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When the first predawn streaks of light began to break across the sky, Dimitri had already been awake for nearly an hour. He felt exhaustion line his eyes, making them ache with overstrain before the day had even begun. He knew the more prudent action would be to close them, attempt some sort of rest even if sleep remained elusive. But instead he stared down the line of his own arm, following it to his hand, where it met with the other body laying in bed with him.
His hand rested carefully atop Claude’s own, where it had settled palm down against the sheet as he slept beside Dimitri. The nightmare that woke Dimitri left him restless, anxious—wanting to reach out and fully envelope Claude in his arms. Nothing felt real outside the thick smoke of his dream, and the miasma of terror and shame that followed him into his waking hours.
Dimitri wanted Claude to be real. And while rationally he could say that he was, Dimitri couldn’t shake the thought that he had to be sure. That they could only both exist together while wrapped in each other’s arms, the pressure of shared contact an evidence Dimitri felt certain he could accept. And selfishly, he wanted something other than the sticky film of fear that clung to his throat like ash; he wanted to breath in and catch the scent of something other than a noxious burning.
The back of Claude’s hand under Dimitri’s own was soft, smooth, though Dimitri knew rough calluses could be found along the tips of his fingers, against the sides of his knuckles. Dimitri lingered on the thought, catching himself in the notion of flipping Claude’s palm over, tracing his fingertips before lacing their fingers together.
Instead, he focused on the delicate feel of the tendons of Claude’s hand as they pressed into his palm, indulging in the thought that the angle of contact allowed the lines of his palm to slot together against them seamlessly, as though such a position was only natural, beyond reproach.
But Dimitri was greedy, and the allure of shuffling forward and wrapping himself fully against the other boy was hard to resist, dangerous to even imagine, given how deeply he wanted, and how poorly his self-restraint held whenever the matter concerned Claude—especially, to Dimitri’s chagrin, his desire to be closer to him. Simply in his presence, or feeling his warm skin against Dimitri’s own.
But in the last few months, Dimitri had woken frequently enough in the early hours of the morning only to find Claude staring at the ceiling, sleep held from him nearly as often as from Dimitri himself. So he couldn’t disturb him, would not interrupt his unguarded rest, preferring to trace the lines of Claude’s face with his eyes as light slowly seeped into the world. Forcing that one point of contact between them to be enough.
Holding himself very still, Dimitri sighed, small and quiet, feeling sad and strained as he continued his study of Claude.
Something minute, barely perceptible and difficult to parse explicitly, shifted in the manner of Claude’s breathing, and Dimitri only managed half the thought he’s awake, before Claude spoke, eyes still closed, “Got a good enough look yet, Your Princeliness?”
Dimitri exhaled a quick breath, giving Claude’s hand a light squeeze in apology. “Sorry,” he verbalized the gesture. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Claude’s eyes popped open, and they crinkled faintly, the most honest smile he had. His lips worked into a small grin to match, but Dimitri found himself caught in the details framing Claude’s eyes, how the lines around them smoothed but didn’t soften as Claude began to school himself more deliberately as he fully woke. “You didn’t. The light always gets me in the morning, and it’s just around dawn now, isn’t it?”
Dimitri nodded slowly, head catching against his pillow. “Yes,” he added unnecessarily. “It suits you. The dawn light. It makes you glow.”
Claude huffed out something pleased and self-conscious, and Dimitri watched fondly as his face flushed with a dull red, a tell Dimitri would never admit to noticing for fear that Claude would learn to control even that. “Hey now, it’s too early in the morning for flattery like this, Highness. I’ll have nowhere for my day to go but down.”
“Find me later, then. At the end,” Dimitri replied immediately, voice pitched low and playful, matching Claude’s own. He felt his own face heat, but he did his best to ignore it. He wasn’t good at this type of teasing, not the way Claude was, but he liked the delighted flush that colored Claude’s face when he tried. “You look quite striking as the light fades, too. But it’s not quite the same. Perhaps, with deliberate attention to both, I could give you a comparison?”
