The Blue Lions otp. I think I'm gonna end up with an otp in each route. (BL was my second route. You can find the first otp in "Beauty and Beast")
The BL otp was at first Mercedes and Sylvain... but yo... this one is so good...
Spoilers for the Azure Moon route if you care.
Deserve Him
Dedue stood, an immovable pillar, by the door of his majesty's chambers. He had guarded this special place like a sacred, dying homeland for much of his new life, resolute in immaculate armor: shining, polished, its coloration nigh platinum. The same Duscur scarf was wrapped around his neck, a dark blue, orange-accented reminder.
The halls had been restored, embellished to an ornate cerulean finish. Deep azure banners flowed across the walls, depicting an array of glorious moments within the brutal war that had tried so desperately to kill himself and his majesty at every deathly chance. There was Ingrid on her pegasus, Felix swinging his blade in one hand and forming magic with the other, Sylvain surging through the army in thick, black armor, decked atop his horse.
There was one of himself as well, somewhere.
He would allow nary a wayward ghost to escape him past the beautiful hallways full of his friends' visages, through the wrought doors behind him. He would protect the king with his life as the king had protected him those many years ago.
A crease furrowed into the knight's brow when he heard a knock coming from within the king's chambers. With a gentle hand, he pulled the handle outward and came face-to-face with the man he owed his life to. Dedue paused, his breath gone. "Your Majes—" he started when a pale hand waved him off.
The king's long, golden hair had been tied up in a ribbon, so Dedue could clearly see his pearly blue eye. The other remained behind its patch, the same old worn one from the early stages of the war. Apparently the king had never seen a reason to exchange it for something more pleasing to the public eye. Or so he said.
Dedue had wrapped it up for him with the cleanest rags from his own clothes. Before the king was slated to die. Before Dedue, in his stead, was almost killed.
He recalled the moment with a surge of cold alacrity. Rumors of his highness trapped in his own kingdom's dungeon. Breaking through the guards, their paltry attacks unable to penetrate his armor. Forcing down the door. Splitting an opening in the windows. Ushering him out, telling him to go so soon after they reunited.
Protecting his dear friend's getaway with his own life.
The king gestured his most trusted knight into his chambers, and, with a squaring up of his shoulders, Dedue followed. When the door shut, a dull thud echoing behind his back, Dedue let out a breath. He could feel it, the lack of boundary separating them. Still he kept his distance, backing away, a good few footsteps separating him from his majesty.
"Dedue. I had a question for you." He watched as the king's captivating lips moved, pale pink, perhaps soft to the touch. Dedue's gaze lingered on them, his own mouth aching. "It... concerns the future of the kingdom."
He stood up straighter, the importance of the question poised over his shoulders. "What is it, your majesty?"
For but a moment, something vague and nasty flashed across the king's angular face. Then it dispersed. "My... future, to be specific. I was thinking, now that much of the reforms have been commenced and the rest of the empire's fleeting army has been contained, I should consider, for once, myself." His eye sought out Dedue's hard, expressionless face. His warm, brown skin, like gingerbread cookies, belying the softness beneath his armor despite the scars speckled across his figure like constellations.
"I thought perhaps it is time to seek a suitable marriage partner."
The moment the words were out Dedue cringed at the sudden fracture in his complexion. Covering his agape mouth with a false cough, he muttered, "Yes, it must be time." He ignored the sinking in his chest, the cold, deadened claws crawling up his throat. "Was there someone in particular you had in mind?"
"Yes, actually." The king's gaze did not waver from the one he most trusted. "I was thinking that one of the knights of our army may be perfect for the role." To Dedue's utter lack of expression, he paused, waited, then continued. "Very strong, of course. Saved my life. Saved all of our lives in the war. A steadfast companion, someone I completely rely on." Still he received no reaction; still the king waited, hovering on the cusp of breath, and only continued forth afterwards. "Someone I would not be the same had I not met."
"Ingrid?" his servant posed. No hesitation.
Struggling to hide something in his face, something currently indiscernible, something full of angles and shadows, his majesty finally allowed a nod. "I suppose she would be serviceable." Quiet, then, a foreboding quiet.
Dedue inclined his head. His silver hair, which he had allowed to grow long about his head, now shrouded his face. "My apologies, your majesty. I must have inferred wrong."
A subtle grin etched itself across the king's soft lips, a forlorn memory of something now gone. "Or perhaps it was I who erred in hoping otherwise." Then he left it at that and did not bother to explain. His gaze had fallen to his feet, wrapped within dark, alluring boots that complemented the fur cape across his back. His crusty black armor had been replaced with creamy, kingly clothes that flowed in beautiful rivulets across his fine, muscular figure.
Still beautiful. Still as beautiful as he always was. Without the king to notice, Dedue stared into him as the longing threatened to unravel him. He wanted... he wanted... oh, it did not matter what he wanted.
Dedue swallowed. "Your majesty, who is the—"
"Why did you stop calling me by my name?"
