Work Text:
Dimitri wakes with a scream and the taste of blood in his mouth. A dream, then, if he can taste.
His ghosts gather around him, spectral figures standing broken and angry in the pale, waning moonlight of the Garreg Mach ruins. Their faces contort in screams Dimitri cannot hear over the ringing in his ears, but it doesn't matter; he knows them each by heart.
Shadows dance at the edges of his vision, leaving him dizzy and unsteady even while lying down on the cold, cracked marble of an abandoned classroom, and he's struck by a vague, throbbing pain dulled almost to the point of being unnoticeable.
Perhaps it's shock. He remembers early days at the academy where he would sit with Mercedes and study healing magic with her, back when he thought being a good king meant learning anything and everything he possibly could. He remembers weeks spent in the infirmary after brutal battles where he'd nearly lost an arm, a leg, an eye — and yet. But no, he knows what it's like to be in shock, both from an academic standpoint and through lived experience, knows how the world closes in on you and nothing feels real, and whatever this is, it isn't that.
Maybe this is not a dream; maybe this is death.
He raises a trembling hand to his neck — wet, sticky, warm — and then he remembers nothing.
***
Some nights Dimitri's ghosts sit with him in silence. They sit, and they watch, and they listen as he apologizes over and over and over and —
They do not forgive him. How could they?
Other nights they scream, their bodies bent and broken and mangled all around him in a circle of death and suffering.
And yet those nights are still more favorable than the ones where they whisper stories of futures untold, telling him things that once could have been, but now never will.
This night, however, his ghosts gather around and watch, silent now, as he gasps for air and his heart falters in his chest.
Dimitri reaches out — his father frowns. Dimitri's fingers twitch; Glenn refuses to look at him. Dimitri chokes on blood and hears Felix scoff.
When he dies, he's alone.
***
Another night, another nightmare. The moon greets him through spider-webbed glass, broken and yet still somehow in one piece, and Dimitri doesn't understand how something can be so beyond repair, beyond saving, and still so beautiful.
Under the moon's guiding light, Dimitri struggles to his feet — limbs heavy, leaden, pulling him back towards the unforgiving marble floor — and it takes everything he has to remain standing, even while using the wall as a crutch.
When he tries to swallow, his tongue feels like sandpaper against the roof of his mouth. His throat aches with a kind of pain Dimitri has never experienced before — which is odd, intriguing, unnerving. He needs… water, he thinks. Yes, water.
Thank Sothis he finds enough strength within him to stumble through the hallowed halls of Garreg Mach, past the eerie, empty stables and the remnants of the once-bustling market, until finally — the fish pond.
He scrubs his hands together under the water, picks the dried blood out from under his nails, and tries to ignore the moonlit reflections staring up at him, watery visages with shadowed eyes and hollow expressions. He tries — oh, how he tries — but it’s futile.
As always. They never leave him. They never will.
Dimitri squeezes his eyes shut as he leans down and splashes pond water against his face, rubbing the dirt and grime from his skin.
“Pathetic,” Felix says from behind him. “You really think a filthy fish pond will wash away what you’ve done.”
Dimitri’s entire body freezes. He keeps his eyes shut and breathes in. Breathes out. “I am simply washing my face,” he answers, voice hoarse. He hasn’t talked in days, hasn’t used his voice other than the occasional scream in the middle of dreams he wishes he didn’t remember.
“It’s all lies with you, isn’t it, boar?” There has always been an edge to the way Felix speaks, with his sharp tone and words he wields like a weapon. That edge has only grown sharper over the years. Perhaps it’s a manifestation of Dimitri’s growing self-loathing. Perhaps it’s something else entirely.
“Turn around and look at me,” Felix snaps.
Dimitri opens his eyes, but he has had practice ignoring his ghosts. Even this one — the one ghost he never wants to ignore, the ghost that may not be a ghost at all.
It’s possible Felix is out there, alive and thriving without Dimitri holding him back, tying him down, reminding him of the Fraldarius oath that Felix has been forced to shoulder.
