Church Source 9

[warmskies]

Dreams exist, in such a comfortable space, but they're disjointed, blurry, forgotten almost as soon as Dimitri's mind moves on from them. He's not sure how long he sleeps until he wakes up to some vestiges of light filtering into the cabin- a couple of hours at least, and they'd already moved into morning technically by the time they arrived- but it's not a full awakening. Not yet. Even if it was, perhaps that dreamlike feeling enveloping him would still be there as he nudges his face out from the pillows to look out into the cabin that still smells so.... nice. It really does feel like a dream, now more than ever before, only he can't remember the last time he's ever had a dream so pleasant.

As his eyes roam from place to place, Dimitri fuzzily recalls every little thing the pair of them did in the last twelve hours. Mostly on a physical level- the feel of his fingers on Claude's clothing, the heady smell of a full pantry, strong and gentle fingers sliding through his hair, the heat of the bath, the warmth of hot food. Eventually, his gaze drifts down to where Claude is sleeping down at his side, and he recalls how it had felt to have those hands guide his down in the pantry. Funny, that conversation. He would figure that, out of anyone, Claude would know all the different reason to know knots, what an odd question and an odder tone to match-

Some hours later, half asleep still, and the teasing innuendo of the whole thing finally hits Dimitri.

He gives a sharp jolt, brain tripping over itself as it wakes up from the realization, and he immediately checks Claude to see if that woke him up at all.

--

Claude does stir a bit, with a sleepy sound; under other circumstances he'd jolt wide awake, instincts on alert, but something about his current situation and position tells him how completely safe he is. Maybe the feel of Dimitri's arms around him, or the smell of him, or how comfortable he is, speaking to him on subconscious levels. "Mm...?"

It's not a trill like the sounds Dimitri makes when something disturbs him while he sleeps, but it seems to be serving the same kind of purpose, at least.

--

On one hand, that's a very endearing noise- maybe not to normal human people who hear it all the time and are desentized, but certainly to a recovering feral Intseh who's trying to come to terms with and untangle the vast amount of affection plus other feelings with the person in question. On the other hand, Dimitri doesn't... necessarily want to wake Claude, certain of his own embarrassment.

He tries to have the best of both worlds with a quiet whisper he's not sure if he wants Claude to hear or not. "I did not mean it in a sexual sense, when I spoke of knots." Maybe he'll just... unconsciously hear that, and it will count.

--

That wakes Claude up just enough to laugh a little. He cracks one eye slightly to peek up at Dimitri. "Really?" he murmurs. "I did."

--

Oh no. He was awake. Dimitri can't seem to settle on a look of either distress or attraction. "Your teasing will never cease." He tries to tug the quilt further up over Claude's head. "Go back to sleep."

--

"Okay," Claude says agreeably, with another little chuckle as he nuzzles more comfortably into Dimitri. Apparently a half-asleep Claude is easier to negotiate with.

--

Now that he's properly awake to appreciate such things, Dimitri pauses to enjoy the sensation of Claude curling in against him. He'd liked it, of course, enough to latch onto Claude tight enough to not let go. But that's different from being awake and taking in the various little things that make it so good: the way he is able to tuck in perfect against Dimitri's body, the warmth that builds up and stays trapped this way, the look of him so peaceful where he lays with that soft sleeping smile on his lips.

For a long while, Dimitri simply watches Claude that way, not doing much except, once, daring to reach upwards to brush the very tips of his claws through his hair to push it out of his face. He can't get over this moment, in its entirety. Just being able to lay here with someone, with Claude, is.... It's more than he could have ever asked for.

After his life, it's more than enough.

Yet with that slight scare having woken him up, Dimitri can't help but begin to wonder on the whole impact of what's just transpired. Just... what it means, truly, instead of focusing on what's immediately in front of him. His eyes roam through the cabin again when something hits him. This time, he tries to be a lot more subtle as he begins to move his way out from underneath the quilt, inch by inch.

He's trying very hard. For someone like Claude, experienced and also quite liking his new source of heat, that probably won't be enough, however.

--

Claude makes a sleepy sound of protest when Dimitri begins moving away. His arms tighten briefly, but after a moment relax; Claude wants to keep Dimitri in bed with him, but somewhere in his mind he's aware that legitimate reasons for leaving the bed, at least temporarily, exist. Like needing to use the bathroom. So if Dimitri is truly dedicated to getting up, Claude's not going to force him to stay.

--

Gently, possibly the most gentle he's been in his life, Dimitri makes sure to pull the quilt up to wrap Claude in it, as if that will make up for his absence. Because he's not going for simple mundane reasons. Instead, Dimitri creeps on padded feet back towards the front door of the cabin. Towards Claude's pack that he left there.

He doesn't mean to go rooting through it. There's a purpose to his searching, and he finds it- them- in fairly quick order. Delicately cradling the remains of the former Executioner in his hand, he undoes the latch to the door in order to slip outside. Not far. Not even out of sight of the door, which he leaves ajar. Instead, he stands there, frozen once more much like he had been right outside the city walls.

It's just.... so much.

When Claude inevitably goes searching for him, he'll find him sitting out in the grass, still holding onto the glass bottles and merely staring. Everything is finally just.... sinking in.

--

Dimitri gets almost a half hour to himself; it takes awhile for Claude to process that Dimitri's gone, that he's been gone for awhile, and for this to be concerning enough to wake him up. But soon enough, Claude emerges from the cabin, looking worried - an expression that doesn't so much abate as change slightly when he spots Dimitri, and sees what he's holding.

He moves over to the Intseh, resting a light hand on his shoulder. "Hey."

--

He'd heard Claude coming, although that had felt so distant that he hadn't thought to react, so Dimitri doesn't jolt or react in any surprise when those fingers light gently on his shoulder. All he does is look up quietly at Claude, melancholic, distant. "It has been a long time since I have seen a forest," he says softly. "I thought... they even moreso." Death, after all, wasn't enough to free their remains, let them scatter to the winds or absorbed through the dirt connected to everything.

--

Claude nods at this, squeezing Dimitri's shoulder slightly. "I know only a little about what Intseh think about death," he murmurs after a moment. "It's not really the kind of subject they feel too comfortable discussing with an outsider. Especially an Almyran. But then, you probably got pulled away from your culture before you'd learned much about what they think on the subject yourself..." He glances down at Dimitri. "What do you think about it? About what happens when someone dies."

--

It's almost funny, that he brings up such a thing. Dimitri's thumb begins to worry along the smooth surface of one of the bottles, and he looks back out towards the expanse of trees. There's so much, he feels small in comparison to it all. Not like when the church, where everything had felt so small as to be suffocating.