Suddenly Dimitri had filled the space between them, stepping into it with his immaculate foot forward. His face had approached Dedue's, and he felt the king's breath upon his skin. "Dedue. Just because I ascended the throne does not mean I expected this... this distance. Wh-What is it? What have I done to make you feel that you cannot be as close to me as you desire to be?"
Dimitri's pale face exploded with passion.
"I..." His knight hesitated. He couldn't... He couldn't. "My apologies, your majes—"
"Please." Dimitri's eye had crystallized, liquid with pain. "Stop. I want to hear you say my name again."
A rippling heat flushed through Dedue. He asked, reluctant, "Is that an order?"
Dimitri gave himself a moment to consider it, then deftly said, "Yes. Yes, it is an order."
The hurt and anger transformed his face into something nigh feral, something that resembled, a frightening likeness, to the face Dedue had seen when he tried to sacrifice himself. The horrible, broken face he had been rewarded by in his attempt to save the king from the death he had almost received at the hands of his own once-corrupted kingdom. The face that had haunted him when he slept with his brethren of Duscur, the kingdom-guards-turned-rebels who saved Dedue in turn.
Dedue swallowed the knot of memories in his throat. "Then I will comply... Dimitri," he whispered, and he watched as the king's expression evaporated, leaving little behind but a blissful dreaming smile.
It hurt.
Aching in his heart. It hurt.
He knew it was selfish of him to slowly cease his calling of the prince-turned-king by his name.
But it hurt too much not to.
"Why did you stop?" Dimitri asked, yearning in his breath. "What made you think I no longer wanted you to call me by it? Please... answer me. I..." He sputtered, his voice weak with weariness. "I hate this, this... silence you've created between us." He stepped through it, his mouth inches away from Dedue's. "Do you not care for me any longer? Have you tired of—"
"Never." Dedue's voice was stuck at its weakest trickle. If Dimitri did not stand so close to him, it would be as if he had not spoken at all.
Dimitri waited for the rest of his explanation. It did not come. "Then... why?" He gazed upon his Duscur savior, the man who could have held his life within two hands if he merely asked.
Dedue's dark, narrow eyes fell closed. His soul ached within his metal encasement. He could not physically hide this from him any longer.
"Because I do not deserve to be this close to you."
Dimitri's gasp silenced whatever else lay on his tongue. "That is not true, Dedue. We already discovered the monsters behind the Tragedy. You know that some of our reforms focus on changing the outdated story of what happened and acclimating Faerghus with the remaining people of Duscur."
"I do."
Silence. Dimitri hissed through his teeth. "Then what is it?!"
His shout filled and resounded throughout the entranceway.
Dedue bowed his head.
He could not swallow it down one more time.
"D-Dimitri, there are... things... I wish to be able to do with you. I catch myself longing for the..." He paused, the blush thick on his cheeks. His eyes opened and he caught Dimitri staring into him, his gaze begging for him. His heart reciprocated it, thudding in his chest. "I...
"I long for the feeling of... your hair between my fingers. Your head against mine. Your... body, in my arms." He said it. Oh... He said it. His chest pinched with a horrible, self-destructive agony. "But I do not deserve you. And I do not deserve your kingdom."
Dimitri hovered but a moment in the pause of Dedue's words, then surged forward, a thunderstorm of red coating his cheeks. He grappled with one of his knight's armored hands and raised it to his head, allowing it to cup around his pale face.
Dedue's hand trembled with the warmth of it. He had never held another within his fingers before, and he... he ached with it, mouth agape, his breaths escaping him.
"This kingdom does not deserve you because you are too good for it." Dimitri's fingers knitted around his, and he added, whispering, "I do not deserve you because you are too good for me."
Dedue stared in shock at the king. "...That's not true."
An angry flush smothered Dimitri's cheeks. "You can't prove it."
"I..." Dedue paused. His mind had grown slow, unable to process what was happening before him. "I suppose... that I have been proven wrong."
A sudden, feisty smile flashed across his savior's face before his head pressed into him, drawing his knight close. The warmth overpowered Dedue, indescribable, wonderfully soothing. Dimitri's hands fell around his face, and the knight eased, his usually sharp eyes softening, gazing into the one he had convinced himself he was not allowed to love.
The only one he loved.
Then Dimitri's lips fell into his own, desirous and hungry, moaning for him.
They were soft.
He was right.
Dimitri fell back all too soon, sooner than what either of them longed for. He looked up and saw the imprint of a smile he had left upon the face of the man he loved, his own toying with his lips. "Dedue, that reminds me of what I asked you earlier."
His knight's silvery brows raised. "It does..?"
"Yes."
The king disappeared into one of the back rooms of his chambers, only to return shortly thereafter with a small plush box in his hands.
He fell to one knee and gazed up at the one who had saved him in a countless myriad of ways.
Dedue would not stop saving him until the day he died.
He knew it. As his heart trembled in his chest and he propped open the box, he asked softly,
"Dedue... will you protect me... and allow me to protect you... for the rest of our lives?"
There was only one answer.