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“You’re being promoted.”
Sylvain looks down at Claude in his command chair. His eyes are fixed on the screen as it plays over simulations of their last battle, flashes of blue and red light imitating hundreds of thousands of warships. Sylvain vividly remembers the formations on the screen: one familiar from his upbringing, the other a suggestion to counter it that he had made in the midst of the fight.
“Yeah?” he asks, allowing the corners of his mouth to turn upward in a smile. “Sounds like it’s my lucky day. I didn’t even have to die for it.”
“Knock on wood,” Claude says. “We’re not home yet.”
Silence stretches out between them. Claude turns off the simulation. He gestures for Sylvain to sit, too, at the nearest unoccupied console. Sylvain does, wondering what he could possibly have to say.
“I want you with me on the next sortie,” he says, looking Sylvain directly in the eye. And steepling his fingers Sylvain can’t help but squirm under that searching gaze. “Things could get rough, and I have a feeling it’ll end up being a boarding mission.”
Sylvain laughs. “And here I thought the Rosen Ritter could finally kick back and relax,” he jokes. Claude awards him a tentative, if pitying, smile.
“If only all of us could,” he says. “But I’ve got direct orders from Heinessen. Our next battle is going to be against some of the empire’s best.” He fixes Sylvain with a sharp look. “Does the name Areadbhar mean anything to you?”
Sylvain’s stomach plummets. He swallows thickly, answer enough for Claude.
Claude hums. “I thought as much.”
“Admiral?”
"You can sit this one out if you want," he offers. "I know it must be difficult, even after all these years…"
Sylvain holds up a hand to cut him off – an unthinkable gesture for most, to silence their commanding officer, but Claude has always been a little unusual, so he allows it.
"There’s no need," Sylvain says. "I know my place. I've been nothing but loyal to the alliance government since I came here, haven't I?"
Claude smiles. "You have. To the government, anyway." He laughs. "And to my fleet. I know I can trust you." There's something in the way he says it that makes Sylvain thinks there's more to that statement than Claude is letting on, but he says nothing.
“It’s been a few years since you left the empire,” Claude continues. His eyes are back on the screen, somewhere far away. “And you’ve done a lot of good work for the alliance. But people still don’t trust the Rosen Ritter – you know, given the last few re-defections and all. Plus your reputation with women…”
Sylvain nods. Internally, he grimaces. “I know.”
“And I know you won’t let me down.” Claude smiles at him. “Especially not after I put in a good word for you. You're welcome, by the way, Rear Admiral Gautier.”
Sylvain nods. He doesn’t know if the new rank suits him, but he doesn’t plan on letting his admiral down now, not after all the favours he’s pulled. Claude is an effective negotiator, if nothing else.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t mention it.” Claude grins. “Now go get some rest. I’ll let you know when we’re set to talk strategy. In the meantime, try not to get into too much trouble, okay?”
That, at least, gets Sylvain to laugh, even despite the snakes twisting in the pit of his stomach. “You know me, Admiral Riegan,” he says, standing up and offering his commander a sharp salute. “I never get into more trouble than I can handle.”
Sylvain is in trouble.
He drags himself over to the bed in his quarters and collapses, barely making it there before he lays himself flat on it, face buried in the sheets as he lets out the most haggard sigh of his life.
Areadbhar, Claude had said. Why did it have to be Areadbhar?
He rolls over on the uncomfortable bed – it’ll be more comfortable soon enough, he thinks; he’s to be promoted, after all – and stares up at the ceiling. The phantom image of Admiral Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd’s flagship forms against the smooth, industrial white paint above him, every line of it burned into the surface of Sylvain’s memory. He traces those lines in his mind’s eye, fancying he can identify the exact location of everything: the bridge, the officers’ quarters, Admiral Blaiddyd’s cabin. He remembers the last time he was there, watching as Dimitri paced the room and tried to gather his thoughts.
“You should defect,” Dimitri had said, after a moment of uncomfortable silence. He hadn’t even turned to look at Sylvian; he’d just kept pacing, eyes darting around the room and focusing anywhere but him while Sylvain tapped his foot incessantly.
His insides had turned to ice at those words, the pit of his stomach storming like the worst blizzards of Kapche-lanka; and then, paradoxically, Sylvain recalls the sensation of his blood heating up as it rocketed through his veins. He had stood up then, a nuclear explosion of fear and adrenaline and confusion forcing him from his seat. Why did Dimitri want him gone? Had he not been a faithful enough officer? Had he not been a good enough friend?
“Why?!” Sylvain demanded, his hands curling into fists and his jaw clenching so tightly his teeth began to hurt. He stepped forward, ready to storm over to Dimitri, to take the collar of his uniform in one hand and twist it ‘til it tore, but he stopped himself before he could. Assaulting a superior officer was grounds for a court-martial, at the very least.
But even that would have been better than what happened next.
Dimitri paused his pacing, then, and looked down at the floor. He was off to the left of Sylvain, facing the wall, his blue eyes narrowed as he fought to gather his thoughts.
“It’s because of your father,” Dimitri told him. “He plans to marry you off, I hear.” He paused to let his words sink in. Sylvain pursed his lips and looked away, because Dimitri hadn’t been wrong – because that wass what nobles did in the empire: they used their sons and daughters like bargaining chips, selling to the highest bidder so they could get something even better in return.