"...Before I was pulled there... My parents had died. There were so many preparations to make.... So many gods to ask for help. Things to do to make the journey easier for them... I can no longer remember many of their names, now." He knows it had been important, at the time. Even if he cannot remember the specific names, the specific duties of each god, Dimitri knows that he had known, once. That it had been so important in his eyes to get everything down perfectly. "If it was done right... I knew they would go somewhere good. Somewhere...." His words trail off, knees drawing closer up towards his chest, trapping his hands inbetween as well. "....I was thinking of that, sitting here. I wish I could remember more."

--

Claude looks down at him, biting his lip. "Dimitri," he finally says, after a moment. "I don't want to interrupt this or anything, because I know this is important and you've got a lot to process, but...can we at least move this behind the cabin? It's full daylight now, and the church definitely knows you're gone. The riddles we left them might have them scratching their heads for awhile, but as long as the fact that you're gone is apparent, they're likely to send out search parties. And this cabin is a stop along the roads people of the church usually take.

"What I'm getting at is, it'd be a lot safer for anyone who might come to investigate this place to not be able to see you first thing."

--

There's actually some reluctance in an answer, his fingers still rubbing anxiously at the bottles in his hand. Finally, Dimitri looks back up to Claude as he pushes himself onto his feet, ears flicked back, tail flicking. "...Just behind it?" The cabin is comfortable, in a lot of different ways... but he's starting to go a little stir wild from being inside a confined space for much longer, now that he's able to realize he has a choice to not be in one.

--

"Pretty much anywhere not visible from the road, really," Claude says, with a thin smile. "It doesn't matter if they find me here; they know I'm traveling for them and they don't have any real problems with me using this place. And I can always pretend I'm staying alone...as long as they don't spot you. If they see you here at all, all bets are off."

--

There's a slight nod, and Dimitri makes the move out of sight, heading towards the corner of the building. "I would have heard if anyone was coming," he says quietly, trying to be reassuring. What he would have done is... not something he's entirely sure on, and thus less reassuring. So he doesn't say it.

--

"That's good to know," says Claude, who's aware of that fact even without Dimitri needing to spell it out. He follows Dimitri behind the cabin. "Okay, now we can talk without my nerves acting up."

He sits down on the ground. "I'm sorry about your parents. I think you mentioned they died when we were younger, but I never knew it was before the church ever took you...I think I just assumed you were like me, and church killed them personally."

--

As they settle down again, Dimitri adjusts his items so that they're all in the same hand, and uses his now free one to lightly touch Claude's face again. "I did not want to go where you could not see me," he explains quietly. So he was trying to be considerate still in some way. It could have potentially ended in him murdering someone, but he was trying to think.

As the conversation moves on, he goes back to curling up slightly, knees to chest. "I... do not think that is how the magic they use works. That room... is not made to summon a great deal of my people. Not with that size." It was enough for a group of priests, the items necessary, a large statue, and a confused Intseh child. Dimitri has a hard time imagining even he and a few others fitting in there without trouble, and that's before taking into consideration of a fight. "....I did not want to trouble you with the details, back then."

In other words, while the reasons were somewhat different, Claude hadn't been the only one keeping details of his personal life secret back then.

--

"I mean, I didn't even really understand just how the church had gotten its hands on you back then," Claude says, leaning into the touch of Dimitri's hand. "We were just kids. I think there's a lot we didn't understand back then, or weren't great at communicating. Not like we had infinite time to chat, either."

--

"The language barrier was... not easy to surmount." Especially not in very disjointed 'lessons' that were, often, just a pair of kids doing their best. Dimitri shifts, grass rustling underneath his tail. "....This one- the Intseh before me... There were no funeral rites. There is no guarantee a god was able to hear of them, and help bring them to where they need to be. Even their remains.... were treated selfishly. Not allowed to return to our home. If they are trapped like this...."

He leans forward, face to his knees now. "....Or maybe they only think they are still trapped."

--

Claude laughs, with a touch of strain to it that says it's a laugh of someone who's taken a hit and is trying not to show it too much - someone who's laughing not because anything is remotely humorous, but because they'd rather be seen laughing than having whatever their more natural reaction might have been.

Dimitri's heard this laugh once before - when he accused Claude and the church of having the same philosophy, of using the same lies.

"Well. I was going to say that I don't think they're bound to their remains - that death would at least have given them freedom, since the spirit is no longer bound to the body - but...that's a depressing thought. That a spirit could have spent so long imprisoned in life that they don't understand, or can't accept, freedom after death..."

--

"I wouldn't have." Dimitri turns his head to the side, hair scrunching up with the simple movement, and his one eye focusing on Claude. "If not for you... I would never have accepted it. I've still... been trying to accept it. Even now." In the light of day, everything seems so much more real, especially with nothing to distract him, even when those things were so nice.

His thumb rubs against the bottles again. "...When we make it home.... Then there will be no doubt. It... will be our land, underneath our feet. A part of us. We'll rest." And perhaps that's a hint of Dimitri's own thinking as well. It's not only his empathy for a fellow Intseh now long deceased, but some slight projection, as well. If he can bring their remains to their homeland.... Perhaps, in a way, it will set part of his own soul, his own mind, free from where the Church still has a shackle on it that digs in deep. Maybe, just maybe, he can bury even a little of the lifetime of suffering that's been inflicted on him.

--

Claude nods. "Even if the spirit is free, the remains deserve to have the dignity they've been denied restored to them. Free or not, how can a spirit rest easy when its death was forgotten, and its remains treated like...well, like ingredients? Hunters don't even do that with the things we eat...well, okay, some hunters might. The church's, probably. But no Almyran would act like that, for all that the church thinks they're so much more enlightened than us. We respect the dead - even when we've caused the deaths ourselves."

--

"The church thinks their hands clear of blood when they shove a person and a monster in the same ring together," Dimitri says quietly. "There are words to describe such things, but I do not know them." Most of them are likely curse words, really. Inappropriate. He'd never say them, but very possibly think them a lot.

But being reminded of the church properly.... "...when you released me from the cage... You told me not to kill them. Those of the church."

--

"Hypocrisy's probably the most polite," says Claude, mindful that Dimitri is a proper boy. Too bad most of the human words he's taught him, and the ways he's taught him to string them together, have been very casual...but oh well.

At Dimitri's not-quite-an-inquiry, Claude sighs. "I did." He props his arms on his knees, and his head in his hands. "It's a complicated thing, Dimitri. Most of those in the church - those too low to have a title or rank, who hold everyday jobs like guard or cook or farmer - they haven't done much to actively hurt anyone. And the things they have done that are harmful, they don't even realize those things are wrong, because they grew up being told that doing those things is part of being a faithful member of the church. The church is what they look to for guidance to know what right and wrong is, Dimitri. Are they at fault because their highest authority lied to them? For following the wrong guidelines?"

