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Church Source 10
His relief is palpable. "Do you need to get dressed, then? It is cold slightly, I think-" Dimitri's cold tolerance is through the roof, along with him possessing fur, so he's actually not entirely sure how this is for Claude.
--
"This is what I've got." Claude looks mildly amused. He's wearing his armor; that's about it, at least for this time of year. He'll need more soon, but carrying extra burdens isn't something one generally does while traveling unless it's strictly necessary. "A little chill isn't going to kill me." He gets to his feet. "Maybe I'll borrow your cloak while you're tearing around."
--
"I will not tear around..." Dimitri's own tone betrays that he's actually not certain on this fact (and is in fact completely wrong). rising up to his feet as well, he looks down to the bottles he's still carefully cradling. "...Is there... somewhere we could put them? To... watch things, while not being seen."
He's not a person with any knowledge of the spiritual... but if there is one of his kin trapped within, as Dimitri feels would have happened to him, then he doesn't want to leave them stuck in yet another place while only 'technically' free. Even if they can't recognize it... He wants them to have the chance of enjoying the forest as well.
--
"I can look after them while you're having fun." Claude grins, holding out his hands. "I'm pretty lazy; I'm just gonna sit back and watch anyway."
--
"I am not sure I would use such a word to describe someone who broke into a bishop's quarters...." Still, after only a moment of hesitation does Dimitri carefully transfer the bottles from his hands to Claude's. There is no one else, he's sure, who would keep them so safe. "Then, do we merely continue in that direction...?" He points down into the forest, away from the cabin and the road connected to it.
--
Claude nods. He takes the bottles carefully, tucking them into his pouch for now; he can take them out when they get where they're going, but no need to risk randomly dropping them by holding them for the whole walk. "There's a small lake that way; it's one of the reasons the cabin was built here. More to the point, the trees thin out around there, which means you'll have more room to run."
--
"I see." The mention of a lake reminds him of something, however, and Dimitri pauses, tail twitching, as he digs through the hazy memories of the night prior. It hits him in short order. "You wanted to fish, didn't you?"
--
"I did," Claude agrees with amusement, "but I was planning on doing that after breakfast." Which neither of them has had.
--
It's almost possible to see the way Dimitri's thoughts are actually churning and plopping into place within his skull. "Should.... we eat first?" he asks, trying to remember how a regular person's day should go and completely failing.
--
"If we only want to make one trip there, and do the fishing while we're there, then we'd better," Claude replies, resting a hand on his hip. "Fishing takes awhile, y'know. We'd be starving almost before we caught anything to eat! But if you want to go run around, come back, eat, and then go fishing, then maybe breakfast can wait."
--
Another moment as Dimitri puts that all together before nodding. He's going to remember this for later, other days. "Then... Let's do that." He's trusting Claude on this one- something he'd never think to do before but that he's quickly learning will never be a mistake. Now that that's decided, he begins to head in the direction that Claude indicated, constantly looking back to make sure that the other is following.
His eagerness is really starting to show now as well... His steps seem to speed up slightly, eagerly, before Dimitri remembers to rein himself back, and his tail's twitching becomes all the more pronounced.
--
Claude follows, grinning to himself. Seeing Dimitri so excited for something feels...wonderful, really. It's the kind of thing he's wanted for Dimitri ever since they were kids, and really has only glimpsed once or twice - usually when they were little and Claude brought Dimitri some treat, like the honey candy. Now he's getting to see it in the man as an adult - not just enthusiasm for something personally fulfilling, but the opportunity to have it.
It only takes about fifteen minutes' walk to reach the lake. There's a decent stretch of open ground before the lake's edge, as Claude had promised - and if Dimitri wants to run through the trees, those are close at hand as well. He's got his pick of places to romp.
--
Seeing a body of water like this- even if it's small, even if he can see the opposite shore in a way he never could in his childhood memories- grips Dimitri for a moment. His hand reaches up, claws kneading through the short fur over his chest. When's the last time he felt this excited, felt this genuinely eager? The executions never did, only flipped his mind into fighting for survival, and sometimes worse. It was only adrenaline. This... It's so much more. Dimitri glances back at Claude, as if seeking reassurance that all of this is alright, before he turns back to the stretch of land in front of him.
Dimitri only means to take a step, yet that turns on something in him. Before he knows it, a step turns into a jolt forward turns into a full on sprint along the shoreline. There's dirt beneath his toes- not hard packed earth, not stone, dirt, damp and soft and easy to tear up as he goes running with no interest in holding back. This becomes a problem in short order, Claude will get to see, when so much force and soft ground send Dimitri tripping over himself into a rolling ball of Intseh. When he stops, sitting up in a daze, Dimitri can only stare for a moment before just... laughing. It leaves him once, a sharp delighted burst, and hearing himself make such a noise.... It's not the same kind as back in the church, when he'd laughed at Carnius' misfortune. It's just... It's just a laugh, bright, happy, and realizing that he might have something to actually laugh about brings the rest of it out to fill the quiet air of the lake. He pulls himself back onto his feet immediately, still laughing as he runs off again.
There's no plan to his actions; Dimitri runs just for the sake of running. He circles back, takes sudden sharp turns, at one point races back into the trees to claw his way up a tree apparently just to jump back down again so he can keep running.
It's bigger than his room, his cage, the arena. Everything is so big, so much, and he can actually reach all of it.
