What If #3: What if Dedue was a Royal Navy Admiral trying to capture Byleth, his rival and terror of the seas?
Some call him obsessed. It is not a term he prefers, nor one he acknowledges.
In his own words, he is driven. Goal-oriented, if one willed it so. He has fought through the ranks since he was a fatherless boy, earning the title that buoys him with responsibility. Admiral of the Fleet. The figurehead of the royal navy, protector of his nation's waters. He is a man who relishes in putting things in their proper place and ensuring that wherever he is, structure is sure to follow.
For Dedue Molinaro, order is the backbone of the principles of life he lives by.
Death... chaos... there are few things that can stand against such forces, but it does not stop him from trying. If mere humans can be agents of such forces that destroy the order of his world, then there is no reason that there cannot too exist those who oppose them, acting as a force of their own to try to bring that chaos under control.
A force that preserves life rather than snuffs it out.
A force that brings order to madness.
A force... like himself, hunting down the pirates the sail the seas around the lands that have been placed in his care. It is his calling, one he knows as certainly as he knows the Duscur blood running through his veins.
The Admiral sits in the archway of his windowsill, looking through his spyglass for the ship that haunts him night and day.
The Crest of Flames, they call it. Brilliant red, white and green sails on a massive beast of a pirate's vessel, the telltale colors the signal of doom for a lesser ship. But Dedue Molinaro does not run a lesser ship.
His own ship's sails flapping by the distant docks at the end of another day, he lowers his hand and grimaces.
"One day..."
He mutters the words but in reality, he has never been able to find the Captain of the Crest of Flames whenever he seeks her out. Instead, it is always she who finds him. The idea that Dedue Molinaro could be mouse to someone's cat is displeasing beyond belief, but it is a truth he cannot deny. Hair the color of the night sea, eyes just as strikingly deep, and with an expression as cold-some might even say as refreshing-as ice, she is as illusive as the mists of the sea. Oh, he has captured her before-shackled her with his own hands, even-but in the same evening just as surely as the cell door will shut for the night, it will be empty once again.
She is an agent of chaos, taunting him.
Frustrating him.
Intriguing him, if he is honest.
The Admiral shuts his looking glass with a decisive snap, then pulls back the sheets to slip between them. Tonight is not a night for honesty.
...Only to awaken, not even hours later, facing the double barrel of a gun. He hears the click and reaches for his own weapon, touching nothing as his fingertips light on the dresser drawer. Until he realizes, focusing on the engraving of his initials on the side-it is his own weapon in her hands. He stays calm and waits for her to speak, his chest rising with steady, shallow breath.
She speaks, voice low and light, as if death does not lie in her fingertips.
"Good evening, Admiral. You'll have to please excuse the intrusion, but... I believe you have something of mine." He lifts an eyebrow, narrowly resisting lifting his nose towards the ceiling in contempt as if the nose of the cool metal is not what is pushing his neck upwards.
An agent of disorder having the nerve to say 'please'...
A woman of such contrast. Such... such chaos. He loves it, if only because he hates it.
He stares at her, his pale green eyes boring into hers as he grimaces with deep displeasure.
"And you have something of the Sreng East Traders, as well as of Western Adrestian Spice Bureau. Not to mention what you've pillaged of the Duscur Bay Company." He brings his lips into something of a smile, something of a grimace. "You've been busy." Slapping the barrel away with the back of forceful hand, Dedue lunges forward, but even as the gun skitters away, she is already prepared, back-stepping with quick feet across the room. He pushes himself into a roll across the bed, tumbling towards the floor to take hold of the rapier he's mounted on the wall.
The weapon is for show rather than battle, but it will have to do. By the time he detaches it, she is already wielding her cutlass from her vantage point in his windowsill.
Dedue is out-armed-but he refuses to let her get away.
Not again.
He strikes downward with his blade, testing her. With a ready upswing, the Pirate Captain slides her blade against his, using the momentum to push the thin sword aside. She's close now, their sword hilts clacking together unsteadily. She is not as strong as Dedue-but her blade certainly is the mightier of the pair.
It's an advantage that she needs, and one that she uses.
She leans back her neck, fully intending to ram her head into his but he tilts his own head back in the same motion of her forward strike, the momentum pushing her unsteadily into him. He narrowly avoids slicing into her, his rapier clattering to the ground as he catches her by the waist instead, his rough hands gentle against her back as though they are partners gathered and gliding across a ballroom and not in his bedroom, caught up in a dance of life and death.