Claude waves a hand vaguely. "You and I...we had some advantages in seeing through the church, you realize. We weren't born into it - we saw that it's not just possible to live life differently than the church insists it must be, but that there's nothing inherently sinful or ruinous about different lifestyles. And when the church took us in and started pushing their lies onto us, those lies were hostile to us. Lies that were built on the idea of us being inferior, wrong, less than human. We had every reason to not want to believe.

"But imagine what it's like for someone in the church - someone without the racial handicaps that make us targets. They're born and grow up knowing nothing of the church. The church treats them relatively well, as one of its children...not as well as the higher-ranking members, of course, but well enough. The people the church exploits...well, they don't know those people, they don't know anything about them, and the church tells them they're terrible people anyway, so why should they care? And hurting and exploiting them means the church has nicer things that trickle down to even the lowliest members of its congregation - goods, wealth, knowledge. And the lowly members of the congregation can hope to advance within the church, perhaps, and gain even nicer things." He sighs. "That's how it works, Dimitri. Most of the congregation doesn't know how to question, and they're also not given much reason to. They're not evil, just ignorant. And ignorance can do an incredible amount of damage...but unless the ignorance is willful, unless it's malicious, I don't know if it deserves death."

Claude absently twirls the long strands of hair that normally make up his braid (which hasn't been remade yet) as he speaks. "I'm not even sure that those at the very top understand that what they're doing is heinous. They were raised within the church, too; how many of them actually believe what they're doing is righteous? But when you have that much power and influence, I think you have to be answerable for the atrocities you commit - no matter how righteous you're convinced they are. What's more, if a few deaths at the top of an organization means potentially being able to spare, and maybe deprogram, thousands of lives at the bottom, not to mention on the outside, from the damage you've done...then I don't think anyone has the luxury of caring how right or innocent you believed you were."

--

He glances at Claude. "I don't want to punish the everyday people in the church who were just living their lives according to what they were told their god wanted. I want to punish the people who dared to preach hatred and genocide while acting as their tongue of their god. I want to punish the people who gave the orders that should never have been given, and those who profited the most off those orders being carried out. I want to punish those with personal responsibility." Claude smiles thinly. "And it would've been hard for us to get to their quarters, under the circumstances. Besides, they don't all live in that monastery."

--

The more things change- in this case, everything Dimitri has ever known for years now- the more they seem to stay the same. Even far away from any cages that could bind him, away from any social chains that would dictate Claude's words, the two of them still seem to fall into old habits. Old conversations, arguing about emotions and philosophy and other things that couldn't be easily grasped by one's mere hands. Things that could distract him well enough from his own miserable situation, and coincidentally things that he'd often been left to wonder on his own while laying in a cage waiting for the day he'd die.

If there's anything different to this particular conversation, it's how relevant it is to both of them. How much of it is able to be grasped, to some extent, although more Dimitri's particular idea of 'grasping' than anything else.

Like all those times before, Dimitri listens quietly and attentively to Claude, taking in everything. Reluctantly, he has to admit that this makes sense, as much as he would want otherwise. Claude often does, when Dimitri takes the time o listen. (Trapped in a cage, it wasn't as though he had anything better to do.) Once he finally winds down, the Intseh stays quiet for a while longer as he absorbs everything that Claude has tried to explain to him- another habit between them.

Finally, he shifts, readying to speak. "Yet... how much can ignorance excuse?" Dimitri shifts upright, no longer leaning forward on his legs, so that he can better look straight at Claude. "I was a part of their slaughterhouse for... years. It has been most of my life. I saw how many people packed into the stands of that ring, eager to see a monster tear apart another living and breathing person. They saw others scream out in pain, bleed onto the dirt, and shed tears- all because they merely did not know them, by your estimation." A hand slips out, a sharp aggravated jerk of a gesture made. "There is no doubt in my soul that every person who came to watch the executions knew another who they found to be cruel, frustrating, yet they would never want to see that person suffer even a half of what those in the execution ring suffered. And those..." Dimitri trails off, looking out into the forest.

"...I can tell apart those who would have been murderers no matter the city they lived in. Those who felt no remorse for what they did, who looked upon the crowd the same way they looked upon me- as something merely to kill, something they cared so little for that their blood spilled did not matter. There was a certain... preparedness to their movements, as though they had always expected that they may have come to me." He twitches his claws, a half made sort of forgotten gesture. "But there were others. Those who came to me already damaged, for example." Such things as 'conversation' never happened inside the execution ring; the church's controllers would never have allowed it. Still, Dimitri could understand there was a story behind such people.... a miserable type.

Pulling back his hand to tuck against his chest, he worries now at the bandage around his wrist. "...There were children, sometimes. Rarely, but- they were there." Those ones, he never forgot. The list of those he's been made to kill is long, faces blurring together to some degree, but the young, the ones who had barely qualified as adolescents, he never forgot those ones. His gaze returns back to Claude, as it so often does. "Is that ignorance enough to excuse such a congregation? One that could see a child be slaughtered in such a way that would be cause for city-wide mourning if it had happened anywhere else but the execution ring made it righteous?"

His thumb grinds down against the wound his bandage hides, enough to sting, to ache. "Are such people too far gone?" Dimitri jerks his chin up at Claude. "You said that their church keeps them with the nicer things that come from robbing others, from making an enemy of innocents that the congregation simply does not know. Let us imagine that you are successful in dragging down those at the top to where they belong, that it is dismantled. Will those beneath them truly accept such a thing so readiliy? Or will they merely attempt to start such a bloody process anew, still look to make monsters and heathens out of those they do not understand?"

--

"I never said ignorance excuses anything at all," Claude replies evenly. "I just said that ignorance alone may not deserve the death penalty." He studies Dimitri, gaze steady. "And I also said there's a difference between plain ignorance and willful ignorance. If the world is crying out against their crimes, if the greater part of their own church is telling them they're wrong and they still cling to the lies their leaders told them...that's what I'd call willful.

"If removing the leaders isn't enough, if the congregation is too deluded to be brought back to sanity...then there'll probably be a war. And if that's what needs to happen, then it'll happen. But killing people who've insisted upon a war is pretty different from killing people who never knew there was a choice."

--

A small, frustrated flick at the very tail tip. "...I still... do not like it. It is frustrating, that I felt as though I could do so little. So many of them will still continue to follow along so- obediently, mindlessly, causing cruelty and harm because it is easier to do so than not." Dimitri's lips curl back, a low aggravated snarl rising up from the pit of his stomach. "And those higher up...."

He bows his head slightly, distaste scrunching up his nose. "...I do not suppose you would allow me to kill them on my own."

--

"Dimitri," Claude says, and then stops. He closes his eyes for a moment, then starts again. "If I stopped you from killing anyone in the church, it wasn't because I intend to let them just get away with what they're doing. Or even let them keep doing it. It's because I think my way of punishing them, of stopping them, is going to work better.