Dimitri continued: “And I know you aren’t—” He swallowed thickly. “That you don’t want—”
“I don’t want,” Sylvain had agreed, bitterness in his voice. He didn’t know where to direct his anger: at his father for treating him like a pawn, or at Dimitri for casting him away. “But I have to.”
“I know.”
“It won’t interfere with my work, though,” Sylvain had said, bargaining himself, though he knew that marriage would mean having to manage his family’s estate rather than sail the sea of stars at Dimitri’s side and wage war on his liege’s behalf. “I may not be able to be your bodyguard anymore, or work my way up to commanding fleets for you, but I can still—”
“Captain Gautier,” Dimitri said, cutting Sylvain off as coldly as if he’d struck him with a frozen lance. “It has nothing to do with your place in the fleet. It has everything to do with…” He bit his tongue, clenched his fist. “I don’t want you to sell yourself for your family’s sake. You do not deserve the life of misery they are trying to consign you to.”
“But—”
“Defect,” Dimitri said again. He turned to face Sylvain and stepped forward, taking one of Sylvain’s hands in both of his. They were strong and powerful, as they always were – but they trembled, too. Was that with restraint, Sylvain had wondered then, or with emotion?
“Defect,” Dimitri repeated, desperately this time, squeezing Sylvain’s hand tighter. “Escape to Phezzan, or – or to the Free Planets Alliance. I don’t care where. As long as you can start a new life, be safe, be happy—”
There’s no such thing as happiness away from your side, Sylvain had thought. But, it seemed, there was no such thing as happiness for Dimitri so long as he was here.
And that, more than anything, steeled his resolve. If Dimitri didn’t need him – if Dimitri didn’t even want him – then there was nothing keeping him here at all.
“Okay,” Sylvain had said, whispering the word.
Dimitri had kissed him, then, surging forward and capturing Sylvain’s lips with his own. Not a single word more was exchanged between them that night: no plans, no discussions, no goodbyes. All that needed to be said was spoken in the language of their bodies, moving together as one, slow and slippery and hot: Dimitri atop Sylvain, Sylvain inside Dimitri, gasping in pleasure and begging, silently, for his prince, his admiral, his friend not to let him go.
He touches himself to that memory now, hand moving almost of its own accord. Sylvain bites his lip and tells himself to stop, because there’s no point thinking about the past when he has so much of his future still ahead of him – his bright and empty future – but keeps going anyway. He jerks himself off quickly, almost furiously, letting the fog of arousal overtake the sorrow attached to his memories.
Sylvain tries to remember Dimitri’s moans, the way his mouth had felt as it had wrapped around his cock. His hand is a poor substitute for that, but it does the job when he spits into it. What he comes to, though, is not the memory of that mouth, or of the scalding heat of Dimitri taking him over his desk – no: he comes to the memory of Dimitri's teeth sinking into his neck, a spot Sylvain had pressed two fingers to every night aboard the shuttle that carried him to his new home, and again for weeks and months and years after, long after the bruise had faded.
His hand drops from his neck. Sylvain uncurls his fingers from his cock and stares at the mess on his hand, sticky and white and shameful.
“He’s going to kill me,” Sylvain says, and that is what finally gets him to smile.
Claude calls his staff to the Failnaught’s bridge a few days later. Orders have come in from the capital and their scouting ships have returned, bringing news of two fleets approaching the corridor. It’s a clear enough sign as any that invasion into Alliance territory is imminent, and the officers gathered all shift nervously as Claude delivers the news. Vice Admiral Gloucester’s thin brows knit above his eyes, his sleek nose wrinkling; Rear Admiral Goneril examines her nails; Captain Pinelli’s jaw tenses and her fists clench at her sides. Only Sylvain remains impassive, but only superficially: on the inside, he is a snowstorm of emotion, ice roiling in his belly and blood freezing in his veins.
“It’s going to be tough,” Claude says, folding his hands behind his head as he leans back in his command chair. The screen in front of them all flashes as a simulation plays; they all turn their eyes toward it as Claude inclines his head toward the Alliance forces. “Our scouts say that the Blaiddyd Fleet and the Fraldarius Fleet are leading the charge. We were pretty sure the Areadbhar was coming, but having the Aegis around too is going to cause problems for us. Admirals Fraldarius and Blaiddyd work notoriously well together.”
“Spear and Shield,” Leonie says. She glances at Sylvain, a smirk curling over her lips. She’s not a member of the Rosen Ritter, but she’s a capable enough ground combatant on her own; Sylvain hadn’t expected to see her here, but he can guess that she was summoned here for similar reasons to him.
Lorenz’s glance at Sylvain, however, is far more shrewd. “They are friends of yours, are they not?”
He doesn’t like his tone, or the use of the present tense, but Sylvain keeps a straight face. “Old friends, yeah,” Sylvain says. He looks directly at Claude. “Emphasis on the old. That’s all over and done with now.”
“Of course,” Claude says, giving Sylvain a sympathetic – if calculating – smile. He turns to Lorenz. “There’s nothing to worry about, Vice Admiral. I trust Commodore Gautier and the Rosen Ritter with my life.”
A bold-faced lie if Sylvain ever heard one. Claude doesn’t trust anyone, let alone with his life. He’s no doubt got about a hundred contingencies planned in case something goes wrong. Lorenz, however, seems appeased, if not impressed.