For some reason, the Admiral freezes as he looks down into the eyes of the woman he has wanted to capture for an age. Her expression is mesmerizing: slender lips pressed together, brows tilted down with grim determination and eyes-not to mention those large, deep eyes glimmering up at him, pupils dilated and drawing him in.
For some reason, in this moment, the desire to capture her has never quite been stronger-but perhaps in a way has nothing to do with prison and chains and everything with binding her to him in a way that cannot be merely chalked up to order defeating chaos.
Every inch of his skin struggles to memorize her the sensation of her frame pressed against him. Dedue is loathe to admit it, but he can even feel himself becoming steadily more conscious of the soft skin of her chest, even compressed in her pirate's robes as it is, the ruffled fabric lining her torso and ribbed with leather-he even finds himself aware of the blade she conceals that he is certain will cut into his flesh with no hesitation if he is not vigilant.
And, of course, speaking of viligance-Byleth swings her fist but he does not duck, nor does he make to flinch.
He does not know why, but he is testing her.
And she? She... touches her fist against his chin in a way that he would consider playful if not for the fact that she eyes him with the same crisp coldness that he finds so enticing. He hates being toyed with, hates the imagery that accompanies every close call as she dances away from him in flashes of silver, yet... as he feels her knuckles brush against his chin, then lower still, her hand gliding down his neck towards his chest, he cannot move. He does not wish to move an inch, his sword clattering out of his grasp in an early, unintentional surrender-
Until he hears the sound of shredding.
He glances down, only to see that Byleth has shorn his this chemise in two, almost, the bottom of the white blouse clinging sadly together by the might of Sothis alone.
Incensed and broken from her spell, Dedue roughly shoves her away, swiping his sword from the ground. Clearing his throat, he notes her blade lying against the floorboards and straightens, pointing his own towards the ground as well.
"Ready your sword."
She ignores his instructions at first, looking at him coolly with a hand on her hip, the posture relaxed with jaunty arrogance.
"I didn't come to fight, Admiral. I just came to claim what's mine." With a thin slicing motion of metal through air, he readies himself, taking a deep breath and bending his knees as he wields the blade.
"You came to be put in a prison cell, to repay the debts you owe and receive justice for your crimes." Byleth can see the seriousness in his eyes. He will not give her a chance to reclaim her sword a second time. The pirate captain reaches for his hat stand and swipes its only user, her head tilted down so he cannot see her face beyond her lips. The rest of her features obscured by a feathered tricorn hat, a Duscur rose tucked into the brim-his tricorn hat, the thieving wench-the corner of her lips quirk up into a smile.
A smile, he thinks, worth punishing.
"Justice? Ha." She says the word like a joke. Perhaps she thinks it is one. "If only those merchants you protect were as principled as you." And then Byleth swipes her sword from the ground in a single fluid motion and advances again.
He cannot pin her down. She fights with the fury of a stormy sea, her boots lithely dancing up his chair and onto his study table. He swipes horizontally, but she easily steps over the swing from her higher ground, pointing the end of the cutlass towards his neck as if to declare him finished. He refuses to surrender-Dedue Molinaro is only finished on his terms, and no one else's. He swipes again, and this time, Byleth lifts a booted foot to pin the flat blade against the table. He looks up at her quickly, but the motion is not quick enough as Byleth lifts her free foot and stomps it against his chest.
He stumbles backwards, and when she tackles her whole body force into his, he loses both his balance and his grip on his sword. Her own clattering against the ground, they land against the bed. With her knees pinned against his upper arms, he is completely at her mercy.
If only because he wishes to be.
She leans forward, her dark hair a curtain above him, the hat forgotten in her lunge and he... he is frozen in time, pinned in place by her piercing gaze.
Dedue has never been so close to the captain, yet, that is not to say he has not imagined this moment before. In his thoughts, he always thought that he would be able to see it in all its corporeal beauty-the swirling darkness of anarchy that he is certain lies within. He's been so sure that such a sight would solidify his resolve to resist untoward, indecent considerations towards this agent of mayhem, but instead...
Instead, he finds her eyes to be the deep, calming blue of the water he so loves. An untameable flow of waves that he dare not touch for fear of sinking in its depths. He is a man who knows the sea, but in this moment, he is wholly drowning in her sight.
All at once, Dedue Molinaro, Admiral of the Royal Navy of Duscur understands. Chaos cannot truly ever be tamed by order. How could it be considering its very nature? It is born to defy order, born to defy him and its existence is as natural as hers. She must exist in this world to create madness as surely as he must exist to tame it. She is... his... compliment.