"And if it does nothing else...there are people in the church who can think differently. Who will change, if they see there's other ways to live. If they realize the things they thought they knew are wrong. Even if a lot of them don't, even if most of them don't...is spiting the wicked worth the murder of the misled? You made distinctions between the men and the monsters even among the convicts the church ordered you to kill, Dimitri. Are you saying you aren't going to bother making those distinctions when the choice is all yours?"

His eyes open again. "Do you really believe any part of this is simple? Maybe in an ideal world it would be, but in reality too many things are interconnected. You kill one man for being sinful, but what happens to his children? To his elderly parents? Will they starve? Kill the high-ranking members of the church, no one can argue they don't deserve it, but then who's running the monastery? Who's arranging the food transports, the trade, the basic maintenance concerns? Who's overseeing law enforcement, who's paying the workers? What happens to the other towns who depend on the monastery's goods? What are the ripple effects to the local economy to lose a major center of trade overnight because suddenly everyone in charge of running the place is dead and they can't be easily replaced? Is justice just another word for punishment, or does it mean protecting those who don't deserve to suffer, too?"

Claude sighs. "Your plan is simple. Mine isn't. But an entire religious branch going bad isn't a simple problem, and it's not going to have a simple solution. I'm sorry if that's not what you want to hear, and I'm sorry if that denies you catharsis you definitely deserve. But I know you. You're not like them. Self-gratification that comes at the cost of hurting innocent people isn't something you'd actually be okay with, and I'm not going to let you forget that. I'm not going to let you stumble into it by accident, either. Killing members of the church out of hand has implications for you, for me, and for who knows how many other people; you can't afford to just not think about that stuff." He huffs out a breath that's almost a laugh. "I'd appreciate if you didn't resent me for thinking about all that stuff, but I know I'm already asking a lot."

--

Eyes closed, Claude won't realize that hand nearing his face until the fingers are already on skin, claws carefully positioned in such a manner as to not scratch him. Dimitri is fully focused on him- still sullen to some degree, still bitter at the reality of the situation... but solemn as well, focused so much on the man besides him. There are many things he resents, both that has been carried from the past into his present, and things that could only have taken root in the situation he's in now. He resents the church, on a level both whole and individual. He resents the loss of his life, when such a life had already been fragile and in tatters as it had been. He resents, he resents, he resents.... The list is longer than its opposite. But-

"I could never resent you," he says, voice quiet in its heaviness. "Not after all you have done for me that I could not repay in one lifetime alone... Even now, as you see better in me than I deserve." If anything, the feelings he has are completely opposite of resentment... But he's still trying to figure out his own freedom, the idea of a future, responsibility that even now he holds so carefully in his hands.

His hand stays where it is, fingers on Claude's cheek and along the curve of his jaw. Dimitri's own face is quietly drawn tight, an expression that is distantly reminiscent of the night they've just left in their recent past right behind them- restrained so much in a way that is nearly painful for the Intseh. It's not as intense... but it is similar.

"...Now... and back then... You spoke of destroying them. Of convincing the main church to do it, and many other things besides. Can you promise me... that we will see that vengeance through to its very end?"

In all the time they have reconnected with one another, Claude has never made a promise, and Dimitri has never asked for one. Both of them were aware of how little it would mean, even if only because Dimitri himself would never believe in such a thing. Those were the kinds of things that could exist for others... Those not trapped within a cage, their life and its end already decided by others who decided they could lay ownership on such a thing. Claude had known not to try and test that line of thinking, not without proof.

But here.... Right now, out here, with sunlight filtering not through metal bars but the soft leaves.... In a world that seems to dreamlike on some level still, a promise almost seems to have physical weight.

--

Claude meets Dimitri's gaze and holds it. "I give you my word, Dimitri." His voice is as quiet and steady as his gaze. "I've staked my life on it."

Not 'I will'. 'I have'. Claude's been all in on this for years now, and it'd be disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

--

"...I cannot imagine such a future." Dimitri's exhale is slow, shaky. "I cannot imagine most of a future, now that the end is no longer decided for me, if not the length. This- it is all too much, a vast chasm the bottom which I cannot see. Not only my future... but this world as well. To think enough people would become better and make a difference.... To think there is a suffering that those in power will receive that is worse than death. The city as a whole... It is too much. It is not like the way I know I can reach out to wrap my fingers around a person's throat, or sink my claws into their body."

A quiet loathing begins to slink through the words he says. "It is monstrous, but it is what I know. And I know, with those actions, that I would at least remove one evil person from the world. I cannot know with such certainty the machinations that involve the church as a wider whole, nor that their congregation can turn good when all I have seen is empty cruelty. The future you speak of.... I cannot touch that, cannot imagine how it could exist, cannot trust it."

...And that's when he leans forward, their foreheads touching. "....But I can touch you. I.... trust you. So..." His eye slides shut, weary all over again.

"....I will follow you, and your vengeance."

--

Claude laughs that strained laugh again. "No pressure, right?" But he reaches out, taking Dimitri's hands in his own. "If you want me to carry your dream for you...I can do that. I'll be in the neighborhood fulfilling my own anyway, so it's not like I'll have to make an extra trip."

He's silent for a moment. "I can't promise too much about the future, Dimitri. All I can promise is that I'll make the church pay for what it did to us, and make sure nothing like it ever happens again, or I'll die trying. I don't know if you'll necessarily agree with the ways in which I do those things, but...I hope they satisfy you."

--

"I do not have many dreams." So there's that good news, at least. On vengeance, they're united. For the fragile bottles he's holding... Those he'll get to in time. That, at least, he has a slightly better idea of how to accomplice. Dimitri has no other expectations for his future beyond those two things, and even calling them 'expectations' seems a little much. 'Dreams' really is a more fitting descriptor.

His eye slides shut, thumb worrying at Claude's cheek. "....As long as they suffer. As long as it does not happen again. I will try to be satisfied with that." He wants more, something visceral, physical... but that may have to be in his dreams as well.

--

Claude nods, closing his eyes. What is it about this conversation that's wearying him, he wonders? Something is rubbing him the wrong way. Maybe the implication that all of Claude's hard work, what he's bent his entire life to pursuing, his strict adherence to a big picture view with a potentially brighter future when he's not necessarily immune himself to the desire to personally and violently punish those who've wronged them...that all of that is woefully insufficient, practically meaningless next to some quick gratifying murders, but Dimitri will do his best to content himself with it. Oh, yeah, that certainly stings.

