prince inevitably asked for help in ‘Operation Become Friends With ____’ he didn’t object.

Still he was a bit worried about cornering someone as jumpy as you.

He’d done as he was told though, waiting until he was sure you’d settled down in the training grounds by yourself before informing Dmitri of your location.

For all it was worth cornering you was easy.

All Dedue really had to do to find you was to figure out where everyone else wasn’t. And the chances are if you weren’t in the least populated area of the monastery then you were in your room.

“Of course, it’s a good idea Dedue!”

The Prince doesn’t seem to recognize the concern at all as he makes his way to the training area, in his arms a small basket with all the supplies to make a makeshift picnic. An apology of the highest degree.

Still he quiets down the closer he gets to the training grounds. He knows he can scare you off if he isn’t careful. He’s done it before, but not this time!

This time was to be perfect.

When he arrives, he takes a moment to watch you, he’s transfixed.

Normally your face is one filled with fear, or at the very least unbridled anxiety but now in the moment, thinking you’re completely alone focusing on nothing but the target in front of you and the magic at your fingertips you look determined.

Dmitri may not notice the rush of colors coming to his cheeks, but Dedue does.

He gives a nudge to Dmitri, urging him to action and almost tripping the prince in turn.

“___!” He calls out excitedly taking a step into the center of the room.

Your reaction is impossible to miss.

It’s pure reflex, the way your body seizes in fear, as your heart begins to pound in your ears, it’s the heart of a trapped rabbit moments before the predator's teeth sink into its supple flesh.

Your stiff movements cause the spell you were working on to go flying, far off from the target you had been focusing on and to instead scorch into the stone wall.

If it were anyone else, perhaps you would feel silly to be afraid, but it’s not just anyone. It’s Dmitri.

He seems kind enough. As kind as anyone else, you suppose, but you’ve seen what he can do when he doesn’t mean to. That’s what being quiet affords you, perception. You’ve seen the way expertly forged weapons can crack and break under his simple grip.

It terrifies you.

The thought of what he could do to you if he touched you terrifies you.

“___, I saw you were here, I thought perhaps we could train together, I know we’ve never gotten to in the past, I even packed you something to eat, it’s late and I never see you in the dining hall and-“

He’s talking quickly. He can see your fear. It’s clear as day it would be impossible not to notice and he simply doesn’t understand. It frustrates him but he keeps it hidden behind his friendly demeanor as he tries desperately to show you there’s nothing to be afraid of.

When you start to shake, he acts without thinking, reaching out to place a hand on your shoulder, but that was a mistake.

You squeak, a pathetic sound, and then your eyes roll into the back of your head.

Dmitri simply yells in panic and confusion when your body begins to fall.

You fainted.

The Prince of Faerghus, simply spoke to you, and you fainted.

More than that though, you’re alone. You recognize the infirmary at least, that keeps your panic at bay. It’s not the first time, nor will it come to be the last you’re here. Battle injuries, training injuries, and seeing Manuela often landed you hear.

Although this is the first time you’ve fainted.

It’s surprising though for the teacher not to be here.

You shed the blanket from your body standing with ease. You don’t hurt like you thought you would after fainting, but then you remember, right before you’d blacked out…

Dmitri had caught you.

The realization forces a blush to your cheeks in both embarrassment and humiliation.

Even if you were afraid...Dmitri hadn’t actually done anything wrong.

“God...I’m such an idiot.”

It’s said allowed for no one’s benefit but your own, anxious hands reaching up to cover your face.

As much as you don’t want to, you know you owe the Prince an apology.

The realization causes you to groan into your hands.

Dmitri had wanted to stay with you after taking you to the infirmary, but Dedue had pointed out that maybe it was for the best if he left you alone for now.

After all it was him who’d caused you to faint in the first place.

“I just don’t understand…”

He says softly, the frustration and desperation clear.

“He looked at me as if seeing a ghost.”

“Is it really that weird your highness?”

Sylvain comes to explain.

“I mean...when was the last time you saw ____ talk to anyone?” He asks. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him speak to anyone other than a teacher if he didn’t have to. He’s seriously anti-social!”

Dmitri sighs. Even if that’s the case he imagines it must be lonely. It’s because of that he can’t simply give up and leave you alone.