So Dimitri makes use of that practice and does his best to ignore the burning glare Felix is surely sending his way. Then he leans down, cups his hands together, and drinks his fill.
The water is cool against his tongue. Tasteless, of course. He drinks, and he drinks, and his throat is no longer dry, but —
The ache remains. It’s a hungry, gnawing thing twisting inside him — one that demands satiation. One that Dimitri does not know how to quell. It's even more maddening than the cacophony of voices that rise and swell around him — those he has learned how to ignore, partially. But this feeling inside of him, ravenous and unrelenting, is new. He does not know what to do about it.
Perhaps food will do the trick.
Sure as Sothis, Felix is standing behind Dimitri when he stands and turns his back to the pond. Felix’s arms are crossed, eyes narrowed, and he opens his mouth to unleash another barrage of insults — but Dimitri fixes his gaze somewhere behind Felix and refuses to look his way as he sweeps past.
It’s a short walk from the pond to the kitchens. The academy has had its fair share of bandits and thieves, but few ever ventured far onto the grounds, afraid of the ghosts haunting its corridors, and the pantries remain well-stocked with dried goods and cured meats.
It doesn’t matter; the moment Dimitri takes a bite of jerky, he spits it back out, dry-heaving over the dusty floor. When his stomach settles, he tries again. Same result.
Desperate, he shoves a handful of nuts into his mouth. They immediately end up all over the floor, just like the jerky.
His body refuses to accept any of the food he tries to give it. And yet — his hunger grows, all-consuming. It’s more than an ache in his throat now. It’s almost all he can think about.
“Useless,” Felix says.
Dimitri wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and grimaces.
“Boar, I’m talking to you. Or are you going to sit there and refuse to face me again, like a coward?”
Dimitri reluctantly drags his eyes up and finds Felix standing a few feet away, hands on his hips and eyes full of a fire Dimitri wishes he could feel.
“Relying on the hard work of others to try and feed yourself?” Felix gestures toward downward, where bits of jerky and nuts lay on the dusty floor. “Go and hunt something, like the king you’re supposed to be. Or are you trying to kill yourself? Trying to make everyone else’s sacrifices worthless?”
Go and hunt something. A sharp pain shoots through him as his stomach contracts, empty and aching at the thought of fresh food, fresh meat, warm and bloody and full of life.
It shouldn’t matter, though. Nuts and jerky should be enough to keep him going, should satiate this endless hunger. But the thought of sinking his teeth into a buck, ripping its throat out with his teeth —
No.
No.
“I can’t,” Dimitri says, more to himself than to Felix. “I won’t.”
A bitter laugh. “And to think I would have laid down my life for you.”
And then Felix is gone.
Dimitri wishes he didn’t miss him. His heart aches almost as badly as his stomach.
***
The sun begins to rise, pale streaks of pink and orange against a dark blue sky. It’s brighter today, the light harsh and unforgiving as it falls upon Dimitri’s skin.
At first it feels like an abnormally hot summer day, one where the heat suffocates and the sunlight is so hot it feels almost cold. But then the burning begins, turning Dimitri’s skin a brilliant pink within seconds, then scorching red barely a minute later, and the pain — the pain. It’s unbearable.
Dimitri ducks into an old supply closet — the only room without windows he could find — and unfastens his cloak, letting it fall to the floor. He kicks it in front of the slit at the bottom of the doorframe to block any light from entering, and then sinks to the ground.
His head pounds. His skin burns with a ferocity he’s never felt before. And that gnawing hunger refuses to leave him alone.
Maybe Dimitri did die. Maybe it wasn't a nightmare after all. Maybe he died and this is his punishment.
Felix doesn’t appear and Dimitri isn’t sure if it’s a blessing or a curse.
***
Dimitri barely remembers the way into Abyss, yet somehow he makes it, the only place he could think of that would be remotely livable when even the barest hint of sun causes immense pain.