But is it that that's eating at him? Or is it the fact that Dimitri's inability to believe or trust in everything Claude is trying to do still functionally feels the same as his not trusting Claude himself? Oh, there's a major difference in that Dimitri is willing to go along with Claude, blindly, and Claude can't sneeze at that because he needs that cooperation. But he's still on trial, isn't he? He still needs to keep proving himself to Dimitri, showing him evidence because his words are meaningless; only the terms of his probation have changed. And...well, Claude already has a lot riding on his shoulders as it is. He wouldn't have thought Dimitri's vengeance would be an extra load - as he'd said, he's seeking his own vengeance on the same people - but with Dimitri so dismissive of the methods Claude had thought he'd accepted when Claude first talked him down, he's no longer sure what he can deliver is going to be to Dimitri's satisfaction at all. And if it isn't...what then?

He knew breaking Dimitri out was going to involve his taking on a lot of challenges and responsibility. Dimitri's in no state to cope with such things himself; he needs to learn so much, so fast, about simply being able to live freely for the first time in...two decades, now. Saddling him with more wouldn't just be unconscionable, it'd be impossible. But this particular stumbling block...it's not one he'd foreseen. The Intseh aren't naturally violent. Dimitri is not naturally violent. And Dimitri's been forced to murder for the church for years. Claude hadn't expected how dedicated to violence he'd be even after he was free - for vengeance or for any other reason.

Instead, that violence seems as though it's become more important than...quite a lot of other considerations. Enough so that those considerations - like who actually deserves to die, and for what, and what will happen when and if they do, and the entirety of everything Claude's been working towards for the majority of his life - are mere extraneous considerations that Dimitri is begrudgingly allowing as a favor to Claude. Not because Dimitri genuinely believes such considerations are worth anything - he's made it clear he doesn't - but because Claude's promised him they'll pay out eventually and he's willing to risk a bad speculation for Claude's sake.

No, Claude wasn't prepared for this. Or for the achingly alone feeling it gives him, even while in the company of his oldest and closest friend. He doesn't have a friend working toward a common goal with him; he has a reluctant and skeptical spectator to a goal belonging only to him. Someone who's going to cast judgment on his results not by what he accomplishes, but by whether or not it feels good enough on a visceral level to assuage all of Dimitri's (entirely justified) bitterness.

Claude's never considered the possibility that he could achieve everything he's been aiming for, and still - by some metric - lose. It's a whole new win condition, and one Claude isn't confident he can satisfy if everything he's already explained to Dimitri isn't enough.

Claude's never made a promise to Dimitri he couldn't deliver on, and that still holds true. But he does think that Dimitri is projecting desires on him now that Claude may not be able to grant.

--

....Claude is getting lost in his own head again, Dimitri notes quietly.

It's not a rare event, honestly. Maybe a little uncommon, certainly. Claude has often done a very good job of staying focused on the moment at hand, and the moments he doesn't have been noticeable because no one else would ever space out when directly on the opposite of the bars to a monster used to kill others. Sometimes it's been from the conversations at hand. Other times, although Dimitri can often only guess at that part, it had been simple nostalgia drawing up memories. Dimitri has often been content to let him do that, save for moments such as when he'd pressed his claws to Claude's throat. Gods know that he is often worse, his own mind so broken that the shards reflect upon one another, infinity in on itself, mind seeing things that it itself had conjured up and taking his attention.

With almost every moment between them, such occasions have been born from their conversations, and Dimitri can tell this is no different. Except... Maybe it is, in some way. The longer they stay like this, forehead to forehead, the quiet of the forest weighing down on them, the more Dimitri begins to quietly pick apart Claude's expression. He looks much like Dimitri had felt at many points over the passing night, with so much pulling back at him, weighing him down. He looks tired.

...Because of him?

Not for the first time, Dimitri reflects on how different they are from one another. It had been one of the things that had brought them together when they were children, of course. Within the church, they were both outsiders... And so, to see something different from them brought more curiosity than rejection, because what did it mean for an outsider to be 'bad' when the church thought that was their own very being? Meeting once again as an adult... The difference had only grown, after years of vastly different experiences. In the cage, even at his most generous, Dimitri had wondered just how wise it was for Claude to try and bridge that chasm with his constant visits. Yet Claude himself had never seemed to regret it, and Dimitri had early on decided to give up on dissuading him, unable (unwilling) to change a fool's mind for a fool's errand.

This... is the first time it feels like regret. In the cage, Dimitri feels he would have taken some bitter satisfaction in this. Here, all he can do is stare, almost too anxious to move his fingers along Claude's skin. He'd promised to him, in the cabin, that he would do his best to be worthy of the work and feelings Claude had put into him. This... Is he breaking such a promise already? There is no one else in the world who cares for him- Dimitri has often wondered if anyone in his hometown even remembers he ever existed. To fail so immediately.... His stomach twists, old feelings he thought he'd forgotten as a 'monster' coming back with hardly any prompting at all.

Maybe the difference is too great, even with the metal bars gone between them. Still.... He promised. He has to fulfill it to some degree, as best he can.

"Am I making you miserable?" he asks quietly. He's not Claude. He's still not entirely sure he could constitute as a proper 'person' anymore, after years in the execution ring. All he can do is ask, because he knows not what else he can do.

--

Claude's eyes snap open immediately, with the sort of jolt one might get from an electric shock. He's genuinely startled, almost alarmed. "What? Of course not. Where'd you even get that idea?"

Claude might wish certain things between them were different, or that Dimitri cared more - could care more - about what Claude is trying to do, or the things Claude considers priorities. (And it's not like Claude's priorities are some subjective thing, either - he's got solid logic for making them priorities, logic he's already explained to Dimitri but which doesn't seem to have sunk in.) He might wish for more support from Dimitri, or for things to be easier for him in general; hell, if he wants to make completely illogical wishes for things he'd like but are unreasonable and impossible, he wishes Dimitri's mental and emotional damage could be magicked away and Dimitri could go back to being the boy he remembers as a child. (Not that Dimitri's the only one who's irrevocably changed since then.)

But of all the wishes Claude has, the reasonable and the outlandish and the selfish and the hopeful...none involve Dimitri not being part of his life. None of them are wishes that he'd left Dimitri in his cage. Certain things about Dimitri might cause him strain or stress, but the primary emotion Claude associates with him is anything but misery.

"I was just thinking, that's all."

--

Dimitri gives him an almost deadpan look. Claude is the most intelligent person he knows. (That he is arguably the only person Dimitri really knows is.... irrelevant.) Sometimes, however, he wonders about him. "You," he says bluntly, because there's nowhere else he could get the idea from. His hand moves down from Claude's face, going to rest down over his hands.

"You seemed tired." His tail flicks again, disrupting the grass behind them. Every little sound seems too loud in the forest, Dimitri has found.