Not until you tell him yourself, in your own words, that you want him to leave you alone to your solitude.

The next few days are filled with even rarer glimpses of you than usual. Dmitri’s starting to believe that maybe he did really offend you if you’re going so clearly out of your way to avoid him.

However in reality the opposite could not be more than true.

Although you’re heavily fighting with your depression, and thoughts of self hatred you think that maybe...maybe this apology will be good for you.

Maybe after apologizing to the prince the two of you will become friends.

It would be nice…

It’s a nice thought.

Even if you, even if someone like you, doesn’t feel as if you deserve it.

So it’s not that you’ve been ignoring Dmitri. You’ve just been busy. Busy planning an apology, and trying to psych yourself up.

Even with the day of the apology finally being here you’re anxious. Your anxiety is so overwhelming that you almost back out entirely, but you’ve come too far to give up now.

To avoid having to see Dmitri face to face you leave him a note, slipped under the door to his room.It’s a simple note, simply asking the Prince to meet you at the gazebo come nighttime.

That’s easier. If it’s night time well...you won’t have to deal with anyone else seeing you.

And Dmitri finds the note, after finally returning to his room. He had spent a majority of his day with Byleth, teaching swordsman ship to the various orphans who lived in the monastery, and after he and the professor had gotten a very late dinner.

By the time he reads the note he fears you won’t be waiting on him anymore. After all, it's twenty minutes from when you’d asked to meet him.

It doesn’t stop the prince though, he doesn’t hesitate to drop everything,not even bothering to close the door to his bedroom as he takes off for the gazebo.

He fully expects to find you asleep, or simply not there at all. And he wouldn't have blamed you.

In fact more than anything else he’s surprised to find you seated there in the dark, the only light beneath the gazebo the single candle you had brought with you.

Dmitri does take note of how tired you look though. He imagines you must have been waiting even long before the note had asked to meet.

You’re dozing, half asleep, but far from actually losing consciousness. Fear keeps you awake.

Fear of someone finding you.

Fear of being exposed.

Fear of-

You wonder if Dmitri’s actually going to show up.

The thought of simply leaving had already occurred to you. Just because you’d left him a note didn’t mean Dmitri would come, it didn’t mean he’d actually want to see you.

To think even for a moment that he would-

Maybe you really are nothing more than a fool.

The self deprecating line of thoughts don’t continue, they don’t get a chance to.

Because there the prince is before you, in all his sweaty glory. A single hand is raised to greet you before going to join his other on his knees as he doubles over from the exertion of his run here.

He must have , you realize, ran from his room on the other end of the monastery all the way here.

For once you find yourself unafraid of the prince. To your own confusion. In the moment you are bemused but relieved and happy all at once to see he actually decided to show himself.

That night was what led to your eventual coming out of your shell, even if only slightly. Instead of spending all of your time alone you spent a large chunk of your time with the Prince now, which in turn, led to you spending a lot of time with your fellow Blue Lions. You were still afraid at times, you still felt undeserving of their friendships.

But unlike before you didn’t find yourself hiding away when you were afraid. No, now you hid behind Dmitri.

It caused mixed emotions in the young man.

On one hand something about the way you relied on him made him incredibly happy, to know that you trusted him enough to hide away from the rest of the world, relying on him for protection...It made his heart swell with pride.

You trusted him!

But on the other hand, as always, your fears only led to confuse and worry him. Sometimes they just made no sense to him at all. Dmitri could understand, maybe, being frightened of Felix and his hostile demeanor, but Flayn?

He can’t imagine anyone being afraid of the young girl, and yet there you were, cowering behind him as if she were a threat to your very life.

More than anything though, he was...somewhat saddened.

Dmitri had long ago reserved himself to the fact that his life was not his own. That he had goals for which he would risk his very life, and those goals left little room for close attachments.

The kind of close attachment the two of you shared.

In a way, it was Dmitri who began to fear you. After all, how could one person make him consider wavering in his convictions?

Still...He decides to make the best of the time he does have with you.

Surely one day you’ll understand.

After all, the world he wants, a world where those who cause tragedies would be brought to justice, would result in a world in which you no longer have anything to be afraid of.

Until then, until he’s King, and his time is focused on his overarching goal, he decides to savor the moments he has with you.

