PSL - Felix and Dedue

[donoteattheweeds]

 The important thing is that His Highness escaped.

Everything that happened after-- his capture, his stay in the dungeons, the interrogations by Cornelia-- it all pales in comparison to that one vital fact.  His Highness has survived, will live on to usher in the bright future that he dreams of, and Dedue will go to the executioner's block in his stead.  Or he will, anyway, if the infection doesn't kill him first.  At this point, it's anyone's game, because the days of languishing in a dirty cell with open wounds has run a predictable course.  Dedue aches and burns with fever even as the guards load him into a caged wagon to be brought to his doom.  Perhaps he should have some pride in the fact that they deem him dangerous enough even in his infirmity to require a cage, but he's just-- tired.  

He thinks of his prince and the fact that he's far away from this danger, and is comforted by the knowledge.

Dedue never makes it to the block, nor even anywhere close.  On the way to the square where he is to be beheaded, the transport is beset by his kinsmen, and they kill the guards and break the lock and flee with him from the capital.  Dedue remembers this in only bits and pieces, a patchwork of memories made muddled and confused by the seriousness of his illness.  

There are few places that men such as them could flee to that would be safe from Cornelia's wrath.  Gautier and Fraldarius still resist Imperial influence, and between the two of them, Fraldarius is nearer and has a strong history both of loyalty to the Crown and decency towards Duscur folk.  All benefits for a prince's vassal who's rapidly running out of time.

They send a letter ahead to Duke Fraldarius, in hopes that his love of the prince will compel him to shelter the prince's vassal.  They are vindicated, and secret Dedue into the estate under cover of darkness, where he's set up comfortably in a protected wing of the house and attended to by the family's physicians.  He remembers none of this-- in the time it took for them to travel from Fhirdiad to Fraldarius, he had sunk into unconsciousness.

And thus he remains, a week on from when he arrived-- unconscious, frail, and wracked with fever, his fate uncertain.

Comments

[brothered]

[there is, felix supposes, some degree of irony to this? to loitering outside the chambers of someone he'd once done his best to ignore. he remembers how frustrating he'd found dedue back in their academy days; someone so dedicated to that beast in prince's clothing could be nothing short of a fool, felix thought—and it isn't that his opinion has changed, per se. not entirely. blindness—willful ignorance—is every bit as dangerous now as it was then; felix refuses to entertain it.

and yet.

it was grief felix felt, when news of dimitri's (supposed) execution reached fraldarius territory. grief, and guilt, and a white-hot anger that threatened to drag him down, down, down—but felix remembers standing in his father's study? staring into the fire, pointedly keeping his back to his old man's desk as he listened to the latest intel, as he felt something he'd almost forgotten: hope. another altogether dangerous thing, but maybe, just maybe...

that late-night conversation, however, was a little over a week ago—and while felix stood by his father's side as dedue was carried into his childhood home? while felix was the one to confirm that, yes, this is indeed dedue molinaro, the prince's companion? hope is, quite honestly, a rather light meal; felix requires something more solid.

and thus felix watches as a physician emerges from dedue's chambers, carefully closing the doors behind them before slipping down the hall. he knows what said physician would say, if they knew he intended to speak to their patient. he's weak. he's ill. he's in no state to speak, sir, so please, let him rest.

(all things his father told him, as well.)

but patience is a virtue felix simply does not possess, hence his straight-backed confidence as he opens those recently closed doors. he doesn't know what he'll find, really; he tells himself he's prepared for anything as he strides through the sitting room, making a beeline for the bedroom, but once he actually steps inside it—

—ah.

sick rooms always have a smell? a vaguely herbal scent, just barely covering a sort of sickly sweet something. it makes felix uncomfortable; it puts felix right on edge as he surveys the man stretched atop this bed, looking unquestionably worse for wear. not that it's a surprise, given that felix did see (a comatose) dedue briefly upon dedue's arrival...

...but it's been years since they've seen one another. long, miserable years, the weight of which suddenly make it impossible for felix to offer anything more than a (gruff):]

You're awake.

[well, of course he is; his physician was just here checking in on him, but listen: it isn't as though felix has any idea what to say as he takes in the state of him. all of this for dimitri? was it worth it?

(of course it was.)]

[donoteattheweeds]

[In the days that Dedue was under the physician's care, he made significant improvement-- that is to say, he's still alive and has regained consciousness, which is further from death than he was before. Even so, he isn't out of the woods yet, and he has a long way to go before his wounds are healed enough that he can even rise from his sickbed. He is weak and tired, a far cry from the unyielding shield he had once been on the battlefield.]

[That is how Felix finds him-- laying in his bed, propped up on a few pillows to ease his breathing, his face gaunt and body ravaged by illness. It's difficult for a man of his stature to appear small, but the effects of his wounds is obvious, as he has clearly lost weight during his infirmity. The physician wouldn't be wrong in telling Felix that he is weak, and that he needs rest rather than an interrogation.]

[Clearly, he won't get that rest. There's little love lost between Dedue and Felix-- he had always been well aware of the swordsman's disdain for him. He can only assume that the years hadn't softened that, and he is equally as resentful that Dedue shelters in his house. There is one grace, though, to Felix's distaste for him; Felix hates him not for his Duscur heritage, but for his actions. It's a novel thing, to be hated for something that he's actually done.]

[When Felix approaches his bedside, Dedue's eyes are on him. He is exhausted to his very bones, but his eyes are clear and cognizant.]

Yes. [His voice is raspy and hoarse from disuse.] To what... do I owe... the visit?

[He has to pause to catch his breath in the middle of his own sentences-- so weak that he can't finish them without becoming winded. All of this, for Dimitri. All of it, worth every wound, every scar, every hour that he languished in the grip of fever.]