“Sooo,” Hilda says, looking up from her nails at last. “Is that why Sylvain’s here?” She always was too casual for her own good; Sylvain appreciates that about her now, if only because it makes him feel a little less alone. “You’re going to get him to board the Areadbhar and…?”
Hilda lifts her hand and draws two pinched fingers across her throat. Sylvain can’t stop himself from recoiling at that, but luckily, he’s not the only one who does.
“Pretty much, yeah,” Claude says, nodding in her direction. “I’m sending the Rosen Ritter to the Areadbhar and Captain Pinelli’s regiment to the Aegis. I hear you and Admiral Fraldarius have history, Captain.”
“We do,” Leonie says.
“They are not the only ones.”
Sylvain turns his eyes to Lorenz. He murmured the words under his breath, just barely loud enough for him to hear, but there’s no doubt at all that he meant them. Claude glances at him too, but continues on.
“In any case,” he says, “the fastest way to end this would be to make the empire’s forces surrender. If we can avoid killing Fraldarius and Blaiddyd, all the better.” He turns to Sylvain. “Any thoughts on how?”
Sylvain frowns. He’s not sure why Claude is asking him when he’s no doubt already figured out the best way to go about this – targeting Felix first – but he doesn’t feel like bringing that up. Instead, he obediently answers, “The Fraldarius Fleet is more likely to be the vanguard. They’re fast, so we’ll probably have to be cautious.” He frowned. “But Fe – Admiral Fraldarius – is proud. It’d be best to engage him first and tear right through his formation, forcing the Blaiddyd Fleet to his aid.”
Claude nods in approval. “I was thinking the same thing,” he says. “So, now that that’s settled, here’s the plan…”
He leans forward and presses a few buttons on the console, bringing up another simulation. Sylvain turns his gaze toward it without really paying attention. His mind is light-years away, dread pooling in his gut as he recalls Lorenz’s suspicious gaze. He wants, so badly, to be angry about it.
But deep down, he wonders if Lorenz is right to question him. If Claude is right to question him – to try and force his hand. Because as much as he would like to pledge his loyalty to the Alliance, Sylvain does not know if he can go through with this.
Once a traitor, always a traitor, he thinks to himself as he re-focuses on the screen. Looks like my cheating’s finally gonna catch up to me.
He smiles.
The operation goes off without a hitch. Sylvain gets a report from Captain Pinelli’s messenger when they’ve boarded the Aegis, which signals Sylvain’s turn to join the fray. He wonders how Felix is taking it – if he’s fighting back on his own despite his position. His pride won’t let him depend on others, after all, and—
The Rosen Ritter’s boarding craft penetrates Areadbhar’s hull with ease, their acid spray and piercing drills loud and grating terribly in Sylvain’s ears and dragging him out of his thoughts. He grits his teeth as he and his team are given the clear to exit, and he calls behind his shoulder to his men to get ready. He tells them to take prisoners where they can, but not at the cost of their own lives. If he has to be loyal to someone, he figures it should be to the people that had chosen to follow him.
“Right, then,” he says, turning to the troops gathered before him. He grips his axe tightly in both hands and tries to grin. “You know what the plan is. Don’t die out there. It’d be pretty embarrassing for them to take our corpses back to a nation we defected from, right?”
That earns him a round of laughter, but it’s quickly drowned out by the sound of alarms and heavy footfalls coming their way. Sylvain turns toward the oncoming assault, swings his axe up before him, and leads the Rosen Ritters’ charge.
A sea of blood follows in their wake. It’s easy to get back into the rhythm of fighting, Sylvain thinks. It’s all instinct, instilled in him from years of training on both sides of the war. There’s no such thing as a good, clean fight, no matter what the propaganda on either side has said. There’s none of the empire’s honour in lodging an axe in a man’s skull through his helmet, and there’s none of the alliance's pretense of superiority when a serrated knife severs a limb. They’re all barbarians now, every last one of them, and that suits Sylvain just fine. It makes him feel more at home than he has in years, because here, there is no difference between him and the people around him except for the insignias on their armour.
And that – that makes him mad. It fills him with anger, with sadness, with despair, with rage: rage at the alliance for carrying out this operation; rage at Claude for asking him to lead it, knowing he wouldn’t say no because his old friends’ lives hang in the balance; rage at himself for being here, for letting things get this far, for killing people who have no business being killed other than being born into times of war; and most of all, rage at Dimitri, who cast him aside like nothing, and whom he still does not want to see hurt.
He fights his way to the bridge anyway, bodies dropping at his feet almost as fast as he can swing his axe. When he finally arrives, a sea of stars is the first thing to greet him, its light pouring from the massive screens spanning every wall. He can see battle formations out of the corner of his eye, but doesn’t look to see which side is currently winning the fight. He’s got his orders and his target, and he needs to—
But Dimitri isn’t here.
He’s nowhere to be seen. Sylvain clicks his tongue and turns on his heel to leave, furious that this is going to drag on even longer than it has to – that he can’t just end his suffering here.
He shouts commands to his soldiers to fight to occupy the bridge. If they can get control of the Areadbhar, the fight will end much sooner. Even the imperial forces aren’t cruel and heartless enough to fire on one of their own – and even if they were, they wouldn’t dare to sink the ship of a commander as valuable in status and military renown as High Admiral Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd.