Claude rolled over, closer to Dimitri, hiding his face in the gap between their pillows as he groaned. The movement pressed his side all along Dimitri’s front, and Dimitri considered the sacrifice of his careful study worthwhile, if only because it allowed him to finally wind his arms around Claude, who assisted the effort by squirming around ungracefully as Dimitri shuffled just a bit closer. He wrapped around Claude first with his arms, before sneaking one ankle over Claude’s lower calf to rest it between both of Claude’s own.
Claude laughed softly into his place against the mattress, but refrained from any comment, merely letting himself settle more comfortably against Dimitri once he had pulled Claude as close as he could conceive how. Dimitri relaxed into the position immediately, pressing his forehead into Claude’s shoulder and just breathing. Pine oil filled his nose and lungs, the scent of some lotion Claude used after trips to the sauna, telling Dimitri absently one night that it felt cool against his skin. And then later, in the early hours of another sleepless morning, that it reminded him of home.
And once, he had taken a small dollop, rubbing it softly into Dimitri’s sore hands, one and then the other. He had worked the balm between the tendons on the back his hands, into the lines of his palms—across the faded scars that spanned both—speaking lowly and softly about nothing at all as Dimitri sat tense, uncertain and terribly exposed, relaxing in uneven pieces with each slow circle of Claude’s thumb as he held Dimitri’s palm in one hand and rubbed in lotion with the other. The soreness had returned the following day, but the woody-sweet scent had lingered for nearly a week, and the memory settled itself behind Dimitri’s eyes and under his skin, eager to resurface each time Dimitri caught the unmistakable smell of pine again.
Dimitri felt the movement through Claude’s shoulder as Claude turned his head slightly, coming out of hiding so that he faced Dimitri. Dimitri kept his eyes closed, pressed into Claude, still breathing slowly, his mind pleasantly blank. After a few moments, Claude wiggled around a bit, trying to curl their bodies toward each other. Dimitri tightened his arms slightly, just to be cheeky, just to hear Claude’s faint huff of amusement as he worked himself so that he could wrap his arms around Dimitri just the same.
Dimitri leaned back into Claude, his forehead coming to lay against Claude’s collarbone as Claude—positioned higher on the bed—rested his chin against the crown of his head. Thoughtlessly, Dimitri sighed, tension easing out of him in waves as Claude began to run his fingers lightly through the hair at the nape of his neck, not yet speaking.
Finally, he asked, quiet, “How long have you been awake?”
“A while,” Dimitri admitted, words spoken into Claude’s chest, not yet willing to move from the comfort of the position.
Claude sighed, carding his fingers fully into the hair at the back of Dimitri’s head before pausing there, almost… cradling him. Or holding him in place. He began again after a beat, and Dimitri dismissed the thought, uninterested in self-indulgent speculation.
For a few moments, they continued as such in silence before Claude trailed the motion down further than before, smoothing his hands down against Dimitri’s neck. When he found the juncture between Dimitri’s neck and jaw, he gripped slightly and then pushed, a suggestion for Dimitri to pull back and look at him.
Dimitri could resist. He knew Claude would let him, if that’s what he chose. To just stay there, even just a moment longer.
He drew back, meeting Claude’s eyes reluctantly. Claude kept his hand against Dimitri’s jaw as he assessed him, openly searching Dimitri’s face. Dimitri couldn’t guess what he could be looking for, hardly knew how to ask. But he wanted to, if only so he could give to Claude, ease the tension Claude hid just under the surface of his careful assessment.
“You should have woken me up,” Claude prompted softly. “Maybe I’d like to give you a look in the morning, too.” He rubbed a thumb across Dimitri’s lower cheek. “You’ve got fine features, Highness. It’s hard to imagine a light that doesn’t suit you.”
Dimitri just shook his head, liking the way the pressure of Claude’s fingers on his jaw reacted to balance against the motion. “I wanted you to sleep.” He didn’t address Claude’s other words, just some teasing echo of Dimitri’s own. “You looked so peaceful.”