--

"I was thinking about that boy Carnius was training." This isn't entirely, or even significantly, untrue. The thought's been floating around the tip of his tongue this entire conversation. "About how I tried to plant new ideas in his head, and if they'd ever take root. About what'd happen to him, if war broke out between the outraged Intseh he's been told are demons, and the church he never had any say in joining." His gaze drops to Dimitri's hands. "About the next crop of war orphans, and who they'll grow up swearing vengeance against."

--

"....So I was making you miserable."

As it turns out, sometimes when once gives a slightly roundabout answer, the meaning can get rather warped from the original intent. Dimitri holds breath for a moment before releasing it in a slow quiet sigh. His own head tilts down, looking at their joined hands. It's like looking through the bars of his childhood room again, pale fur standing out in contrast to that warm brown skin, both of them joined even if just for the moment.

"...The consequences of my actions, is what you're thinking of. When we return him, this one-" His thumb rubs against the bottles again. "-and I."

--

"No," Claude says, lifting a hand to tip Dimitri's chin up to look at him. "For one thing, the actions will be our actions, not yours. And what we're going to do needs to be done, whatever the consequences might be. The things that will happen if we don't will be just as terrible, if not moreso. So don't make it out as though these thoughts and what might happen in the future are all somehow because of you. I chose this. All of it. And the things you're talking about, the actions you're going to take, are actions you're taking on my account, not what you'd have done on your own."

He sighs. "I was just explaining...why I looked tired. It doesn't matter why I'm having those thoughts, or why those things might need to happen; it's not exactly cheerful stuff to dwell on, y'know?"

And the thought that you're not considering what might happen to him at all, under any circumstances, so long as you're not personally murdering him, isn't cheerful either, Claude thinks but doesn't say. Whether Dimitri slaughtered the church (and quite possibly members of the boy's family) in some violent rampage, or whether he became orphaned by the disgraced branch of the church stubbornly fighting for its survival...either situation could put the boy in circumstances that are quite familiar to Claude. It's the sort of thing he cares about...and the sort of thing he knows a lot of people don't.


It just stings to think that, even after Claude's done his best to spell it out for Dimitri, the Intseh still doesn't see any intrinsic value to worrying about kids like the one Claude used to be. Or other, indirect victims of violence - whether personal or global. If anything, Dimitri's going to wait to see if Claude can show that there's value to caring about such things, and it feels a bit like having to justify why anyone should have cared about him. Justify with a sort of personal bribe, no less; not 'you should care about this because it's important', but 'you should care about this because it's relevant to what you want'.

Claude is pretty sure he's being unfair, which is a large part of why he doesn't bring it up. Dimitri's never needed to think the way Claude is thinking. He's never needed to look to the future, or to consider the broader impact of his actions before; expecting him to be able to shift his thinking to do so all of a sudden, even with explanations, is probably irrational. Even if it was rational, Dimitri's going through so much already, adjusting to so many different things, that asking any more of him is ridiculous. It might be something for weeks, months in the future - not for tackling in the first 24 hours of freedom.

But there's a weight to such thoughts that can't be escaped, and Claude can't stop having them even if they are irrational to express or address. He thinks he's been keeping his expectations of Dimitri relatively reasonable for the circumstances, and the primary thing he expected that he's been disappointed on was that Dimitri would have a sympathy for, and a horror of, innocent people getting hurt. It's something they both understand.

--

It feels as though there's still something he's not being told... or that he's merely not understanding. Dimitri suspects that will happen a great deal with him, in the coming days- not understanding things. If it's already happening not even a day after he's left the church, he can already imagine how much worse it will be in the future. Yet he's not sure what else to do. He... wants to help Claude. To make him less tired, to make him smile like he had been so often in the nights before.

A lot of what's just been explained, a future and war and anything more complex than simply what's happening to him right now in the present... Dimitri suspects he can't even begin to help with that. So he tries, quietly floundering, to address one of the two things in that explanation he does know. "Do you want to hear about that boy? They continued to make him the one to feed me, while you were gone."

--

"Did they?" It arouses some small interest from Claude, in any case. Of course, he doubts if there's much for Dimitri to tell him. The boy is unlikely to have gone through a radical restructuring of thought, and even if he did, was unlikely to demonstrate it to Dimitri in any notable way.

--

So funny story-

"Yes. He was in the habit of occasionally bribing me when he came to feed me."

Something was sure happening when Claude wasn't looking. Still, Dimitri takes that as a good sign, and so he continues. "I do not think he knows what respect is."

--

"Bribing you?" Claude raises an eyebrow.

--

"With a sausage." Dimitri tilts his head to the side. "To keep me from attacking him like I did Carnius. That was never going to be a concern but I did not tell him that. Sometimes he would talk at me, although I think that was more out of nervousness than anything else."

--

"Did you ever talk back?"

--

Dimitri just levels Claude with a flat look. "The last time I attempted to talk with those of the church, they accused me of trickery and lies."

--

Claude shrugs. "I just meant along the lines of 'thank you' or something. Or even 'hi'."

--

"Still would be seen as trickery." But that's starting to get into darker territory- not exactly cheerful stuff to dwell on as Claude seems keen on putting it. Dimitri tries to remember what he'd listened to. "I think he wanted to speak to you again? He wanted to know more about animals."

--

"Really." Claude looks mildly surprised, and definitely thoughtful. "Well, when I go back next time I'll see if I can find him. Maybe he's got the makings of a decent hunter, rather than a guard..."

Because Claude does intend on visiting the church again, as though nothing at all had changed. Not for nearly as often or as long as he did while Dimitri was there, but to gather information, trade, and certainly to spy. He'll probably stop by there before they leave for Devan-Intseh, just to stock up on supplies for their traveling...and to let the church know he's taking a long journey, and to not expect him back for a few months.

"Of course, I also want to see what happened with the bishop I framed." Now that's an interesting tidbit he hadn't mentioned to Dimitri just yet.

-

There. That's a much better look on his face, and Dimitri looks visibly relieved, still as bad at hiding his emotions as ever. "There is certainly far less to guard, now." He can't really say to the extent what impression Claude left on the boy, especially with how he will admit he often outright ignored those of the church when they didn't purposefully antagonize him.... but an impression was apparently made. He resolves himself to try and remember more, just in case.

Later. Right now, his ears twitch up, and he raises an eyebrow at Claude. "...Why did you frame someone?" Dimitri doesn't ask how or when. If it's Claude, the answers feel almost worthless. Of course he had the time for it, somehow.

--

"Well," Claude says, lips quirking as he always does when he's being sly or talking about his having been sly, "with the entire night shift being doped up on sleeping poison on the night you escaped, don't you think there might be suspicions? And the thing about the church is that if you give them suspicions and nothing for them to crystalize around, they'll go with their own biases. The people they already dislike or distrust. For instance, people who don't necessarily operate in lockstep with them - free thinkers - or outsiders. People who can't protect themselves if the church decides to pin the crime on them. I couldn't just let them potentially condemn innocent people for your escape, could I? So I figured I'd just...you know, steer where the suspicion landed. To a nice, suitable target.

