/Written for Dedue Week | Day 3 Prompt: Friends/
"Does this mean we're friends now?"
The question makes Dedue pause as he stares down at the young prince, the bruises on the shorter boy's face still evident from his fight with an unfortunate guard who'd chosen to not to hide his disdain for Dedue as so many others in the kingdom do in front of the prince. In reply to Dimitri's inquiry, he is in all honesty tempted to outright say 'no'.
Instead... he glowers at him, unsure of how to react. He answers bluntly with the first thing that comes to mind.
"Why should this make us friends?" Immediately, Dimitri's expression falters.
"I... I am hoping to prove to you that... that no matter what people say about you, you have my loyalty." He stares at Dedue, eyes bright with determination. "I know you believe that we are different, but I swear to you that we are more alike than anyone else in this entire kingdom. The other people in Fhirdiad... I've tried to make them understand but no matter what I say, it's like... it's like they don't want to believe that Duscur is innocent." Dedue finds himself unsurprised. He cannot even muster a surprised expression if he wished to.
Dimitri's frustrations... perhaps he could empathize with them if he wished to, but... but he does not wish to do that either. To empathize with him would imply that he believed that Dimitri could change the minds of the cold-hearted people of this fortress city, and he truly does not. They are made of stone, he is convinced. Most of them, anyway.
Lowering his voice to a whisper, Dimitri continues. "I don't know how they could be so dismissive. They didn't see what we saw Dedue."
"You have not seen what I have either," he points out. He tries to keep his voice evenly-measured, but the reply comes out a bit more hotly than the teenaged boy intends, unable to control the emotion. "With all due respect, you cannot and will not ever be able to comprehend the full weight of what I have lost, your Highness. Stop saying that our situations are alike. Even your people do not think as you do, and perhaps you should accept the truth."
"The truth?"
"Maybe my people are not innocent. And... even if they are, it does not matter to anyone who has the power to exercise justice. As it stands, your Highness, your efforts will amount to nothing because your soldiers, your officers, you countrymen have already condemned Duscur. The truth is that what really happened on that day does not matter to anyone but you. No one cares about us." He does not mean to say the words that have laid so heavily on his heart for so long. No matter how much the prince tries to relate to him, tries to say they are the same, there are too many reminders... the opulent palace, the way he is treated, everything about his status comparative to the young royal... that they are not in any way the same. "We are different in principle. It is more than my people that suffered. It is my right to live with the benefit of the doubt that is gone. You cannot fathom what that means."
The prince stares at him for a long moment before clenching his fists.
"But I could. I could, if you would only tell me everything. And..." he pauses. "I want to understand. Truly, I do! What can I do to prove it to you?" At Dedue's silence, Dimitri murmurs to himself. "You have lived here a half-year in Fhirdiad and yet you still do not trust me with your thoughts."
"I will keep watch for the doctor." Dedue turns to leave, stopping at the door. "You should not do these things. It causes me difficulty." He does not mean to say the last part, anger flashing across Dimitri's face.
"Causes ou difficulty? Causes you difficulty how?" Dedue reaches for the handle silently. "Dedue, don't ignore me! I do not wish to command you, but if I must, I will. Tell me what you mean!" Dedue's fist clenches around the door knob.
"Have you ever thought that when you act out this, starting fights with anyone who speaks badly of Duscur that I am the one who receives the blame? Do you never hear the whispers that I am inciting you to violence, and it is the influence of my barbaric culture that causes you to act out in this way? If it were so, truly, then, we are monsters." Dedue forces himself to let the door handle go, turning towards Dimitri. "But you know the truth, how much it does not matter. In the end... people seek to blame Duscur for your behavior and they repay me, the only representative they have." Dimitri stares at him, wide-eyed.
"No, that can't be tr-I only wanted-" He sputters helplessly for a moment before his voice is lost, his mind reviewing events for evidence of Dedue's claims. When he speaks again, his voice is quiet. "I've noticed some days when you report for training... you sometimes have bruises, or seem to be in pain. Is that what you mean, then? Is someone... is someone 'repaying' you for things I have done?" Dedue just looks at Dimitri, his expression answering where his eyes do not. "Oh, how obtuse you must think me. I noticed but since you never said so I thought it was from training with... Dedue, if someone is harming you, just tell me who it is and I'll-"
Dedue shakes his head. "You have done enough, I think."
They stare at each other for a long moment before covering Dimitri drops his face into his hands, collapsing into the seat of his bed.