“But what about you, sir?” one of his men – Ubert, Sylvain thinks – asks as Sylvain turns on his heel to leave.
“I’m going to find the admiral,” Sylvain says. “And put an end to this once and for all.”
He runs through the halls of the Areadbhar alone, tracking blood on the floors with every step. Some of it comes from the soles of his armoured boots, some of it from the blade of his axe, still drenched and dripping, and some of it comes from the puddles of it he leaves behind as he cuts down whatever unfortunate soul happens to try and get in his way.
It’s strange how little anything has changed in the five years since he’d defected. Every path leads to the same place it did back then. Every wall has the same garish detailing. The paint is fresh in some places, maybe, but Sylvain hardly has time to stop and check. He has even less time to think about the times he and Dimitri walked down these very same corridors together to his cabin, laughing and telling stories of times long past, when they were kids and Sylvain tried to flirt with Ingrid’s ancient grandmother – because there, all of a sudden, Sylvain sees him: black uniform, silver trim, pale blond hair – long, longer than it used to be – and a royal blue cape slung across his shoulders.
Dimitri.
“So you’ve come to kill me at last,” he says.
He’s facing away from Sylvain when he speaks, but there can be no mistaking that voice, that candor. This is Dimitri – his Dimitri – the man who sent him away all those many years ago, who threw him into the great cold storm of the unknown without a care in the world for what happened to him.
“I have.”
Sylvain’s hands tremble on his axe. He tightens his grip on it to stop them.
“...I see.”
Dimitri turns, halfway, gazing at Sylvain out of the corner of his eye. Sylvain sees no fear in that gaze – not that he had expected to – but he does not see any of the anger that should be there, either.
All he sees is sadness.
“Then will you at least permit me to die in my room?” Dimitri asks, his voice solemn.
Sylvain grimaces. He shouldn’t. He knows he shouldn’t. He’d thought he’d steeled himself against this, that he’d solidified his resolve long before he ever stepped foot aboard this ship again – but in the face of the person he’d loved most in this universe, all that crumbles before him.
“Yeah,” Sylvain says, swallowing thickly. “Yeah, I can do that.”
Dimitri’s cabin is the same as ever. The walls are the same blue, the sheets the same white, and there’s still that wolf pelt blanket draped over the back of a chair in the corner of the room. A wave of nostalgia washes over Sylvain.
And with it, a sense of despair.
He is going to kill Dimitri. He’s going to kill him here, in this room, where they share so many memories.
Dimitri stops in front of the oak desk toward the back of the room. He places his hand atop it, fingertips tracing the polished surface for a moment, as if in thought. Sylvain tells himself that he could do it now – should do it now – while Dimitri’s back is turned. It’s a dirty trick – one he’d learned from Claude himself – and the part of him that still remembers his imperial blood tells him that’s no way to fight.
Dimitri hums and turns, breaking Sylvain free of the grasp of his thoughts.
And when he does, Sylvain gasps.
“Your eye,” he says, his voice little more than a trembling whisper. He wants to rush forward, to trace his fingers over the black eyepatch Dimitri wears. He can see a scar peeking out from beneath it, jagged and messy and red. “What happened…?”
Dimitri laughs, a wry smile twisting his lips. “Too much to tell,” he says. “A lot has changed since I lost my strongest bodyguard.”
Sylvain’s face twists at that. He feels his blood boil in his veins anew and he grits his teeth, both hands tightening around the shaft of the axe he’s still got in his hands. “You don’t get to blame me for that,” he hisses, his voice low. “You’re the one who sent me away. You’re the one who forced me to leave!”
“I know,” Dimitri says. He does not back down. His remaining eye narrows, his brow tensing over it. It’s a look of anger, of frustration – and of deep, unfathomable sadness. Sylvain hates it. He wants to remove that eye, too, so he never has to see that expression on Dimitri’s face again. “And I have regretted it ever since.”
“Then why?!” This time Sylvain does step forward, the momentum of his anger carrying him away. Beneath his gauntlets, his knuckles are white from how tightly they grip his axe. “Why send me away in the first place?!”
Dimitri doesn’t flinch, not even as Sylvain barges into his personal space. The blade of the axe is inches from his chest, close enough to slice open the black-and-silver uniform adorning it. There is no armour in his way, nothing to stop him from just…
“Because,” Dimitri says through gritted teeth, the sadness of his eye burning away and leaving only anger in its place. “Because I could not bear to see you unhappy.”
“Then what do you call this?!”
“At least you are free to do as you please!” Dimitri bellows, startling Sylvain into taking a step back. He doesn’t quite stumble, but he does falter, and Sylvain wonders, in that moment, if he hadn’t made the biggest mistake of his life in allowing himself to be led to Dimitri’s room.
If Dimitri hadn’t planned to kill him from the very start.
Dimitri advances, his shoulders hunched. He looks like a beast like this, a lion snarling as it approaches its prey. Sylvain raises his axe before him as a barrier, angling it as if to parry a blow he’s not sure is actually coming. It does him little good: Dimitri grabs the shaft of the axe and pushes forward, pressing it against Sylvain’s chest, blocking him from moving anywhere but towards the wall behind him – and that’s where Sylvain goes, taking one voluntary step back, and then another and another and another, each one following the first against his will until he’s pressed up against the wall.