“Something in rare supply lately, I suppose,” Claude agreed, but then he bit his lip, tapping one finger absentmindedly against Dimitri’s face while thinking. “Still, you can... Even if it wakes me up, you can—I know it helps. Being closer. I don’t mind.” Claude paused again, eyes cutting away as he added softer, nearing shy. “I like it, too. And I’ll just fall back asleep.” He looked back to Dimitri. “And I know it helps you even when you can’t.”
Dimitri only nodded, an acknowledgement of Claude’s words that he’d let Claude take as an agreement.
“I mean it, Dimitri,” Claude continued, reading something of Dimitri’s intentions in his expression. “I didn’t wiggle myself into your arms just now for nothing.” He grinned. “Or you bed, for that matter. Might as well get a good use out of me while I’m here, right?”
Dimitri’s face pinched immediately in displeasure, and he gripped Claude tighter on instinct, staring at him intently as he fumbled through his protest. “Claude, don’t—you know that is not—don’t talk about yourself that way. Like you are just something to be… used.” Or discarded, Dimitri thought, but the thought came too close to a conversation they weren’t having, that became increasingly impossible to have as the end of the year drew nearer. His frown deepened. “I think you—“
Claude cut him off. “Nope, nuh-uh. You’ve hit the quota for embarrassingly forward compliments for this morning. I guess you really will just have to save them for later. Keep them on ice, you know?”
Dimitri sighed, but the noise was fond, and he could hardly hide it. Made no effort to. “You might come to regret it,” Dimitri argued instead, just for the sake of it. “Perhaps I will devise something more embarrassing in the interim.”
“Devise, huh?” Claude teased, grinning conspiratorially. “Getting devious? Is this my influence? Have I really had such an effect on you that you’re devising things now?”
“Yes,” Dimitri agreed easily, and then, on impulse, leaned forward to kiss Claude lightly, cutting off whatever comment he had in the works as a response.
Dimitri felt a puff of air against his face as Claude let out a startled, amused exhale from his nose, but he settled into the kiss immediately, pressing back firmly against Dimitri’s soft contact. He moved his hand down from Dimitri’s face, and Dimitri thought to pull away to protest the loss of contact, but it was only to push suggestively against Dimitri’s shoulder, an implicit request for Dimitri to roll over, lie on his back so Claude could crawl over him.
Dimitri sighed, pulling back. “I have to get ready.” He cut his eyes to the window, frowning at the amount of light that now shone through it. “Now, actually. Or else I’ll be late.”
“Your mission is this early? You’re hardly going anywhere.”
“I told the Professor I’d meet them beforehand. They are… uneasy, maybe. Or nervous, though they are hardly showing it.” Dimitri gave Claude a significant look. “I’m sure you can imagine why.”
“I can imagine a lot of things,” Claude agreed, an unhappy line forming between his eyebrows. Dimitri resisted the urge to press his thumb into it, not to smooth it out, not necessarily, but to protect the gesture, the signs of Claude’s true discontent just as rare as his happiness. “I’m not too thrilled with most of them. There’s too many loose threads.” Claude frowned openly. “Or too many interests at play.” He admitted, oddly serious, “I don’t like how all of this feels.”
Dimitri nodded minutely, and he tightened his arms around Claude for an instant, before relaxing his hold. He stared at Claude, before giving him a final, slow kiss. Something at odds with the nervous energy steadily building under his skin. Pulling back from Claude reluctantly, Dimitri rose from the bed. The light was growing stronger, and Dimitri was bordering on the precipice of truly running late.
“I agree. And I can hardly see the benefit of a mission such as this at the moment. It feels… superfluous.”
Claude snorted. “That’s one word for it.” He caught Dimitri’s eye before he turned, giving him a look that let Dimitri know he was about to receive a comment at his expense. “The polite one they taught you in little Princeling school, I’d bet.”
“And your word, Claude?”
“Not nearly so polite, not nearly so one word.” Claude shrugged while lying against the bed, the gesture odd and aborted. “And you’re running late.”
