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Wake up, little lion.
Sleep tonight is surprisingly sweet, the lost days of Dimitri’s youth pressed into a single dream:
The warm weight of his first lance in his palms and a saccharine voice in his ear, thin fingers tweaking his stance just so: that’s better, my lion, I can only be on one side at a time, make sure to guard your left;
The sweep of long hair whirling through winter wind as they train: side-by-side, day-by-day, matching each other’s movements step-by-step, each lunge and parry executed with flawless precision as snowflakes mix with sweat and melt onto flushed cheeks;
Laughter spilling out in curling ribbons, toes pressing up against the warm stone hearth of Rodrigue’s study, Glenn’s arm around him, never far from reach among the chaotic jumble of Sylvain and Ingrid and Felix;
A question, awkward and stuttered with all the finesse of a teenager pining after his boyhood crush: Will you kiss me? Glenn’s voice smoky-sharp across the tent, the sound of disappointment and something fond thick in the air: oh, Dima, maybe when you’re older, love.
As new life bloomed in the form of baby brothers and begonias, Glenn was always there: forever connected at his hip, arm slung around Dimitri’s shoulder, even as he surpassed Glenn in size and strength but never sarcasm or speed.
Wake up, little lion.
The dream turns sour and sick in his mouth, as all his dreams do; darker, darker, darker –
In the end, it always comes back to this: burnt flesh and fire, the stink of sulfur, the copper bite of blood bitter and bright between his teeth. Locks of his father’s hair slip through his fingers, burnished gold coruscant in the muddy dark.
Dimitri turns to find Glenn: his vassal, his protector, his lifelong companion. They’re two boys tangled up in the sharp edges of each other, round cheeks giving way to knobby knees, arms made sinewy by sword and spear and shield, just children in the face of war.
Just children, trying their best. Just teenagers, dying over and over and over again.
In this dream, though, the bolt of lightning doesn’t hit Glenn in his heart. It doesn’t sever his arm from his body or shear the skin from his bones.
It doesn’t hit him at all.
Dimitri turns, and there he is, a mirror image of the Glenn by his side – just seventeen, all wiry limbs and long hair. This Glenn is older, broken and burned, eyes hardened into two flinty shards of ice:
Wake up, little lion.
Dimitri bolts upright with a sharp inhale and a scream that dies on his lips. The moon shines bright above him, the forest floor dark and cold below. A river rushes nearby, an owl hoots, a fawn falls to the fangs of a wolf. The world spins on and Dimitri tastes dirt and metallic fear on his tongue.
Found you.
He’s a sharp figure of indigo cutting through the thicket of trees. His cape rises and falls and flutters in the breeze. Dimitri still remembers how the fur trim felt, soft and warm and drenched in blood, when he’d last held it nine years ago. A lifetime, really.
Dimitri holds his breath, slumped on the ground, face turned up towards the spinning stars. He waits for Glenn to rip open his chest, to cut a hole in his skull, to hate what he sees inside just as much as Dimitri does.
Cold fingers grasp his chin, the warmest touch he’s felt in weeks, smearing blood and mud and salty tears under rough calluses. Dimitri shudders violently, but he can’t help the way his face tilts up, pressing into the contact, eye wide and unseeing.
“Glenn?” His voice cracks, rasping raw through his throat. Dimitri’s heart ticks fast and wild as a lone finger marks a trail along his jawline to his neck.
I’m sorry I took so long.
“Glenn,” but weaker this time, punched out of his lungs like a blow to the gut, a broken, sorry little thing. His empty eye socket aches down to the bone.
Fingertips press against his jaw, a soft smile on Glenn’s face where he’s knelt in front of him. It’s full of forgiveness he doesn’t deserve.
“Glenn.”
This time it’s breathed reverently, a prayer of wondrous awe. He’s the most heartbreaking apparition Dimitri’s ever seen, ethereal in the moonlight, shimmering beneath the stars. Too beautiful to be true. Too good to be real.
I’m here now.
Protests fall from his lips, plain and painful, mixing with blood and snot and tears. Glenn’s fingertips absorb them, far too patient, far too kind. Dimitri’s soul feels aflame from the touch until it’s too much and he curls up into himself, jagged fingernails carving paths into his own arms, unable to shake the weight of Glenn’s hand against his cheek.
“No, no, you’re not, you cannot be–”
Guilt flashes across Glenn’s face so fast Dimitri barely has time to comprehend it before it hardens into something colder. He looks like himself again, with edges so sharp you’d cut yourself on a passing glance. Glenn’s hand withdraws from his cheek. Dimitri can’t help the noise that rips through him, torn from his throat, awful and gasping.