And he needs her.
He wants to reject this truth, but as she strokes his face with fingers that have no reason to be this gentle, he finds his resolve unravelling like wisps of smoke from a blown out candle. Fading into nothing.
"Why have you come?" His voice is deep, still rigid with resolve. But he can hear it, tangled in his voice. The raspy sound of the things he is wishing for in this moment nesting in his throat. Byleth's skin is so close. So, so close, and yet not close enough.
She does not answer. Instead, she leans downward in a motion that is painfully slow, her nose grazing across his cheek. Her lips stroke across the skin of his brow tenderly. He freezes in place. Her actions are so soothing, so calm, so tender and yet...
And yet they fill him with chaos.
Her lips light on his right ear, and shortly after, Dedue hears the quiet sound of her teeth clinking gently against the fan-shaped earring that rests there. He feels her slide it against his earlobe and unhook it from his ear, but in that moment, he does not care.
Even as she steals it from him, he does not care.
"Byleth." There is desperation in his voice as she brings her gaze back to his. Her eyes are so, so cold and yet he is melting into his own bed, too warm heat building uncomfortably against his back. He clings to this discomfort, if only because if he does not, he will consider that her body feels good weighed against him and how if they were to stay like this until the dawn, he would consider it a night very well spent. His shirt is still opened partially, and he can feel the fabric of her britches against his bare chest, a mere layer separating fabric from skin. "What is it that you want from me?" He hisses the words but to his exasperation, there is no anger behind them. He is merely unable to muster the feelings, and he hopes desperately that she does not detect what he does in his own voice. She strokes the side of his face again, this time her fingers edging against the fullness of his mouth.
"I told you already, didn't I?" Byleth slips her knees from his upper arms to shuffled downward, freeing his arms from the weight of her knees. Now, with his arms free, he could push her away if he wanted to-but then, he has dragged heavier, angrier men into prison cells, men who fought him tooth and nail with more resistance and without the bars of slighter bone and skin holding him down, he is forced to admit the truth.
He merely does not want to.
Dedue's arms do not move, limply resting against the soft sheets of his bed as he stares up at her, heart thrumming steadily in his chest.
She leans forward until their foreheads touch, the confidence in her voice a stark contrast to the wavering resolve in his chest. "I am here to claim what is mine." He pauses in confusion.
What could he possibly possess that she has ownership of?
And more than that...
He thinks her taking her time to carefully pull on his hat as he waited for her to reclaim her blade from his bedroom floor.
What could he possibly possess that she would be willing to lay down her sword for?
He looks at her quizzically, eyes narrowed, but to his surprise, she does not return the gaze, instead trailing her hand down the pale fabric coating his arm to take his hand. She pulls it upwards, kissing each finger with a delicate touch that should be-that feels-criminal. Then, she presses his hand reverently against her hair, filling his hand with her cheek. He is not unwise enough to wonder any longer as she looks at him piercingly, pointedly with hooded, defiant eyes, and he is left with no doubt as to what treasure she has come to claim.
Is he hers? And in what way, exactly?
Does she think him as one to be possessed? Or...
Does she think him as one to be treasured?
The question sits on his lips as though he does not know the answer as he looks into her eyes.
Dedue always imagined chaos and order as flowers in separate gardens. Order is the greenhouse rose, like the ones he tends to on the rare times that he is home and not on the seas, capturing its foam and filth and executing justice with swipes of his sword. Order is roses tended to in careful rows, nurtured and coaxed into growing strong and blossoming at their full potential.
But chaos... it is more like the wild rose of the meadow. It needs no caretaker to tend to it, blooming with full defiance in spaces where it did not matter if it is wanted or not. With a gardener's touch, Dedue strokes the fingers of his captured hand against her cheek.
And then, because it is his nature, his desire for control, he shifts his weight so that his rose is beneath him, staring up at him with thorns in her gaze.
What a wild rose you are. He thinks the words but does not say them. Instead, when he speaks, his voice is stern with authority and none of the tenderness that threatens to utterly consume him. "What makes you think I am yours?"
Her lips tilt upwards into a smile, a wicked untameable confidence in the petals of her eyes. "Was there ever a question?"
No, he thinks. Because she is right-on her appearance, he did not call for his men for one sole reason: she is his to capture and his alone.
She makes no move to push him off-and it is only now, as he stares down at her, that he notes a golden glint in her ear. He vaguely remembers the sensation of the metal hook sliding from his earlobe. Is that what she did with his earrings? Or one of them, rather. He can feel its pair tap against his face as he reaches for the pilfered accessory looped securely in her ear.