He’s trapped.
“Every day,” Dimitri whispers, his tone darkening with every word. “Every day I thought of you. I worried incessantly, Sylvain. Had you made it to the Free Planets Alliance? Were you safe? Were you continuing your flirting, your womanizing, or had you found someone who made you happy?” He grits his teeth. “Were you able to find the love that you had always wanted?”
Sylvain tenses. He isn’t sure if Dimitri is actually asking him or if he’s just speaking to himself, but regardless, Sylvain answers: “Hard to find love when you’re used to being picked up and thrown away.”
He pushes back against Dimitri. Dimitri does not budge. “I did not—” Dimitri starts, his eye flashing.
“I didn’t throw you away, Sylvain—”
“Didn’t you?” Sylvain pushes harder. “I told you I didn’t want to defect, but you insisted. If you weren’t throwing me away, then why bother telling me to leave?” He clenches his jaw. “Why fuck me on the way out if you weren’t done with me?!”
“Because I could not watch you get married!”
Dimitri shoves him, hard, and Sylvain’s head thumps against the wall. He sees stars for a moment, the stars on the screen of the Areadbhar’s bridge where he should have been standing with Dimitri all along, but he quickly blinks them away. There’s only one star in his vision, then, bright blue and alight with fury.
“I couldn’t bear the thought of you being forced into a marriage you didn’t want, with someone you didn’t love!” Dimitri shouts. “You were always – always—”
“A hopeless romantic,” Sylvain finishes. There’s no fight in his voice now. He slumps against the wall, not quite defeated, but no longer willing to resist. “I know.”
“And that’s why…” Dimitri closes his eye. His head falls, his too-long fringe falling over his face, obscuring the half of it that remains. “I wanted you to be happy. You loved being a soldier, Sylvain. I couldn’t have you sacrifice the life you loved just to keep you at my side.”
Sylvain’s breath falters. He clenches his fists. “You idiot.”
“What?”
“I said you’re an idiot.” Sylvain pushes at Dimitri again, but there’s almost no strength behind the motion now. Dimitri steps back anyway, allowing him the space to speak. “Sure, yeah, I liked being a soldier,” he says. “It was something I chose for myself – something my father had no say in, until he did. But do you really think I did it because I liked fighting? Because I have some sick, twisted love for war?”
He’s cut deep. Sylvain can see it in Dimitri’s face, in his one remaining eye. The man who hated taking life pointlessly, and the man who loved to fight: both of them standing before him rolled into one, into the only person Sylvain had ever entrusted his heart to.
So much for that, he thinks.
“Then why?” Dimitri asks, though there’s little anger left in his voice. “Why would you…”
“Because it was for you.” Sylvain tosses his axe aside and listens as it clatters to the floor, not caring if it lodges itself in the polished tile. His eyes are focused solely on Dimitri now, on the way his lips part in realization, on the way he steps back toward the bed.
“Sylvain…”
“I did it for you,” Sylvain repeats, his voice rasping and his smile manic. He spreads his arms wide, thinking he must look insane, covered in his enemies’ blood and grinning like he was still in the heat of battle. “I never signed up to serve Her Majesty, Kaiser Edelgard the First. I signed up to stay with you.”
He lets his hands drop. Sylvain’s shoulders and chest are both heaving from exertion now that the adrenaline of the fight has run its course and he knows Dimitri will not kill him – and now that he knows he won’t kill Dimitri, either. He doesn’t know what to do with himself now, though. He thinks to run, to go back to his men, to tell them to call the whole operation off—
But Dimitri kisses him.
He rushes forward, faster than Sylvain can move, and takes his face in both hands. Sylvain has no time to speak, barely any time to register what’s happening before he feels DImitri’s lips on his, crashing into them awkwardly and almost hurting with the force of his desperation. Yet still, Sylvain kisses him back, fisting a bloodstained hand in his old friend’s hair, tugging him close and tilting his head to allow Dimitri better access.
They kiss, mouths meeting over and over again, lips parting and tongues meeting between them. Dimitri whines deep in his throat and Sylvain feels heat prickle behind his eyes, his breath hitching as Dimitri pulls him back toward the bed.
They collapse on it, Sylvain kneeling over Dimitri. His power armour must feel awkward and heavy, pressing against Dimitri’s body the way it is, but Dimitri doesn’t seem to care: he wraps his legs around Sylvain’s waist and pulls him closer, hands moving into his hair and combing, carding, tugging through it.
“Take it off,” Dimitri begs between kisses, craning his neck as Sylvain drags his tongue along it. “Please – I must – I have to see you, I have to touch you—”
Sylvain doesn’t answer. He pulls himself off Dimitri, crouching between his legs on the bed, and all but tears at his gauntlets. He’s cursed how cumbersome this armour is before, but never like this, with such desperate ferocity, with such dire need and frustration—
Dimitri surges up to meet Sylvain, helping him where he can. Sylvain doesn’t stop to think why he’d be familiar with alliance power suits, but in the end, he figures the two nations have similar enough technology it doesn’t matter – one more thing they unthinkingly have in common – and more importantly, it’s coming off little by little, exposing the uniform underneath, stuck to his skin with sweat.