So while Dmitri is confused, flustered, and flattered when you ask him to go as your date to the dance that accompanies the White Heron Cup, he finds himself agreeing cheeks burning red.

He wonders what this means for him.

For you.

For the both of you.

To say you weren’t surprised at the situation, yourself, your actions, it would all be a lie.

Though you’re far more surprised at your own courage to ask Dmitri to accompany you to the dance was the fact that he had actually said yes.

You don’t know what you were expecting, really.

The doubtful, mean part of your mind tries to tell you that Dmitri simply pities you. That his yes was simply the result of that pity, but for once you don’t care.

You are far too related to allow yourself to ruin such happiness.

It was something Dmitri had been telling you for a while now, something you were trying to believe yourself;

The simple fact that you do deserve to be happy.

Happiness is never meant to last.

In the future, that’s the thought that will come to mind when you think of the events that take place.

The ending of not just your own personal happiness, but the happiness of all of Fodlan.

The end of happiness, the start of a war.

“I will take the head from your shoulders...and I will hang it from the gates of Enbarr!”

For the first time in a long time fear grips you at the mere sight of Dmitri.

His anger- although justified in your mind- was so unhinged, so unlike him.

You find yourself unable to move, frozen alongside the professor as you watch the man you had found yourself falling for brutally crush the skull of an imperial soldier in his hands as if it were nothing.

Petrified does not begin to describe how you feel.

But when Byleth moves so do you, taking up arms.

There is no time for fear, not here, not now, not after everything the Flame Emperor- no, not after everything Edelgard has done.

It has been five years. Five years since the war started. Five years since you had last stepped foot in Garegg Mach. Five years since you had last seen Dmitri, the Professor, or any of the others you had grown to call your friends.

And five years is, in the span of a war, no small amount of time at all. Yet, in the span of a human life it is, and although your past five years have been filled with grieving for the past, you’ve found yourself changed very little.

You may not have changed, but the world around you has. Fodlan continues to constantly move and change under the unyielding hands of time.

The lands that had once belonged to you and your noble family have been taken under the control of the Empire, or to phrase more accurately, they were seized by the she-witch Cornelia and given to the Empire.

Of course your family opposed the takeover, still there’s little to nothing you can do. Any attempt at stopping it would simply put your own lives on the line.

Although you’re a noble family, you have no tropes, and you no crest to rely on.

There’s no point in fighting a fight that would only result in you being killed, not even as a martyr.

But you’ve been biding your time, waiting to keep your part of the promise you and everyone else made so long ago.

Your parents were confused, rightfully so, when you told them that you were going to return to Garreg Mach Monastery.

On your own you’d prepared everything, a horse, rations, and enough tomes to get you there safely come Imperial Soldiers, or bandits.

Returning is something you simply have to do.

Even if the Professor and Dmitri are both-

No .

You won’t allow yourself to think such sad things, not now.

And if they are gone, truly gone, there is no better way to honor both their memories than by showing up, just like you had promised.

The monastery is absolutely swarming with Imperial Soldiers, but you knew this might be the case.

With a hard swallow you make yourself known, blasting through one of the already crumbling monastery walls, cringing as the screams of the crushed soldiers reaches your ears.

Killing was...a sad reality of war.

At the very least, the violence had cleared your path way and-

“____? Is that you?”

A familiar face and voice.

Never before had you been so relieved to see another human person before.

“Ashe!”

Hope swells in your chest. The others came. They really came back.

It’s more than you could have imagined.

An arrow goes whizzing past your head, ending the reunion for now.

You’ll fight.

You’ll win back the monastery, and then you’ll be able to see all of your friends again and maybe…

“Your highness!”

Gilbert’s voice bellowing across the battlefield gets your attention, and distracts you. Surely he doesn’t mean Dmitri. He’s dead.

You’d heard the news ages ago everyone had.

But maybe-

Your eyes scan the battlefield in a blind panic, trying to catch sight of the man you loved, and you find him.

He’s tearing through soldiers like they’re nothing.

Each man that tries to oppose him falls under his spear, cut through entirely.

It’s scary.

He scares you.

The look on his face is so similar to the one he’d had long ago when the Flame Emperor had been unmasked.

It turns your stomach.