Oh, Dima. You know crying won’t help.
“No, no, no, you died, you’re dead, it’s my fault–”
Dimitri’s head spins. His ghosts have never been so cruelly beautiful, so hyper-realistic before. Maybe this is just another dream, one he’s yet to wake up from.
But I’m here now, Glenn repeats, stubborn like always. Dimitri sobs.
“I’m trying, Glenn, to avenge you, to right this wrong, to make them pay–”
You’re fixating on the wrong things again, little lion.
Hearing his nickname spill from Glenn’s lips stills the wildness in his heart. His dissent dies, half-formed, on his tongue. Glenn moves closer – he was always so close, so touch-starved, never more than an arm span away – and cups a hand to his face again, firmer this time, his thumb bruising where it digs into his cheekbone. Dimitri stills, an animal frozen in a trap.
Was it not enough to die for you? Do I have to sit and watch you suffer now, too?
“Please, stop, I can’t, I can’t– ”
Glenn shakes his head, peels away, disappointment written plain across his face. The loss of his touch burns, a wildfire of want running through Dimitri’s veins to set his heart aflame.
Sleep now. I’ll be back.
Dimitri cries, kneeling on the forest floor, hand outstretched towards –
No one. Glenn is gone.
His heart beats inside his hollow chest, a raw, ugly thing.
—
Wake up, little lion.
The sun shines down, weak and watery where it filters through the dying autumn leaves. Dimitri vaguely realizes he’s somewhere north, somewhere cold enough to shake his body with a series of violent shivers upon waking. Glenn is leaning over him, backlit by the rays, his own personal angel without a halo.
We need to head south.
Dimitri watches Glenn fuss with a pack of supplies, pulling out a canteen and a handful of neat little packets wrapped up in brown paper and tied with little leather straps – the same kind holding his hair up in a loose ponytail. The other voices that rattle around in his head, usually needy and insistent, fade to a quiet murmur as he looks at Glenn in the morning light.
“I’m so sorry, Glenn.”
The look on his expression says not this, not again. Glenn’s mouth twists into a scowl, reforms into something practiced and patient. He moves to crouch before him, that gentle hand back on his cheek.
It’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault, no one could have known.
“It is, though–”
No. Glenn’s voice is firmer this time. He sounds uncannily like his younger brother, but even in his stern anger there’s a thread of something sweet – a little careful, a little gentle, a little loving.
No, it isn’t. Listen to me, my lion. His right hand comes up, fits around the curve of Dimitri’s jaw, stiff and still half-paralyzed from that fateful Thoron. Dimitri wants to crawl back into the shell of himself at the way Glenn looks at him, eyes warm and dark where they meet his.
“But– But if I had–”
If you had what? Been stronger, faster, better? It wouldn’t have mattered, in the end.
Glenn’s thumb traces over the curve of his lips, daring him to contradict. Dimitri falls quiet. He’s never been able to fight Glenn for very long, but it’s especially hard when he looks like this: bright as the moon, beauty distilled in the sharp curve of his nose and the pleading words on his lips, dripping like ichor into his ear.
Please, Dima. Forgive the boy you once were. If not for yourself, then for me.
Dimitri wants so badly to listen, to believe that it’s possible. He leans his face against Glenn’s, presses his forehead to his, shutting his eye, because it’s all too much. A sigh washes across his cheek, cool and sweet, before Glenn pulls away.
Come. Eat something. Glenn glances up at the wash of clouds above them, swirling low and white and gray. It’ll snow soon. We need to get going.
–
Wake up, little lion.
Dimitri’s fingers are numb and stiff with cold when he wakes. The barn Glenn led them to last night is perched on the outskirts of a nameless abandoned village, the only structure spared from being burnt to the ground. It isn’t warm, but it’s dry and safe and for now, it’s enough.
I brought you this.
Glenn stands in the doorway, silhouetted by the glow of dawn. Swirls of lavender and rose smear the skyline behind him, one of those impossibly beautiful winter sunrises they both used to love so much: waking up early to tiptoe through the halls and climb the ridge separating Fraldarius from the sea, huddled under Glenn’s cloak, waves crashing and gulls crying as they watched the sun slip up over the horizon, staying until they were awash with the new morning light.
Behind Glenn trails a cape, lush and oversized, engulfing his slender frame. White and black and blue spill over one other, piecemealed together into something messy, almost hideous. Something for an animal, not a king. How fitting.