Each piece of armour clangs to the floor. When it’s finally off, Dimitri reaches for Sylvain, untucking his shirt and sliding his hands beneath it. They don’t slide smoothly against his skin: they catch and stick, stopped by the light film of sweat, but that doesn’t stop him from touching, from exploring, from feeling. Sylvain pushes him back down on the bed and seals their lips together, plunging his tongue into Dimitri’s mouth and moaning into it, grinding down between Dimitri’s legs and thrilling at the hard swell he finds there.
It’s strange how familiar this all is – but even stranger when it’s not. Dimitri’s eyepatch bumps against the ridge of Sylvain’s cheek when he tilts his head, and the hidden clasps of Dimitri’s imperial admiral’s uniform are difficult to undo without looking. Sylvain is so practiced unbuttoning blouses and tearing open jackets, it’s odd to find resistance in the act of stripping someone down. They get there anyway, though, Dimitri’s black-and-silver uniform opening for him like curtains across a sunlit window, revealing the pale white shirt beneath.
That is much easier to rid him of. Sylvain’s hands move with practiced ease, exposing Dimitri bit by bit. His lips follow his hands, pressing light kisses to his skin, flicking his tongue out to catch the salty taste of sweat as he makes his way downward. One of Dimitri’s hands flies up to his own mouth to clamp down over it, muffling the little grunts and groans that escape his throat; the other tangles in Sylvain’s hair, too lightly for it to mean what Sylvain wants it to, because there’s nowhere else for it to go that won’t impede his progress.
He gets to Dimitri’s trousers and opens them up with teeth and fingers both. Sylvain tugs them down, almost exposing Dimitri completely, and kisses the swell of his cock through his underwear. There’s a wet spot on its front, and Sylvain licks it for show, but is overwhelmed by the heady taste. He moans, a shudder running down his spine.
“Sylvain—” Dimitri gasps, his fingers parting to reveal a dark peek of his open mouth. “Sylvain, I need…”
“I know,” Sylvain says, resisting the urge to tack a ‘baby’ onto the end of that sentence. Dimitri is not one of the alliance’s military nurses, nor is he some girl Sylvain picked up in a bar back on Heinessen; he’s Dimitri, an imperial prince, the man Sylvain had given his heart to long ago, before he’d had it forced back into his own hands.
He tugs Dimitri’s cock free and gets his lips around it. It’s embarrassing how complete it makes Sylvain feel to finally be back here, to be serving his prince in this way. They’ve only ever done this once before, the night before Sylvain had been forced to flee, but it feels like this is the hundredth time, like he’s returning to familiar territory.
Like he’s coming home.
He sucks Dimitri down slowly, carefully, starting with the head. Sylvain swirls his tongue around it, opening his eyes to watch Dimitri’s face. It’s flushed red, his pale eyelashes fluttering against his cheek until they’re not, until Dimitri opens his eye and directs his shining, tear-filled gaze down to Sylvain. He’s overwhelmed, and Sylvain is too, though he’s not about to show it.
He swallows Dimitri down the rest of the way, closing his eyes and letting his head bob slowly. He pulls back and pushes down, sucking greedily with every motion, the sounds of his lips only half as obscene as the moans pouring from Dimitri’s. He takes him all the way, until Dimitri’s cock hits the back of his throat, and he tries to swallow around it. Sylvain gags, because he’s out of practice with something so big, but Dimitri doesn’t seem to mind. He gasps, and he chokes, whispering, “Oh, goddess – oh, Sylvain,” beneath his hand.
Sylvain swallows. There are tears in his eyes too, from exertion and emotion both, swirling in his heart and his mind and in his body in an irresistible slurry, pushing him ever closer to the edge. He palms himself through his clothing, trying to relieve himself of some of the pressure. It’s only a little bit, but the slight friction is enough to make him moan, and—
—and Dimitri comes, suddenly, a strangled whine echoing in the room as his back arches off the bed and he fills Sylvain’s throat.
Sylvain chokes, again, but he doesn’t pull back far: just enough that he can breathe in through his nose quickly and swallow down everything he can. It’s a lot – too much – and some ends up leaking from his mouth, but he can’t find it in him to care. He smiles when Dimitri finishes, rasps a broken laugh as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and looks Dimitri in the eye.
“Your Highness…”
“Dimitri.”
Even after all this time, he hasn’t changed. Sylvain laughs again, and there’s something almost like a sob in it this time.
“Dimitri,” he whispers.
He leans in at the same moment Dimitri reaches for him, collapsing into his arms and kissing him with everything he’s got. Sylvain thinks for a moment that he shouldn’t be kissing Dimitri at all when he’s still got his come on his lips and an order to take his life, but once again Dimitri seems not to care. He plunges his tongue into Sylvain’s mouth, inhaling sharply through his nose and moaning in pleasure, in relief, in want.
When he pulls away, there’s a thread of saliva still connecting them.
“I missed you, Sylvain,” Dimitri says. “I missed you so much.”
They kiss again. Sylvain sheds his own clothes this time, body lifting off Dimitri’s just enough to do so. Dimitri spreads his legs to give him more room, but he doesn’t dare to break the kiss. He makes Sylvain do it, and Sylvain only does when he has to, so he can completely bare himself and help Dimitri do the same.
When they’re both naked, Sylvain traces the uneven lines of Dimitri’s scars. He’s alarmed at how many there are – how many he couldn’t protect Dimitri from. He wonders what happened. What could have been different.