Byleth turns her face to press it against his bedding, concealing it from his reach. Even when she is not in power, she is.
But... such is the nature of chaos, he thinks. Always possessing the upper hand, threatening the teetering balance.
Perhaps that is why he is caught up so.
He looms above her, his hands trailing chastely down the outside of her blouse. He cannot bring himself to do much more, and when she lifts her chin to reveal the pale skin of her neck, he touches the flesh reverently. Who knew that such feelings lurked in side of him? How did she?
He wonders if she longs for order as he longs for her.
Does she wish for a formal union, layers of draped white cloth and neatly cut fabric and unadorned promises exchanged before the sea? Of dances and vows made in front of family with pomp and ceremony and formality? She reaches up, brushing her hand along his cheek, and he actually shivers above her. He imagines they are wed for a moment by Duscur tradition. He imagines they are lovers by any tradition.
But as she looks up at him with the same heavy eyes he has fought to capture again and again, he cannot help but think that perhaps they already are.
Perhaps they are and all this time, he was just unaware.
The hour is late, and the wind skirts his curtains, his full sleeves billowing like gentle sails to brush against her face. He cradles it gently and as she shuts her eyes, he leans his face down towards her.
He has lost this battle.
They kiss, his lips gently stroking against hers as waves lapping against the sand. She tastes of salt-of course, he thinks, because she is the sea-and he indulges in her kiss as though she will disappear if he does not, angling his head to map out every uncharted touch of her tongue.
He is a cartographer and he wishes to know every inch, every isle, of the woman beneath him.
Something presses against him, too hard, too firm to be flesh.
He remembers then her concealed dagger-but before he can consider if he should worry, she casts it aside, the weight of the blade's handle clattering noisily against the table and knocking a vase to the ground. The shattering glass echoes loudly in the room, and right away-
He sucks in a breath at the sound of heavy footsteps ascending the staircase and remembers where he is. If the guards come, he will have no choice but to do his duty, to restrain the chaos once again and place her in the chains that she will inevitably escape from.
She knows.
Her knees jut sharply upwards, and Dedue barely manages to rolls to the side, narrowly evading sharp motion. What he does not avoid is the left hook of her elbow, the hit furthering his momentum. He loses his balance and falls off the bed, solidly, painfully hitting the ground. Scrambling to his feet and cursing his swayed heart, Dedue looks towards his keeper. He hates to think the word, but it feels true-because he has never tamed her for even a moment, and as he stares at the billowing curtains in the empty room, it is not hard to see who truly is in chains.
He licks his lips and grimaces at the taste of blood. All too easily he finds her taste is erased, the memory more a dream-like all too soon.
No matter, Dedue thinks as the doors behind him burst open. He will simply wait to be captured again.
Patience, he can say, he possesses with a certainty.
"Admiral! Are you alright?" He turns towards his men and thinks on the ripped chemise of his nightwear, the single, missing earring and his altogether disheveled appearance. In comparison to the neat way he painstakingly grooms himself each day, he can't help but think that he must look a sight.
The admiral nods grimly. "Don't worry. I just had an... unexpected visitor."
There is an exchange of looks as they glance around at the room, noting the knocked over books and furniture in disarray. "Why did you not call for help, sire?"
He smiles thinly. "No need. It was a bird. Flew in and left as quickly as it came but... I'm afraid I failed to capture it." He looks to the sea for the sails that carry his agent of chaos, a woman of forces that he is destined to combat again and again. "Next time I will."
"Sire?" Dedue looks back towards his men.
"Leave me." They obey dutifully, Dedue left alone as he stares into the darkness of the sea. As surely as the sun will rise, he will cross blades with her again. Be defeated by her again. Taste her again.
To think otherwise would be to turn his back on his destiny, to bring order to chaos.
To think otherwise would make him less than obsessed... but that is not a word he prefers.
So first, I wrote this story to say thank you very much for a hundred followers on Twitter! I hope you guys reading from there enjoy this reward!
With this story, this AU series is concluded. It... it wasn't supposed to be only Bydue since I planned one where Seteth and Flayn had a role reversal with her being Seteth's mother... but... well.
I know I don't get much response on FFN so I'm not sure if anyone will really read this but... I'm getting to the end of my posting for this fandom. To everyone who read and especially thank you to those who commented, thanks for your interest in my stories. I'll be completing and posting all of my drafts through January so please keep an eye out for those!