The conversation lulled as Dimitri began to collect his things about the room. He was generally tidy, and still so now, but he fidgeted between items, picking up one set of gloves before discarding them for another. Grabbing his academy sword, replacing it with his preferred silver one, and then switching back again. A purely ceremonial mission, they had been told, but recently, every step toward anything always ended in battle. He grabbed his silver sword again.
His hand lingered over his desk, where he knew a small, achingly familiar dagger sat hidden in its bottom drawer, but he dismissed the impulse to retrieve it as well—couldn’t justify any desire he found in himself to take it. But the urge held him in place, and he stood still for a moment too long, staring at nothing. A dull, unpleasant humming filled his mind, the first sign that his headache would only grow worse as the day continued.
“Hey,” Claude said seriously, catching Dimitri’s attention before beckoning him over to where he was sitting up on the bed. Dimitri complied, relieved, and then suddenly ashamed, at how easily he let himself be led back towards Claude, away from—everything else.
He kneeled before where Claude sat up on the edge of the bed, looking up toward him. Claude brushed back Dimitri’s bangs playfully, and Dimitri resisted the urge to lean into the contact, close his eyes and let it soothe the throbbing at his temples. He looked down instead, focusing on where he rested his hands atop Claude’s knees.
“Hey,” Claude repeated, tapping Dimitri’s cheek to force his attention back upwards. Dimitri couldn’t hide, not the way he preferred to, as Claude carded fingers through his bangs again, lingering for a moment before letting them fall back into their usual disarray.
“You need to show those eyes more, Highness,” he whispered softly. “It’s a good look for you.”
Dimitri gave a small scoff, too engrossed in the moment to voice any true disagreement. Claude’s expression turned unreadable to Dimitri, taking on shades of something nearly sad. Then, his melancholy seemed to clear, or Claude hid it away with the other thoughts he kept just for himself. He asked, “Are you nervous?”
“No,” Dimitri lied, resisting the urge to look down again.
Claude frowned, studying Dimitri’s face. Dimitri was hardly what anyone would call a gifted liar, but he had found the right combination of behaviors that dissuaded persistence. Claude liked to hang his assumptions—his theories, or his arguments—on words and actions he could catalog as evidence, but Dimitri knew how to give no ground, create walls without footholds to latch onto. He stared at Claude blankly, waiting him out.
Claude sighed, and then Dimitri watched him purse his lips in thought before changing subjects. “You’ll tell me all about it when you get back?”
“If there’s anything worth any sort of telling,” Dimitri confirmed. He stood, leaning down to kiss Claude quickly, almost urgently. He didn’t draw out the contact, pulling back almost as soon as the kiss began. He was weak, he knew, and Dimitri would linger if given an excuse to. He knew better than to create the circumstances for such rationalizations himself.
Claude smiled as Dimitri pulled back. “You’ll tell me if the goddess is as beautiful as they say?” he pressed on, nothing serious in his voice or expression. Some show of playfulness for Dimitri’s benefit. “What’s that one poem Ignatz lended me… ’The radiance of her splendor’? Think it’ll be as good as that?”
Dimitri rolled his eyes, which Claude looked too pleased about. It made his eyes crinkle again, shining in a muted mirth. Dimitri tempered the urge to repeat the action again, choosing not to examine why, lingering regardless on the thought that he could please Claude further still.
“I hardly think I’ll know any better by the end of today than I do now,” Dimitri said, though his eye roll had made his opinion more than clear. “Also,” he couldn’t help but add, a little awkwardly, “I’m not always the best judge of… women’s beauty. My attention usually wanders elsewhere. To… others.”
Claude snorted, and Dimitri felt a brief flash of self-consciousness. Before Dimitri could let it fester, Claude smiled softly, whispering, “More of you for me, then.”
Dimitri’s nose wrinkled, as the comment bordered on nonsensical, and he felt a brief urge to argue the semantics just because he could. But he let Claude draw him down and kiss him again instead. When he pulled back, they merely stared at one another, and Dimitri felt Claude’s small, pleased smile mirrored on his own face. Hung in the air between them was something fragile, unnamable, and Dimitri soaked it in, letting it calm the line of nerves that were buzzing against his spine.