“Don’t,” Dimitri says. Sylvain looks up to see him frowning. “They’re old wounds. They don’t hurt me anymore.”
“I should have…”
“I said don’t.” Dimitri’s lips curl upward, but there’s little cheer in his smile. “They’re all my own fault. Every single one of them was a burden I chose to bear – a risk I decided to take.”
Sylvain opens his mouth to protest, to say that Dimitri didn’t have to bear them at all, but he’s stopped by Dimitri reaching into his bedside drawer and pulling out a bottle. His face is flushed again, but for an entirely different reason this time.
“It’s… it’s from before,” Dimitri says. “When we…”
Sylvain takes the bottle. He swallows thickly. “Yeah.”
“Sylvain…”
“I know.”
He doesn’t need to be told twice. He’s still painfully hard, and Dimitri is on his way back there, with Sylvain’s hips pressed so close to his. Sylvain pours some lube into his hand and backs up just enough to give Dimitri space to move.
He crawls back on the bed, resting his back against the headboard. Dimitri spreads his legs and inhales deeply. “I’m ready for you,” he says.
Sylvain nods. “All right.”
He coats his fingers in the lube, crawls forward just a little, and presses the tip of his finger to Dimitri’s rim. Sylvain looks up at him, waiting for the go-ahead despite it already being given. Dimitri nods, throat bobbing as he swallows down his nerves.
“Okay.” Sylvain takes a deep breath – why is he so anxious? – and presses a finger in. Dimitri arches off the bed, a high-pitched whine tearing itself from his throat. His hand goes to his mouth, covering it, and Sylvain leans up to kiss his knuckles.
“Too much?” he asks, recognizing the absurdity of the words as soon as they’ve left his mouth. He’d been planning to kill Dimitri an hour ago; what right does he have to worry about his comfort now?
But Dimitri shakes his head, bringing Sylvain back to the moment before he can get too lost in thought. “No,” he says, lifting his hand from between their lips and pressing it softly to Sylvain’s jaw. “Keep going.”
Sylvain does. He presses his finger in deeper, sliding it in to the knuckle. He curls it experimentally, searching, and Dimitri squirms on the bed, his voice rising and falling with every movement of Sylvain’s hand, in and out and in.
He warns Dimitri before he adds two more, knowing that he’s rushing it but sensing the urgency in Dimitri’s body. His cock is hard again, lying against his thigh and leaking precome: Sylvain knows it’s only a matter of time before he finishes again, and he doesn’t want to miss his chance.
“I’m going in,” he says as he withdraws his fingers. He doesn’t look at Dimitri as he coats his cock in lube, because he’s worried that, now that they’re finally here, he might lose heart. He’s going to be promoted when he returns to the alliance – if he returns, he tries not to think – and Claude and his fleet have done so much for him and the Rosen Ritter specifically. If he does this now…
“Sylvain,” Dimitri whispers, finally drawing his eyes back. He reaches for Sylvain and takes the hand resting atop his scarred knee. “Please. I need you.”
And that solidifies Sylvain’s resolve.
He plunges in, moaning brokenly as Dimitri clenches around him. Sylvain bottoms out and nearly sobs, he’s in so deep; but he pulls back without waiting and thrusts back in again, giving Dimitri everything he wants but had not been able to properly ask for.
Because that was what Sylvain had wanted all along, too. To be needed. To be loved. To know that he was of value to Dimitri not just as a soldier, but as a friend – as something more. As a lover, maybe, or even something they would never be able to put words to. The articulation of that desire can come later, though: for now, all Sylvain wants is him.
He fucks Dimitri gently, at first, and then harder. With every thrust, with every slam back in, Dimitri gasps and grunts and groans, eye widening and squeezing shut in turn, his mouth working but no words coming out. He grasps as the bedsheets beneath him and Sylvain leans over to kiss his neck. Dimitri whines, and Sylvain moves from neck to jaw; Dimitri moans, and then Sylvain is at his lips, silencing him and swallowing every little sound.
He reaches between their bodies to take hold of Dimitri’s cock. Dimtiri’s breath catches and cuts off, and he almost chokes on Sylvain’s tongue in his mouth, but Sylvain breaks the kiss to smile against his ear.
“Relax,” he whispers. “I’ve got you.”
Dimitri comes, then, sobbing brokenly and releasing into Sylvain’s hand. Come spurts between their bodies, white and fluid and sticky, but it doesn’t stop Sylvain from moving. He keeps swaying, keeps thrusting, keeps snapping his hips faster and faster and faster, burying his cock in Dimitri over and over again. Dimitri is impossibly tight around him, convulsing and relaxing in waves as his cock continues to twitch and spasm in Sylvain’s hand, and Sylvain can feel himself getting closer too, until his vision fogs up and turns a blinding shade of white—
He comes, whispering Dimtri’s name like a prayer. Pleasure overwhelms Sylvain, embracing him in the form of two strong, powerful arms tightening around his back. Dimitri’s nose presses against his cheek and his breath fans hot and humid against Sylvain’s skin, and Sylvain trembles, overtaken by all-engulfing euphoria.
The high of orgasm recedes slowly. Beneath him, Dimitri breathes heavily. His heart is still pounding in his chest, and Sylvain feels his own match its pace, quickening and desyncing when he realizes what that steady pulse he’s feeling is.