Your guard is down. So focused on Dmitri, the feelings of horror mixed with utter relief that he’s even alive, that you don’t notice the approaching soldier behind you.

At least not until the blade of their axe digs into your shoulder.

All thoughts of Dmitri fade as you focus on the pain.

The blade rips itself from your flesh and you find yourself falling to the ground, knees buckling under you from the weight of it all.

Your warm blood soaks through your armor, in a weird way comforting you from the cold night air.

“This isn’t…”

This isn’t how this was supposed to happen.

But your words are spoken for no one. No one is close enough to hear, to see, they’re all too busy fighting for their own lives.

“Dmitri?...”

Blood loss and pain, you’re far too out of it to realize what you’re seeing now is real.

That Dmitri himself is there, cutting down the berserker who’d slain you with his axe, and anyone who follows after him.

It’s only because you lose consciousness that you don’t hear the wailed howl of a main who thinks he’s lost yet another person important to him.

“He’s stable but-”

Dmitri doesn't stop to hear the rest, he’s picking up your unconscious body with intent to move. You’ll be safer inside the monastery, a bed, the warmth of a fire, anything’s better than outside.

“Dmitri!” Mercedes gasps when he refuses to listen. “You have to be careful not to reopen-”

“There’s no point in trying to reason with a Boar, Mercedes.”

Felix says eyes narrowed as they follow the path of the man as he hides deeper within the monastery.

The constant roaring in Dmitri’s head doesn’t stop as he carries you to the makeshift infirmary. Other wounded are being brought in, laid on the makeshift cots and beds.

He remains quiet, placing your unconscious form among them in the nicest looking spot he can find.

Although you seem to be fine now, he knows no rest from torment.

The voices in his head torment him, reminding him that (truthfully or no) your injuries are ultimately his fault.

Just like everything else, it’s his fault.

He should have tried harder.

He should have been there.

Worse of all is the simple fact, if it wasn’t for him you would have never returned to the monastery in the first place.

He shouldn’t stay.

The last thing Dmitri wants is to get your hopes up for something that can never be.

In the past five years, since the last time he’s seen you, he’s become little more than a monster.

And a monster doesn’t deserve any semblance of happiness.

Dmitri knows he should leave.

But he just can’t force himself to go. Not before he knows you’re okay.

As soon as you’re awake, then he’ll leave.

Hours are spent in the makeshift infirmary, Dmitri staring at your unmoving body, steadily watching the slow rise and fall of your chest, ready to call for a healer the moment anything seems to be out of the ordinary.

Byleth tries to get him to leave, or get some sleep, but there’s no hiding the bitterness in Dmitri’s voice as he tells them;

“Even if I were to leave...I wouldn’t get any sleep. So please, just leave me be, Professor.”

They do.

There’s no point in trying to reason with Dmitri, not when he’s like this, unable to see or respond to reason.

Night passes, and still you do not wake from your deep slumber.

You’re unaware of the fact you’re being watched. A constant companion for you in your dreamless slumber.

When you do finally wake the first thing you notice is the pain. You don’t open your eyes, in fact you keep them clenched in an attempt to hide away from the pain wracking your being.

The shifting at your side catches your attention, and although you try to open your eyes you still can’t bring yourself to actually manage it. “Are you finally awake, ____?”

That voice.

You know that voice.

It’s the voice you’ve had haunting your dreams for the past five years.

Despite yourself and the pain your eyes snap open. “Dmitri?”

“Good.” He wants to tell you he’s glad you’re okay.

Wants to tell you to be more careful, because he isn’t sure if he can take you of all people dying too, but instead he simply nods, rising to his feet.

“Be more careful next time.”

You aren’t able to stop his leave, forced to listen to the heavy sound of his footsteps as the trail away from you.

Even if you could stop him, you aren’t sure what you would say.

Those eyes…

He’s the same man, surely, but those eyes seem so unfamiliar to you now.

What would you have told him if he’d stayed?

You don’t even know.

But god you wish he had stayed.

The moment you try to move, maybe to go after him, maybe to simply sit up, pain shocks your core and you cry out, getting the attention of Mercie.

“Don’t- Don’t move too much.” She says softly gently laying you back

“Dmitri,” You start to ask her. “What happened to him?”