To keep warm, Glenn says, draping it over Dimitri’s hunched shoulders, nimble fingers tugging it up around his collar. He slips in next to him, tucking the edges neatly around them in even folds.
It’s warm. It’s good. Dimitri numbly tries to remember the last time he felt the sensation, but comes up short.
Glenn leans against him, never one to shy away from touch. His ponytail, long and silky, spills over Dimitri’s shoulder and across his neck. Dimitri shudders, shivers, wraps his arms around his pulled-in knees, tries to ignore the way each strand catches in his scruff.
Remember getting dressed, before battles? You were always so ticklish, Glenn teases, a hand reaching out to stroke, featherlight, against Dimitri’s calf. He’s still in his armor, has been for – days? weeks? months?
He turns his head to catch the ghost of a smirk sliding across Glenn’s face. We couldn’t get your boots on without laughing. Or you accidentally kicking me. The smirk fades to something vaguely wistful, a memory slipping through his fingers like sand, like water.
Dimitri’s quiet as Glenn’s fingers dance across his shoulders beneath the weight of the cape, moving through each buckle and loop, unfastening him at the seams. The loose shirt Glenn tugs over his head in place of the metal chestplate is soft, worn linen. The way he kneels between his legs to lace up the front is so careful, so gently soothing it almost hurts.
“Where did you get it?” His voice is raw and rusty with disuse and sleep. “The cape.”
Glenn just shrugs, and it reminds Dimitri of the Glenn he knew before, nonchalant and unbothered: his calm, steady knight.
I found it. Just like I found you.
They burrow together under the cape that night, Glenn’s hands catching his own, threading his fingers through the spaces between. Dimitri barely dares to move as Glenn’s back rises and falls against his chest. When his breathing slows and evens out, Dimitri presses the tip of his nose to the nape of Glenn’s neck. It feels like home.
—
Wake up, little lion.
Killing doesn’t hurt much anymore, but it does bring back the nightmares. They’ve been quieter since Glenn found him, only shards of memories, brief little flashes of lightning and blood interrupting the peaceful oblivion of sleep. Dimitri much prefers dreamless nights to waking up gasping and sweaty with sharp wails and an aching pain in his temple.
They avoid human contact as much as they can on their twisty, winding path south, choosing the quiet shelter of each other’s arms to the comfort of a proper bed or a hot meal. But when the road south brings them to the monastery, of all places, other people become inescapable.
That night, once the monastery has fallen silent and they’ve cleaned off their weapons, they huddle together under the cape, the curves of their bodies melting easily into one another, cold and dirty with blood and sweat.
The bandits fell easily to their silver sword and sharpened lance. Killing them doesn’t hurt as much as killing his old friends, but the copper tang of blood in the air and the way Glenn’s sword crunched, sickeningly accurate, through flesh and bone, brings back his nightmares.
Shh, they aren’t real. I’m here. I’m here.
Dimitri comes to, bewildered at first, his heart beating a staccato rhythm in his chest. He recognizes Glenn’s face, curled up against his chest, soothing and familiar. Glenn pushes Dimitri’s hair back from his face, murmuring things like I’m here, Dima and I’ve got you.
He’s crying, he realizes, as Glenn’s fingers pull away from his cheeks, salt-stained and wet.
“I’m– I’m sorry–” Dimitri starts, only to fall silent as Glenn ducks his head, his mouth tracing the outline of his ear, trailing the ghost of benevolent kisses down his neck as he whispers, don’t apologize to me, love.
The constant chatter of his other ghosts quiets as Glenn pulls back, eyes searching his face, lips parting in concern. He’s sleepy and soft like this, half-awake but still careful, and Dimitri wants nothing less than to wrap him up in whispers of love and promises of a better future. His heart hammers in his chest as he realizes what he’s feeling, for the first time in years, is hope.
When they kiss, it’s hot and slick and breathless and everything Dimitri has ever wanted: the slide of Glenn’s tongue across his lower lip, the way his hand fits perfectly against the column of Glenn’s throat; the strangled little sigh that slips from Glenn’s mouth to his as he sips in the sound. Nothing’s ever felt more right.
When they break apart, a gossamer strand of spit connects their lips. His heart does a rabbit-flutter as Glenn’s tongue darts out to break it, running along the edge of his teeth.
“You’re my favorite dream,” Dimitri murmurs, entranced, in awe. For the first time, it feels like his world has shifted for the better.
And you, mine, Glenn whispers back, his smile bright and free as anything.
–
Wake up, little lion.
Glenn wakes him with a chaste kiss pressed to his cheek, thumbing gently over his empty socket with unbearable tenderness. Let’s get cleaned up.