He pulls out of Dimitri and rolls off him, partially startled by their continued closeness but mostly out of concern that he’s crushing the man beneath him. Sylvain has never been small, after all – and it’s strange to think that Dimitri is bigger than he is when he’s so used to bringing women to bed.
Sylvain moves off to the side, spreading his arms out as he gazes up at the ceiling. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Dimitri smile.
“Come back,” Dimitri says, and Sylvain’s world cracks and shatters around him.
He swallows thickly. Dimitri waits. His smile fades with every passing second, another second in which Sylvain doesn’t answer him. The silence thickens between them.
“...I see,” Dimitri says at last. “Then this meant nothing to you.”
Sylvain rolls over. There’s panic in his eyes. “No,” he says. “Never. It meant the world to me, Dimitri. For so long – for years, I—”
“Then why won’t you come back?” Dimitri glares at him with his one single eye, a reminder of all Sylvain had missed. All Sylvain had never done.
All Sylvain had never said.
“It’s not that simple,” Sylvain says, deflating. “I have a life in the alliance now. People who depend on me. People I can’t leave behind.” He frowns. Pauses. Swallows again. “You know how many men I came here with. The entire Rosen Ritter Regiment. I command them all, Dimitri. I can’t just abandon them. And Admiral Riegan—”
He stops himself. He doesn’t want to talk about Claude now. He doubts Dimitri does, either – but Dimitri rouses at that anyway, his lips twisting in revulsion.
“So it was on his orders that I was meant to die, then.”
“…Yeah.”
“Then you still intend to kill me.”
“No.”
Sylvain shakes his head. Dimitri looks at him curiously, turning onto his side and gazing up at his face. Sylvain smiles, the corner of his lip twitching upward.
“Don’t make that face, Your Highness,” he says. “It doesn’t suit you.”
“I told you to call me—”
“Dimitri, I know. Sorry. You’d think I’d remember to say your name before I asked you for the biggest favour of my life.”
Dimitri’s brow lifts. “And what is that?” he asks – but then he freezes, the horror of realization dawning on his face. “Sylvain, you can’t ask me to kill—”
“No,” Sylvain says, laughing softly to himself. The prospect of his own mortality has always been amusing to him, but today is not the day he’s going to choose to face it. Not after this. “No, I don’t want to die. At least, not this time. I was just going to ask you to break my arms and legs before you send me back.”
“Sylvain.” Dimitri does not sound amused. His narrowed eye speaks to that even louder, but Sylvain presses on as if he hadn’t noticed.
“I don’t mind being a failure. It’s what I’m best at, really,” he says. “Admiral Riegan knew there was a chance I could fail, so he won’t be too upset with me if I come back empty-handed. My regiment’s probably got prisoners, at least, so that’s something—”
“Sylvain.”
“What?” He glares at Dimitri now, his temper flaring. “Don’t tell me you’re going to take me prisoner and keep me here after all. This is the only way it could work, Dimitri, unless you wanted to…”
He stops. Smiles.
That’s it.
That’s it.
Sylvain grins at Dimitri. There’s a wildfire in his eyes, burning with that same manic energy he’d had when he’d thought Dimitri was going to hurt him. Dimitri lifts a brow, but doesn’t move as Sylvain reaches for him with both hands, digs his fingertips into his strong, muscular arms, and pins him down in place. “I know what to do,” he says, voice no louder than a fearful, excited whisper. “But you have to trust me on this, Dimitri. Okay?”
“What are you—”
“Trust me,” Sylvain insists. He grins, and though he can see the apprehension in Dimitri’s eye, a wave of relief crashes over him when Dimitri nods his head.
“Always.”
He returns to the Failnaught triumphant. Claude’s staff officers and division commanders line the edges of the bridge, their eyes wide as they watch Sylvain make his way to the command chair.
It’s not him their eyes are fixed on, though.
It’s Dimitri.
“Nice work, Commodore,” Claude says, grinning up at Sylvain before letting his eyes rove over the captured Admiral Blaiddyd. “Taking such a valuable prisoner… And with minimal bloodshed, too. I wonder if I can’t convince HQ to bump you up to Vice Admiral instead.”
Sylvain smiles. “I’m both honoured and flattered sir, but Admiral Blaiddyd isn’t my prisoner.”
Claude’s blinks. He doesn’t quite frown, but his brows furrow, a rare expression of unease clouding his otherwise impassive face. “...Oh?”
His hand twitches toward his blaster, but Sylvain holds up a hand. “No need to be so suspicious, Admiral. Dimitri isn’t a prisoner – he’s a defector.”
Claude visibly relaxes. He all but collapses in his seat, breathing out an exasperated sigh and reaching for the black beret sitting atop his head. He fans his face with it, glancing from the grinning Sylvain to the smiling Dimitri.
“...Always full of surprises, aren’t you Commodore?” Claude says around a grin of his own. He stands up, places his beret back on his head, and extends his hand to Dimitri.
“In that case,” he says, “Welcome to the Free Planets Alliance, Admiral Blaiddyd.”
Dimitri takes his hand. They shake, and both sets of eyes fall on Sylvain as the two of them turn to him in sync.
Sylvain lays a hand on Dimitri’s shoulder.
“Welcome home, Dimitri.”