Mercedes expected the questions. Everyone had been wondering, and what little explanation they’d gotten from the Professor, and Gilbert were hardly comforting.

And even then it was mostly hearsay with no words from Dmitri himself to confirm or deny.

You hadn’t heard any of it, having been unconscious here in the infirmary.

She does her best to relay it all to you.

“We thought...We’d all heard that he’d been executed.”

You nod. This wasn’t news to you.

They had framed Dmitri, put him to death.

“But...he survived?”

Mercedes nods.

“We think that Dedue-”

She doesn’t finish, but you know what it is she was going to say. It’s easy to tell from her choked voice, downcast eyes.

You forcibly swallow the lump in your own throat.

“I see.”

In a way it’s something you should have suspected from the start. Dedue was always loyal to Dmitri, and you were sure that one day he would die to protect the man.

The thought surely occured to the others as well, but surely none of you imagined that day to come so soon.

“And after?...”

The bandages on your shoulder are removed, and Mercede’s quickly gets to work disinfecting what of your wound she can. You almost gag, catching sight of the bloody wound from the corner of your eyes, and so you take to squeezing them shut instead.

“Well you’ve heard...haven’t you?” Each word is spoken quietly, and when you don’t respond she continues.

“You haven’t heard? There’s been talk of an unkillable war machine going through the Kingdom, killing Imperial soldiers and bandits alike.”

“And you think that Dmitri?...” You don’t need her response.

It fits.

It sounds fitting given what you’d seen on the battlefield.

“I need to see him.”

She hasn’t finished cleaning your wound, your sudden movements cause yourself pain, and Mercede’s panic.

“You can’t ____!” She says softly trying to once again ease you into bed, but she’s being far too careful, afraid to hurt you. This makes it easy for you to ignore her attempts and stand, wobbling, on your feet.

“If you aren’t careful you’ll reopen that wound! You could bleed out!”

“Sorry Mercie,” Although you apologize you don’t stop, continuing out of the infirmary.

Every step is painful, and in retrospect you probably should have let her bandage it back up, or found a shirt to wear, but you don’t stop now.

You have to find Dmitri.

Everything about the Monastery has changed since it’s prime five years ago. Nowhere has been left unscathed by the waves of time.

You wonder what type of people would be so willing to desecrate a religious site.

Were they vindictive Imperial soldiers sent by the Empress herself? Looking for Rhea, looking to destroy any semblance of power the church held?

Or were they bandits? Uncaring about the importance of the holy lands they walked upon, destroying for the sake of destruction.

Maybe they were thieves. People that had no choice but to fight and ransake any building no matter how holy in an attempt to just survive another day.

The fallen stone is cool against your palm.

If even a place as mighty and holy as this has fallen, what are the chances for all of you?

Eventually your mindless wandering of the Monastery pays off, you find Dmitri, and you find him somewhere you wouldn't have imagined.

Kneeled below the crumbled goddess statue.

There’s no one else there, likely all having abandoned the cathedral when Dmitri made his presence there known.

You’d gone through all this trouble to find him, your aching shoulder proof of the strain it’s taken on your injured body, and yet you find yourself speechless before him.

He looks like something out of a painting, facing away from you, blonde hair cascading over his face, as rays of the setting sun filter in from the holes in the Cathedral roof.

He’s ethereal.

He hasn’t noticed you yet, at least that’s what you’re led to believe, he doesn’t move or stir even as the steady sound of your footsteps on the stone floor come closer.

“Professor,”

Dmitri speaks, and your heart sinks.

Of course he wasn’t expecting you. He was expecting Byleth.

“I find myself at a loss for what to do,”

His voice sounds...broken and torn.

You find yourself wanting to reach out, or...at the very least let him know you’re not the professor, but...you find yourself remaining silent instead as he continues on.

“To have something, or...someone to fight for in the here and now...Something other than the voices from beyond constantly asking for me to avenge them….Do I deserve that?”

The words you considered saying died on your tongue with each and every word he says. Anytime you think you’re ready to respond, he says something that makes you hesitate.

“____ is here, and very much alive...F-For now.” His voice falters just a little as he thinks of you, in the infirmary, deep wound bandaged on your shoulder.