The monastery is quiet now, their own little sanctuary up among the stars now that the bandits have been cleared out. The walk to the sauna is strangely reminiscent of his days at school, but, oddly enough, it doesn’t bring back any creeping memories, just a sad, hollow ache in his chest.
The pool Glenn leads him to is deep and empty, but the half-busted runes to heat the water only take a little bit of tinkering to fix, and the air quickly fills with steam and the scent of pine oil.
Dimitri watches from the corner of his eye as Glenn undresses, each scar deeper and more devastating as he goes. His right arm is stiff, tinted a raw pink, the skin of his shoulder puckered and uneven, bumpy in all the places it didn’t knit back together quite right. It breaks Dimitri’s heart.
They float together, Dimitri tethered by the soft grasp of Glenn’s hand around his wrist and then his waist, scrubbing soap over his skin, just shy of too rough.
Let me wash your hair, Glenn murmurs, his voice echoing off the tiled stone and the watery lap of ripples against the edge of the sunken pool, effervescing into Dimitri’s ear as he leans back, safe and warm. Glenn works out the tangles with patient, nimble fingers, never tugging too hard, working the soap into a thick lather, scrubbing and rinsing and repeating it twice until the blonde shines through.
“May I–” Dimitri inhales sharply at the press of wet lips to the nape of his neck, nipping against his skin, breath catching in his throat temporarily. “–can I return the favor?”
Yes, Glenn sighs, his eyes closing as Dimitri takes his ponytail in his hands, gently combing through the matted ends. He slips the leather strap out, fastens it around his own wrist for safekeeping, before working water through Glenn’s hair. It flows like a mercurial pool around them, long and dark in the dim light of the sauna.
Washing Glenn’s hair takes considerably longer than Dimitri’s, but soon the motions start to feel hypnotic, soothing in their repetition as his fingers wind through Glenn’s hair. It’s silky soft now that it’s clean, gliding easily through his hands.
When Dimitri leans down to press a kiss to Glenn’s neck, mirroring his move from earlier, he hears a quiet inhale of breath, immediately followed by a weak, barely there groan, slipped unbidden from Glenn’s lips. He decides, then and there, to chase it, feeling inexplicably warm and wanting.
Glenn’s head knocks back against his shoulder as he continues his path down, his mouth parted in a tiny little gasp as Dimitri works his way down his neck to his scarred shoulder, kissing and nipping and sucking little marks into pale skin with swirls of tongue and teeth. His hands settle around Glenn’s ribcage, thumbing over raised scars, smoothing across each dip and valley of bone and sinewy muscle.
Ah, Dima, Glenn cries out quietly, sounding a little flustered, a little bit broken. Dimitri pulls back to look at him – all wet bangs and loose limbs, neck covered in mauve marks and bruised bites. He looks a little overwhelmed like this, dark lashes fluttering, mouth a little open, flushing under Dimitri’s attention. The sight of it makes Dimitri feel warm all over. His hands slow to a stop, settling around Glenn’s sides.
Let’s go back to bed, Glenn mumbles weakly into his ear, already pulling Dimitri out of the bath and into the ratty towels they found at the back of a half-smashed closet.
–
Come on, little lion, Glenn murmurs, slow and sweet, a drizzle of syrup in his ear. He’s pressed up against his side, sharing heat beneath the blankets. The early winter sunset through the window paints him in a fiery glow, porcelain skin every shade from midnight blue to a smeared burnt sienna. It reminds Dimitri of Duscur; of how peaceful his face looked in the dying light.
Glenn’s eyes are half-lidded, thick lashes still dewy from their bath fluttering across skin and scars. His lips trail down, soft where they press, lingering over Dimitri’s skin, like he’s taking his time to map every curve and dip, every roughed-up burn and puckered mark, reminders of battles lost and won.
Let me take care of you, Glenn whispers, a quiet plea against his heart.
Dimitri’s never been able to say no, not to Glenn: his childhood crush, his biggest failure, his worst downfall, his first love. This time is no different.
Oh, you need this, little lion. I can tell.
Glenn moves into his lap, the slow rock of their hips together thoroughly and utterly distracting from the patient way Glenn traces his silhouette with his fingertips. He thumbs over his jaw, his nose, the scar that rips down his face, an ugly reminder of a pathetic attempt to make the ghosts go away, before he believed in them.
Dimitri now knows that ghosts are very, very real.