"I just so happened to pick the bishop with the most experience in summoning executioners. Terrible man. Xenophobic streak a mile wide. No relatives or anything to commend him, either. I hid a bit of my leftover sleeping poison in his effects the day before, while he was giving one of his infamously vitriolic sermons to the congregation. I also hid some Intsehli books behind the other books on his bookshelf, and made an impression of the seal he uses for official documents. Then I just had to forge a note to the chef - sealed with his seal - to add a certain provided substance to the night shift's meal, a product meant to 'assist in wakefulness'. That's more than enough to prompt a search of his quarters...where they'll find what I left them to find, hidden but not too hidden.

See? No need to worry even in the slightest.

That look on Claude's face has always indicated interesting things, and Dimitri leans forward instinctively for what he's certain will be a tale equal to it. He's not disappointed, letting out a small huff of a laugh under his breath when he hears just who Claude decided to target. Dimitri is fairly certain he's roughly familiar with who Claude might have gone after, as well, although he could point out numerous individuals high up in the church who had displayed even more negative reactions towards him than what he experienced on his average day. A 'demon' makes a good display, even locked away in his cage, for a rant on the 'terrors' and 'evils' beyond the 'good' city. Doubly so when antagonized to roar and snarl, or simply found on his more out of control days.

He wouldn't be sad for any of them.

"I cannot imagine a bishop's quarters easy to slip into."

--

"If anything, you've only gotten better since then..." A far cry from the boy who got caught sneaking to visit an Intseh, now look at him- framing a bishop while spiriting away the church's so valuable executioner in the dead of night. Still.... Dimitri's thumb worries at glass again.

His concern is obvious from toe to ear tip as he fidgets in place. It feels foolish to be concerned, but he can't help it.

--

"What's wrong?" Claude asks, who can read the signs easily enough. Dimitri really is bad at hiding his feelings on any given subject.

--

"I do not wish to bother you..." It's a rather weak protest, however, and his ears lower slightly more in his awkwardness. "It is simply.... that I cannot help with this. Sneaking is not a skill I possess.... And I am not someone that can easily go into places as it is." Even without being Intseh, well, he's not exactly built for it all. "I know you are more than talented... But I... worry."

--

Claude laughs. "Well, you don't really need to worry about sneaking around I've already done. Maybe the sneaking around I'm going to do..."

--

"I am." There's not even a pause or trace of embarrassment. Now that he knows even a fraction of just what Claude gets up to.... He still can't picture a future, not really, but he can tell there's a lot of worry there for his friend.

--

Claude smiles slightly, with only the faintest melancholy tinge to it. "Some things can only be faced alone, Dimitri," he replies, "whether others wish they could help with them or not. I couldn't be there for you for a lot of what the church put you through, and you didn't even get a choice in the matter. You don't need to feel guilty for not being able to help me with some of the things I choose to do."

--

"You did not get a choice either," Dimitri points out quietly, frowning. Claude had more choice to live, in a way that was almost free, which is a direct contrast to his experience... but, when it came to each other, neither of them got a choice in the matter. He looks down again, thumb still moving. "....Even if I do not feel guilty, I would still worry for you."

--

"Worrying about people you care about is just as unavoidable," Claude replies, smiling slightly. "And you care about me, right?" The question is how much, and in what way? Claude thinks now might be the time to broach that subject. Their mutual attraction is a fact they haven't discussed, but he has a sneaking suspicion it's going to become all the more pressing over the next 24 hours. They'd managed to get each other off while separated by a cage and in danger of being caught by guards; he's not insensible to what's likely to happen when they're fed, well-rested, and have perfect freedom while left to themselves.

It might be better to talk about it before their mutual interest takes the reins completely.

--

"I tried very hard not to." Especially in those first few nights, where he was convinced that something terrible would go wrong- Claude disappearing as easily as he had come, all of it some scheme or plot the ends of which he couldn't fathom, simple fear. But....

Dimitri glances up at Claude from beneath his bangs. "But.... I do not believe there is a person alive, and with sense, who would not come to know you and not care. You are too kind, and too clever. The kind of person who deserves such care. And... that is even without all you have done for me, even when I gave you no cause to, with the way i acted. So yes... I care for you greatly."

--

"So, is it gratitude and admiration you feel?" Claude asks, smiling at him. "Or is there more than that?"

--

This is, Dimitri belatedly realizes, perhaps a deeper conversation than what he thought he was signing up for. Embarrassed, he glances away. There is so much more, that much can't be denied... but that is one of many things that he hasn't had nearly any time to sort out, like so much else. Perhaps that was unfair to Claude, to not give him priority like this when Dimitri has clearly been a priority for him. (That literally his entire life is so overwhelming now is no excuse, in Dimitri's mind, no matter how maybe it should be.) Yet he doesn't want to give Claude something so, so... half done, half thought out. It is as he said that Claude truly deserves great care.

But...

"There... can be no doubt between either of us that there is more." His chin tilts up a bit more, giving away how he's looking back to Claude again. "Not with... what we have done together." Dimitri doesn't know the proper word for what they did. He wouldn't say it even if he did. "That, as well, is not something I can imagine any person able to resist- not the act!" Jolting upright, he looks to Claude a little more properly now even while clearly worked up. "I meant, merely- I apologize greatly, I did not think..." A nice background noise of grass being hit has started up, thanks to Dimitri's tail thrashing about from excess embarrassment.

"The words I meant to say are that... You are truly stunning, Claude. Even only one of your smiles could put the light of a full moon to shame, and I have seen so many more, matching face for face, your smile for each phase. I cannot imagine how another person could not see such things, and not feel a stirring of something more, from how easily you smile to others to when I have seen your smile sharper than any blade." Where his and Claude's hands are still touching, Dimitri is going to worry a scar into Claude's skin at this rate. "And the way your body changed as you handle your weapon... I had known your fingers light, clever, but such knowledge could never have prepared me to see it, the elegant way your fingers work, the way your muscles pulled in with every draw..."

If any grass remains behind him, it will be a miracle. "All you do is attractive, with all that changes being on how much I am able to notice, I have found. It is not only with the physical, although that is..." His ears flick down, giving him away again when he looks away. "To say it is only the physical is doing you a great disservice, when I have seen you weave words so beautifully and dangerously . Admiration is not the most fitting word for it, when I see you so skillful. It is breathtaking, intriguing, and that you pair it with such a heart...."

Dimitri raises his head up entirely, brow drawn. "There is so much more that I feel, more than I can even name, and I feel shame that I cannot even begin to give you even half the words that must exist to describe you, or the feelings in my chest. You deserve that much at the very least, and more besides."