“And although I would love to act as if nothing has happened, if nothing has changed, it has. I’m not the same man he once knew.”

Oh.

He was thinking about you.

“Even if...It’s not fair to him, is it professor?”

He turns then, likely to gauge Byleth’s reaction, as they are ever the quiet listener, hardly a replier, and instead of the professor he finds you there in their stead.

“____.” His eye widens, and he opens his mouth to say something. His face goes through a clear trial of emotion; confused, shocked, and embarrassed before finally settling on a mask of nothingness to hide it all.

“I’m sorry-”

The words quickly tumble out of your mouth before you can stop them.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to over hear, but Dmitri-”

Although he had only just been thinking, and discussing with what he thought to be the professor, what it is he would say to you if he allowed himself to, he’s still stricken silent by the mere sight of you.

But you don’t give him a chance to worry about speaking.

“Dmitri...More than anything, I’m simply glad that you’re alive. I thought that...We all had thought…”

You don’t finish that thought, quickly going onto the next, afraid the man will interrupt you before you’re able to get all of your thoughts out to him.

“If you’re a different man, truly, than who you were before, then...When the war is over, if we both make it, I’d like to get to know this new man.”

There’s no way for you to know for sure if he really is a different man, or if the war, the trauma of war, has made him feel as if he’s different. Maybe by the end of the war you’ll be an entirely different man too.

There’s no way to know for sure, not now.

The war inside Dmitri’s own head simply wages on. Such kindness, a second or third chance, it’s more than he deserves, and yet at the same time it brings him hope.

It’s exactly what he needed.

A hope to cling to outside of that of simply appeasing the neverending onslaught of the dead. Admittedly he had held no real plan of what to do after the war, if he had made it so far. He never stopped to think about what and if he survived.

There was never any reason to think of it.

Just when the time came, when Edelgard finally met her end at his blade, he would wander off somewhere, into the wilderness like a wounded animal to die in his solitude.

The relationship the two of you had shared five years prior, during your times as students of the very monastery you found yourself in now, was undeniably romantic.

Chaste, and innocent, but romantic.

Dmitri ends that now.

He’s a quiet, seething, hungry animal as he approaches you. There is no chance of reaction, no panic, or escape.

“Wha-”

Lips smash against your own effectively silencing you.

It’s not what you’d imagined finally kissing Dmitri to be like.

You had always imagined your first kiss to be romantic, that his lips would be soft, but it’s neither of those things.

His whole body encompases yours, a dangerously tight grip pulling your body to him as his rough lips assault your own.

No, it’s not what you had imagined, but...it’s better.

Both of you are desperate, needy, sloppy.

Neither of you are experienced with kissing, but you don’t have to be. The kiss itself is a representation of both of your years of unspoken words and yearning.

When the kiss ends, Dmitri is panting still. His face is flushed and he looks hesitant, surprised. Because he is surprised by himself.

Surprised by the sudden uncontrollable urge he’d had to kiss you.

“A-After the war,” He begins softly, still holding you against him, one hand going to rest on your cheek, the glove cold against your flushing face. “If we both live that long.”

Dmitri doesn’t know if he’s being truthful in promising you this.

More than anything he would like to be telling you the truth, but…

He knows no things are guaranteed in this world, and he’s already damaged goods.

What he doesn’t know is for which of you he’s making the unsure promise.

Is it to shield your fragile heart from the real possibility of heartbreak?

Or is it for himself? Is it some attempt to keep his humanity, a hope that if he has just one thing to cling and claw at that he won’t allow himself to slip any further into depravity.

And then there’s you.

Unaware of Dmitri’s internal dialogue, but knowing him so well even now to know he may be lying to you.

It’s clear in the trembling of his bottom lip, the tears pooling in his eyes but refusing to fall.

You make your choice.

And that choice is to believe in Dmitri.

To believe that something waits for you both at the end of all this violence and bloodshed.

So you’ll believe him.

Until the end of the war.

Until the very end.

“Right...After the war,” You nod in agreement, but don’t move away.

Still so close to him you can feel every rise and fall of his chest, even with his armor.

Neither of you moves for a long time. Just remaining in one anothers embrace, knowing that eventually you’ll have to part again, knowing that eventually you will both (even with your injuries) will have to return to the battlefield.

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