Over the next few days, his eyes adjust to the dark remarkably well — there are leftover torches from the Abyss's original inhabitants, now long gone, but he tries not to use too many; Dimitri isn't sure how long he'll be forced to stay down here with his skin reacting to sunlight the way it has been, and he ought to conserve as many salvageable supplies as he can.
It's quiet down here, too. Maybe it's the hunger, maybe it's something else, but his ghosts — demons, monsters, memories — have left him ever since he first stepped down into the ruins of the Abyss. It's a little rough. They've accompanied him every moment for years at this point; the last time he'd experienced a modicum of peace like this had been during his Academy days.
The one he misses the most is Felix.
Transitioning from a mind full of endless screaming, crying, wailing to the void of silence is more than a shock to his system, it's life-altering. He can hear the trickle of water through the rubble, and the scurrying of rats behind the walls, and the wind buffeting the abandoned monastery above ground. He can hear himself think. And breathe.
A couple of days in the dark and Dimitri feels better than he has in years — with the exception of the insatiable hunger that continues to gnaw at him. He's gotten better at ignoring it, but there are moments, like now, when it swells within him like a riptide, angry and demanding and unescapable.
And then.
Something scuttles in the darkness nearby. Dimitri's eyes snap open and pinpoint the source — a large rat, perhaps the size of Dimitri's hand, skitters across the cold, stone floor. It stands on hind legs, whiskers twitching as it's head swivels back and forth, and —
Blood.
Bone.
Sinew.
A warm liquid spills down Dimitri's throat as he tears into the rat. It tastes — it tastes
tastes?
tastes?!
— like satisfaction. Like fresh saghert and cream or sweet buns straight from the oven. Like anything and everything Dimitri has ever wanted. It’s a taste so wondrous, so magnificent, Dimitri doesn’t know if he’ll be able to live without it.
And perhaps he can't.
Another rat skitters down the dark hall of the Abyss; Dimitri lunges — blood, bone, sinew. Each bite, each gulp of blood, each tear of flesh — it invigorates him, leaving Dimitri feeling better than he has in… who knows how long. Dimitri’s teeth ache in ways he didn't know were possible, but the excruciating pain is a small price to pay for the life that thrums within him now.
Once the second rat has been desiccated, Dimitri drops it to the ground. He stares down at his hands, covered in blood, covered in all sorts of other, unmentionable things… and then brings one hand up to his face to lick his fingers clean.
Elsewhere in the Abyss, a door opens. Dimitri pauses, index finger still stuck in his mouth, blood lingering on his tongue, and listens.
Noises echo much farther than they do aboveground, Dimitri has found in these last few days in Abyss — and if he listens carefully, twisting his head just the right way, the footsteps from a stranger — unwelcome, intruder, Dimitri must stop them — are deafening.
Dimitri can hear other things, too. Perhaps it’s a side effect of the ghosts who have blessedly abandoned him; perhaps it’s something else. Dimitri doesn’t think too hard about it. He doesn’t want to.
But he does listen. And when he listens, this is what he hears: a cloak, swishing against the dusty ground; footsteps, slow and careful, graceful, like a dancer; a rapidly beating heart, but one that is thick, strong. Nothing like the fluttering heartbeats of the rats.
Dimitri… he wants. He wants, he craves, he needs.
And he wonders if they will taste as good as the rats did, or if they’ll taste better.
Terrible, dark thoughts. Disgusting thoughts. He screws his eyes closed, lowers his hands to his dirty, ripped tunic and clenches them tight against his stomach, and tries to think of something, anything, other than how badly he wants to sink his teeth into their neck.
He takes a breath. And then another. Then another —
“Who’s there?”
A demanding, gruff voice from behind knocks Dimitri out of his meditation. It has a tinge of familiarity to it, almost like Dimitri knows them. Like he knew them once.
Yet the sound of their heartbeat is the loudest noise in the hall. Dimitri’s ears ring with each individual thump, incessant and all-encompassing, until it dulls all of Dimitri's other senses.
Dimitri turns around, vision narrowing to the enticing column of an exposed neck. He doesn't see their face; doesn't care, not now.