--

Claude is staring at Dimitri by the end of it, mouth slightly slack. If Dimitri enjoys seeing more of Claude, learning new expressions and witnessing new sides of him, then this will be a delightful novelty; not only is Claude utterly rocked back on his heels, but he's blushing. Neither of those are something Dimitri's seen before.

"That's..." Claude shakes his head, trying to snap out of being thunderstruck enough to give Dimitri some kind of response to that, he deserves a response to that, it's like the man plucked his heart out of his chest and offered it to him, but what the hell is the response to that? Claude's been told how worthless and lowly he is for much of his life, but this is the first time he's truly felt unworthy of something. "Come on, you're talking me up too much. You sure you're not just biased? I'm hardly the world's most humble man, but - nobody could live up to what you're describing."

--

New faces of Claude's- or even old expressions, coming back for the occasion- will be something Dimitri will never tire of. He was already starting to lean forward slightly as he spilled out his mess of feelings, too overwhelmed with them to stay quiet. With this, he edges forward even more without thinking, as if to make up for the way Claude has rocked back in pure surprise.

"You have lived up to it every time I have seen you," he says quietly but deeply fervid. "That is what I feel, Claude, and I cannot say if it is biased or not, only that is my heart."

--

"It really is," Claude murmurs, eyes locked on his face. He lifts a hand to cup Dimitri's cheek. "If there's one thing I admire more about you than anything else, it's how you say what you mean, and show what you feel. You're more honest than anyone I've ever known...and it's precisely because of that that I can know you better than anyone I've ever known, too. And just about everything there is to know about you...it's impressive.

"Whatever virtues I've got, or that you think I've got, you have all the ones I don't. Honesty and integrity and loyalty...fearlessness, too." His thumb brushes over fur. "Virtues I gave up because they're dangerous in a world that doesn't appreciate them enough, but you held onto them even when you were punished for it. You're a stained glass window in a world full of rocks. Improbably, ridiculously, unwisely beautiful, in a world meant to break everything you are."

Claude shakes his head. "I didn't just save you because you're my friend and I cared about you from the old days, although that would've been reason enough. I didn't just try to find the old you because I missed him, or because you deserved a life without constant bitterness, although that would've been reason enough too. It's also because it's...important, that people can be like you. Not just to me or to you, even, but for the world to be worth anything. If all people like you have to look forward to is being broken for having good qualities, then what's the point? What kind of future is even worth looking towards otherwise?"

--

Dimitri has been called a lot of things, by human tongues. This... is the first time he's ever been referred to as beautiful, in any way. He raises his hand up, hesitant, slow, until he can curl it over Claude's fingers on his face. He wants to protest. He wants to ask if those virtues have really remained untouched in him, if he's worthy.

If Claude truly believes him to be so much better.... He doesn't know how, not entirely, but he must live up to it. He must.

"The world's worth... is a great deal to place on your own shoulders. A worthy future is almost as much. They cannot be things that can only be faced alone, can they?" He turns his face to Claude's palm. "I have a choice now... do I not?"

--

"Well, it's like they always say," Claude says lightly. "You know - 'if you want something done right, do it yourself'?" He grins at Dimitri. "And we know better than anyone some of the people who shouldn't have their hands on the reins of the future. A lot of people think they know that, of course...but I think our methods, and theirs, speak for themselves.

He's curious what Dimitri means, though. "What choice are you talking about?"

-

"You said I did not get a choice in whether I became the church's executioner or not. I was a prisoner, forced into a role without my consent. But now I am free..." A soft sigh, and his lift speak into Claude's skin. "I am free." Three words that still seem so dizzying.

"So I have a choice, now." Technically, he has many choices, but Dimitri is focused on the one. "And I... do not want you bearing so much alone."

--

"I'm not, am I?" Claude raises an eyebrow. "I have you." Which isn't precisely a guarantee, as Claude had been actively thinking not so many minutes ago...but he'd also been thinking how unreasonable it was to expect or ask Dimitri for any more than is already being asked of him. And Dimitri's presence is at least helpful, with or without his active support; Claude is fine with the other man believing that to be enough, at least for now.

--

"Only now." Literally, only now, with how soon it is after his escape. Dimitri knows there is no possible way for him to have made any meaningful impact in Claude's burden, not yet. "There is more to do.... There is more I want to do, for you. I simply..." And this is where he flounders. "I am not certain of what that is yet."

--

"You don't have to rush right from being forced to serve the church into choosing to serve me, Dimitri," Claude says gently. "You haven't been free for a whole 24 hours yet. You don't need to be worrying about what you can or can't do for me already."

--

"It is far too late for that," Dimitri informs him. "Besides, are you not mistaken? I have no interest in serving you." He quietly takes a deep breath before leaning in, pressing a soft and fleeting kiss to Claude's mouth. "I want to care for you. That is all."

--

Claude's eyes flutter closed for the duration of that kiss, and he leans forward in a reluctance to let it break when Dimitri pulls away. "...I know that. But you're putting a lot of emphasis on your making yourself useful to me, pulling your weight...I don't need that stuff from you, Dimitri. It'd be nice, if and when you can give it, but you don't need to justify being here with me to anybody. I want you with me because you're you. Anything you do for me is just a bonus."

--

"And if I need it for myself?" There's a light clink, the result of one of his claws brushing against glass. "For so many years... All I have done is kill, and do nothing. I... want to do things, now that I can. And I care for you. So..." For him, wouldn't it be two birds with one stone? Dimitri supposes he simply can't... sit by the side.

"There's just so much to do..." And that's the part that overwhelms him.

--

"Taking things slowly might be something you need for yourself, too." Claude arches an eyebrow at him. "Anyway, if you need to do things for your own peace of mind, that's understandable, but driving yourself crazy trying to figure out things to do when you don't have any ideas yet...that's kind of doing the opposite of contributing to your peace of mind, isn't it? So maybe you should just relax and take things slowly, and when ideas occur to you, then you can act on them. But don't strain yourself to come up with them."

--

Promptly, Dimitri's ears flick down, and he curls both hands around the glass bottles, claws clicking against one another now. "What if... what I want to do... is not something that would be advisable, when we are in hiding?"

--

"So you do have an idea after all?" Claude tilts his head. "What is it?"

--

"It is... very base. It would not be useful in any way whatsoever. Merely, it was the first thing that occurred to me, when I stepped outside, but I did not want to do something without telling you, and the church would be keeping an eye out...." The embarrassment is starting to come off of him in waves. Still, somehow, he manages to get it out.

"I... had thought... I would like to go running?"

--

Claude blinks...then smiles. "You can do that. All we need to do is get further away from anywhere that can be seen from the road, and then you can go nuts."