“Glenn, please–”
I’ve got you, murmured against chapped lips, folding his hands over Dimitri’s, sliding them into place, heavy around the jut of Glenn’s slender hips. I’ve got you, sighed into the junction of his neck and shoulder, teeth nipping, breath bursting forth in hot little clouds against the shell of his ear. I’ve got you, breathlessly now, as Glenn’s fingers twist between them to peel back roughspun cotton and take him, heavy and wanting, in his good hand. I–
“I love you,” Dimitri trembles back, ribs pried open to expose his heart, a raw, bleeding wound beneath Glenn’s touch. Glenn’s other hand captures his, small and warm, devotion dripping through burnt fingertips, and brings it up to cradle Glenn’s own cheek.
I know.
From anyone else it would be a cruel, unrequited letdown. From Glenn, it’s just a simple acknowledgement of a fact he already knows: just like the sky is blue and the grass is green and their blood runs red, Dimitri loves him.
A waterfall of hair spills over Dimitri’s chest as Glenn leans down, lips trailing as his hand moves in perfect circles, the slow drag of friction slick and hot and almost too much already.
You’ve grown so much, my lion, Glenn teases. Dimitri can feel the flash of teeth in the slope of his neck, a wide smile against his neck. He forces his hands to stay anchored where they are on Glenn’s hips, barely daring to breathe. He needs to be careful, so careful–
You won’t break me, Dima.
Glenn’s smiling up at him from where he sits in his lap, lashes heavy, knees spread wide on either side of his. Dimitri’s own face feels dewy with tears and sweat, mixing in rivulets down his temples. C’mon, love. Glenn nudges him, pressing his nose into his cheek, soft and almost playful. Take what’s yours.
“My beloved,” he murmurs, trying the words out on his tongue. The curve of them in his mouth tastes sweeter than anything he’s tried since Duscur. When he moves his hands, its to dip under the hem of Glenn’s loose blouse, to trace over the spread of his shoulder blades, delicate as butterfly wings beneath his palms.
The way Glenn’s mouth fastens around his clavicle, sucking plum bruises into the hollow of his collarbone and the ridge of his shoulder, tells Dimitri that yes, this is good, this is right – but he starts overthinking it, just like he always does, and the anxious bubble rises in his chest until he has to say something or else it’ll pop –
“Are you sure?”
Glenn is panting now, overheated breaths and hushed up cries in the slope of Dimitri’s neck as his hand begins to twist and move, thumbing over the head before stroking, languid and slow, up and down. Glenn twists his head to look up, indigo eyes flashing with need and desire, heavy with this look of love that punches the air right out of him. Yes, please, Dima.
Glenn’s body goes soft and compliant in his grip, lax and drippy as Dimitri rearranges him, spread out on the matted fur of their cloak. He watches, wide-eyed, as Glenn squirms and pants and cries beneath him, ah, ah, Dima, like that, please, when he reaches down to pull his leggings off and touch him.
They move together, hips rolling in a steady rhythm until Glenn’s hand comes up to clutch at his cheek, sweaty and needy and so, so lovely. C’mon, love, he repeats, voice all velvety with an edge of roughness, catching Dimitri’s fingers to dip into himself, tight and slick and sweet.
Dimitri watches from above, one hand planted next to where Glenn’s tossing his head back against the fur, his other hand curling and curving into him, mesmerized by everything: every little moan and sighed Dima, yes, yeah, like that pulls directly on Dimitri’s heartstrings; the shift of Glenn’s muscles against his ribcage as they contract and expand in pleasure carves away Dimitri’s self-control, bit-by-bit; the way the scars and burns ripping down half his body flush a dark crimson-purple sends sparks through Dimitri’s veins.
Nothing has ever made him lose his mind from pleasure like Glenn, unbelievably perfect and tight around him, his slender calves folding around the outline of his hips, digging into his sides, encouraging with breathless, broken little fragments of sentences – you’re perfect, my lion, yes, yes – until Glenn throws an arm over his eyes, wholly overwhelmed.
“Let me see you,” he gasps out, pulling Glenn’s arm off as he leans up and over, threading their fingers together, pinning him down while he pumps deep and steady into him. Dimitri cradles him close as his thrusts start to grow erratic, Glenn’s hips fluttering up to meet his.
They spill at the same time, hot and messy against each other, and it takes all of Dimitri’s remaining strength to fall to Glenn’s side and wrap him up, sticky-sweaty-sweet where their skin touches. He realizes he’s been murmuring nonsense, repetitive, as he comes down from his high: you’re here, you’re real, you’re here, you’re real.
Glenn smiles up at him, small and quiet.
“That’s what I’ve been saying all along, little lion.”