Their pulse beats faster, an incredulous "Dimitri?" half-caught in their throat, and Dimitri has never seen a sight so perfect.
Dimitri lunges.
***
Even in his darkest days, Dimitri had never imagined a life without Felix.
In the summers, Felix and his older brother, Glenn, would stay in Faerghus to study alongside the other noble children. Partly an excuse for the young heirs to mingle, yes, but for Dimitri those had been the best summers of his life.
Dimitri and Felix had learned how to ride horses together. Careful walks in circles around the pasture before moving on to the exciting — and ever so slightly faster — trot had turned into afternoons cantering out to the lake, laughing with the wind at their backs and sandwiches packed into saddlebags.
They had learned how to hold swords together. Blocky, wooden swords to start — in the mornings, under the watchful eye of his father's swordmaster, they would learn the proper way to hold the hilt, how to parry, how to lunge. In the afternoons, they would sneak their toy swords into the back gardens — duels that more often than not ended up as wrestling matches in the flowerbeds.
Afterwards, they had always charmed their way into the castle kitchens, with pink-cheeks and sweet smiles that none of the scullery maids could resist, and giggled in tandem as they escaped with sticky fingers and stomachs full of sweet buns.
And when it all went sour, when Felix started calling him the Boar Prince — Dimitri still couldn't envision a life without him around, even if it was a strained relationship. Even if it was forced proximity. It's not as if Felix could have walked away and joined another house — no, he belonged to the Blue Lions, as the Blue Lions belonged to him.
A life without Felix wasn’t a life at all.
Dimitri stares down at the limp body held tight against his chest. Felix’s eyes, glassy and empty, stare up at the stone ceiling while his fingers brush against the cold floor, sword abandoned a few feet away. Dimitri stares at his face because he can’t bear looking anywhere else — can’t bring himself to face what he’s done.
But Dimitri remembers. Oh, he remembers.
He hadn’t realized it was Felix, not at first, not until it was too late. All he could think at the time was blood, heartbeat, warmth. And then the taste of saghert and cream, a taste so addicting he couldn’t pull away even when the body under him fought with fierce abandon, when they yelled his name and called him boar.
Dimitri didn’t pull away when they managed to gouge at his right eye with bloody fingers — he couldn’t feel the pain of it, only the euphoria from finally having a taste of what he’s needed for days. He didn’t pull away until they finally fell limp in his arms, until his stomach was full, and sated, and he felt better than he had in days, in years.
Part of Dimitri always knew Felix would likely die for him one day — he just never thought it would be by his own hand.
Dimitri raises a trembling hand and wipes at a smear of blood near Felix’s mouth. Another drop falls from Dimitri's face onto Felix's cheek, red and haunting, and Dimitri tries to wipe it away, too. He’s still warm, skin pliant under Dimitri’s touch, and something in Dimitri shatters.
Dimitri doesn’t know how long he sits in that dark hall, numb and empty with Felix in his arms. It could have been mere hours. Could have been days. Time is meaningless.
His ghosts have come back with a vengeance, gathered around him like a wall of writhing, screaming shadows. Felix doesn't appear among them. Dimitri isn't sure he'd be able to handle it if he did.
***
When Felix's finger twitches the first time, Dimitri thinks he's hallucinating again.
And then it twitches again.
Then Felix's eyelids flutter.
Dimitri holds his breath and stares down at the body in his arms, afraid to look away in case— in case he is hallucinating. In case this is merely his imagination, the culmination of his desire to see Felix one more time. To hear Felix call him names, to feel the weight of his stare.
But no.
It can't be his imagination, not when Felix feels so real, so solid, as Dimitri holds him. Not when Felix groans and Dimitri has never heard a better sound in his life — at least, not until the moment when he's sure his Felix is back, when Felix's eyes snap open and his hand flies up to the bloody, ruined collar of Dimitri's shirt, and he half-growls, half-wheezes, "I'm going to fucking kill you."
Dimitri merely smiles in response.