“Come find me after?” Claude shifted, and for a moment, he was backlit by the morning sun, haloed by the dawn. He shifted again, suddenly restless. “You can tell me about how boring it was. That the goddess was a no-show.” He paused, looking thoughtful. Nearly… worried, though Dimitri could hardly imagine that Claude cared about the goddess’s doings, one way or the other. He continued, oddly serious, “You’ll tell me nothing happened at all, yeah? And we’ll laugh about it together.”
“Go back to bed,” Dimitri suggested, speaking low. He leaned over, kissing Claude not on the mouth but the curve of his jaw, holding the other side of his face in place with his hand as he did so. “I’ll come find you when I get back.”
Claude nodded, laying back down and curling back up under Dimitri’s blankets. It was unlikely that he’d fall asleep again, Dimitri knew, but he liked the idea of Claude choosing to rest, to have a moment of deliberate repose.
Watching Claude bundle himself up, Dimitri frowned thoughtfully, before finding the extra quilt Claude liked at the foot of his bed and using it to more fully cover him. After a beat, he began tucking it around Claude’s form more deliberately. A hand shot out from the nest Claude had already curled himself into, swatting Dimitri away playfully, an unspoken warning that Dimitri was beginning to hover. Dimitri bit back a small smile before realizing that Claude couldn’t see it, and instead, he let it settle in, growing fond.
He didn’t linger, getting dressed soon after, trying to remain as quiet as possible. He couldn’t stop himself from a quick look backward at the door, one hand against the doorframe as he glanced over his shoulder. The angle combined with Claude’s unusual sleeping posture meant Dimitri only saw the lump of blankets curled haphazardly in the middle of the bed, and none of Claude himself, but it soothed him regardless, just knowing Claude was there.
Are you nervous? Claude had asked. And Dimitri had felt like lying when he could only answer no, but that wasn’t the word for it. It didn’t capture it—the tight spiral of despair that lodged itself deep inside him, sprouting like a rotten pit somehow seeding in his chest. And there was nothing for it, now, Dimitri knew. He felt the sour newborn roots in his lungs, inching outward each time he breathed.
And so he wasn’t nervous, because Dimitri felt nothing like worry, merely a deep certainty that this blight would consume him, and that part of him had let it. That part of his own rot already matched it.
And Claude would see it. He was too observant not to catch it with his studied gaze, too intelligent not to know exactly what it meant. And hopefully, Dimitri thought, an ugly sort of early grief burning in his throat, hopefully too pragmatic to do anything but get away when he did.
But now, Claude lay sleeping in Dimitri’s bed, and Dimitri watched the subtle rise and fall of the covers with his slow breathing. The rhythm of the motion nearly lulled Dimitri, steadying something in him, and filling him with a warmth that wasn’t his own but Claude’s. He merely borrowed it, taking some stolen solace in the brief moment of respite.
Dimitri forced himself to turn away, opening the door and not looking back, shutting it gently behind himself. Claude’s presence lingered even as Dimitri walked down the dormitory corridor and into the courtyard, the subtle glow of his warmth settling over Dimitri’s tense form like a balm.
Dimitri let that feeling carry him as he made his way to the meeting point for the mission, where they would enter downward into the Holy Tomb. He tried to hold onto it in its entirety, but the midmorning light was already rewriting the dawn with something harsher, less inclined to soften the world’s edges into something that could hold the fragile peace he and Claude briefly shared less than an hour before. And the light of the winter morning felt cold, nothing like the soft glow that haloed Claude for an instant as he stared down at Dimitri from Dimitri’s own bed. It was already fading, that image, unable to sustain itself as the morning sun caused the shadows to shift.
Dimitri stood alone, considering the signs of the coming day with a growing sense of mourning. That moment together was lost already, Dimitri realized. Made harbinger of Lone Moon, swept away by cold winds and into its solitude, as with everything else.