"Alright, alright. I... I am defeated." The prince has always been smaller than he is. Even so, Dedue has never seen the blond boy look as small as he does now, his knees pulled into his chest. For a moment, he is unsure of what he should say-or if he should say anything. It seems right to comfort him, because he was not trying to harm Dimitri... but really... Dedue only wishes to be left alone. He thinks of each day as a mountain he must climb, imagines the day, three years hence, in which he turns eighteen and can leave Fhirdiad and Faerghus both behind... and Dimitri's kindnesses are mere distractions from that goal of survival. To rely on his Highness, to put his hopes into his hands... Dedue is too afraid.
Can he really trust that such hopes will be safe in the hands of a foreigner when it was at the hands of men like him that everything he is was lost, crushed under the boots of soldiers? He does not know. He does not dare to wish to know.
Dedue speaks slowly. "You are trying your best. I know. But..."
"But I'm making everything worse, aren't I?" Dimitri looks up at him with eyes that are surprisingly moist. Dedue can only wonder. Is such a soft-hearted boy really in line to become the king? "I don't mean to, I swear it. But if I rescued you from death and you're still miserable..." He trails off unhappily. "I am sorry, Dedue. For everything." It is not the first time he has apologized to him, but it is the first time he has apologized specifically for saving his life.
There are many times in Fhirdiad that Dedue has questioned, even regretted his life being spared. There are many times where he has thought that if he could disappear or, as his head sunk into the stuffed feather pillows on his bed in the room he rested in in the palace of Fhirdiad, simply never awaken... he would be grateful for the rest.
Yet, at this time... he is not certain he feels the same way as he did before. At least, not so strongly. There are days-uncommon but present- where he looks forward to crossing axes in the training ground with the few soldiers who did not despise him on sight. And there is the fact that he more or less can envision a future-even if his plan is limited to being away from this haven of demons as soon as he is of age. Even if he places all of those things aside, the prince himself is... many things-kind to a fault, for one, monstrously strong for another-but a liar is not one.
It is true that that Dimitri had been unable to get... well, anyone of rank to believe his eyewitness account that men of Duscur are not who he saw take the lives of his father and his friends, but there has been other similarly persistent attempts to gain Dedue's trust. Dedue has asked for nothing, yet Dimitri would observe him and, in his own invasive way, carefully provide Dedue with everything that he himself thought he would like. Anything that Dimitri himself has access to, Dedue is given the same. The palace staff bristles, but as long as Dimitri was physically present, they do not defy him directly.
Subtler ways of defying the prince's acceptance of his existence had been found, true, but... Dedue can admit that it is of no fault of the prince.
"I accept your apology," Dedue says finally. "But what is done is done and we both... we both have to live with the consequences." He hesitates, stepping away from the door and towards Dimitri's bed as Dimitri looks up to meet his eyes. "When you say you want to be friends, what do you mean, exactly?" The answer comes quickly.
"I want to be equals." But Dedue is already shaking his head.
"Impossible. You are a prince and I am..." a crumb. He thinks. A relic. A refugee. "...a boy of Duscur. Fhirdiad would never except me as its own." And, he thinks privately, defiantly, and I do not wish to be accepted by such either.
Dimitri bounds to his feet.
"Then... then I will change Fhirdiad! It will become a place where men of Duscur and men of Faerghus can be equals, where our soil is as one, and Fhirdiad will be proud to boast of Duscur blood!" He clenches his fist, the bruised knuckles littered with purple. "I swear it to you, Dedue. It will happen." The words are so idealistic, so foolish, so... so...
As much as it displeases him, Dedue can feel it in the pit of his stomach, a bird with once broken wings stretching out its feathers. He does not wish to give it a name as it branches from lung to lung before it perches in his chest. He wants to believe it, so, so badly, that this boy is someone in whom he can hope and trust. He opens his mouth and lets it fly.
"My father once said..." At mention of Dedue's family, Dimitri's eyes flit towards him quickly, wide with blue surprise. "People of Duscur should protect the weak in their care. But your Highness... now we are the weak ones. We are the ones who must be cared for. If you could keep that promise, then perhaps..." he doesn't finish his sentence, Dimitri's eyes already glittering.
"We could be friends, then." He says it somewhere between a question and a statement but either way, Dedue makes no effort to respond as the doctor enters, forwarding a standard frown of displeasure toward him before approaching the prince.
He thinks his reply instead as he backs away.
Yes, Dimitri. In such a world, I would be glad to call you friend.
It is a shame, then, that he cannot imagine such a world as they are now. But... such is the thing about hope. It never needs a seed to grow.
"Will I ever finish writing Recovery?" I murmur to myself as I again write another story from that time period without updating that particular story-
Sorry about that to you guys who are waiting on Recovery.
Did you like this short? What did you like about it, if so? I'd love to hear your thoughts! And out of curiosity if you read my other works, which do you prefer? My romantic stories about Dedue or my non-romantic ones?