--
Claude, for his part, finds a fallen tree near the shoreline to sit on, pulling the bottles out of his pouch again and setting them down on the ground nearby. He's less of a proponent of believing that the Intseh whose body (bodies?) now make up the contents of those bottles get anything out of things like scenery the way Dimitri does, but even if he weren't willing to go along with it for Dimitri's sake alone, he's got nothing against treating them that way on the off chance. There's a lot of considerations those Intseh weren't given; anything at all to make up for that is worth doing.
He watches Dimitri's antics with incomparable fondness, a smile on his lips. This? This alone is worth every risk he ran. This alone would be worth being caught for.
--
Maybe it's the excess of energy that comes with rediscovering freedom. Maybe it's just years of being an executioner that gave him stamina. Whatever it is, it takes ages before Dimitri finally collapses with a flop onto the more grassy areas near the forest. He lays there a bit, body heaving with every breath that takes in the smell of dirt and grass and water. It's.... amazing. So much so that he doesn't know how to process it, entirely- has very possibly been out of it for the last few minutes. Laying down like this allows him to just... get a moment for his brain to reconcile reality to itself, when reality for once is pleasant.
Finally, he pushes himself and only wobbles a little bit as he heads to where Claude is sitting. "I apologize," he says, voice rough from running nonstop at full speed. "I'm free, I shouldn't act so-" So bestial, maybe, is the word he's looking for. Dimitri just makes a sort of helpless gesture for what he means. "It's simply- grass smells so good, doesn't it?"
For all that he's apologizing, Dimitri is actually... grinning, now, an almost shy curl of his mouth and just the barest hint of fang that's anything but a threat. He feels so good. It's been a long time since that's happened.
--
Claude grins broadly at Dimitri. "Being free is all about being able to do the stuff you want to do. Even if it's wild or ridiculous. What're you apologizing for?"
He pats the stump next to him. "But you're right, grass does smell good. Enjoy it while you can, since it'll be winter before you know it." Claude says the word 'winter' with clear distaste.
--
Tail swishing out of the way, Dimitri takes a ginger seat. With the table in the cabin, at least the food had been an adequate distraction. Just... sitting on something makes him feel strangely like he doesn't know what to do with his arms or hands, even though he does. Resting them along his knees, Dimitri blinks over at Claude's description. Or, rather, his tone.
"Will it be a problem as you're hunting...?" Animal habits do change as the seasons change.... He remembers learning that young.
--
"Not for the hunting itself, no. For me, yes." Claude's all but sulking at the thought of it. He's really not fond of the cold.
--
....This... is incredibly cute. Dimitri doesn't mean this in a condescending way. He genuinely can't take his eyes off of Claude, utterly endeared by how so cunning and skillful a man can transform into a sulking child at the prospect of cold. Dimitri's tail twitches minutely.
"It will be easier with shelter, will it not? And you said that we will be traveling south, where it will be warmer."
--
"True." Claude sighs. "Maybe we can migrate for the whole winter? I wonder if I can bargain that much time away from the church without them kicking up a fuss..."
If Dimitri was embarrassed that he was perhaps being silly or childish, then this is extremely reassuring because apparently, Claude has that kind of side to him too.
--
"Perhaps it will snow too much for safe travel." Dimitri doesn't actually suggest lying about there not being safe travel, despite knowing Claude can lie and is very good at lying. He's too distracted by the way Claude's mouth is sticking out as he pouts about the weather.
Yet something else occurs to him, and Dimitri shifts off of the stump to tentatively sit on the fallen tree itself, besides Claude.
--
Claude seems pleased enough about the position change, letting himself almost press against Dimitri with how close they're sitting. "I could probably get them to buy that..."
--
Oh, he didn't even have to make any sort of move himself. Dimitri supposes that works too, although he has some opinions on how it should be. He closes what little distance is left, wrapping his arm around Claude's shoulders to pull him in. Going even further, he directs his friend's head into the crook of his neck.
It had been warm enough in the bed, hadn't it?
"And if nothing else... there is always this."
--
Claude melts immediately, nuzzling into the soft fur of Dimitri's neck. "Mm...that's true. I've never had a walking, self-heating fur blanket to see me through the winter before." His eyes are sparkling mischievously.
--
The first time, Dimitri thought it had been because Claude had simply been tired. Rather quickly, he's beginning to realize that this might simply be the reaction every time. Well... He doesn't really have any problem with that, truly.
He nuzzles into Claude's hair. "I like holding you." So no argument.
--
"Do you?" Claude laughs. "I like being held by you, so that's convenient. Everything about you feels good."
--
"After your complaints, I see why." It's only a light jest, and he shifts his head to look up into the sky. Things have become much brighter, sun further along in the sky, with how long he's been at it. "I could probably carry you to the cabin..."
....
"At a different time. I think I may have tired myself out...."
--
"Well, it's not like we have tp rush back...or that my legs don't work." Claude grins. "Mind you, I don't have any actual complaints about being pampered like that..."
--
"I think I would like to do so." He's starting to see why Claude fed him so much... There's something really nice and satisfying about just pulling him close and feeling the resulting happy melt. Still, now that they're just sitting there, with nowhere pressing to be...
"...What do you normally do here? Besides hunt. When it is only yourself." A question that's a far cry from the stubborn refusal to inquire about Claude's life when they first met each other after so long.
--
"Like, to kill time?" Claude muses on the question. "I don't actually have a lot of time to just do nothing. I don't usually stay in one place for as long as we're going to here, for instance. And you'll be surprised how much there is to do from day to day. If I hunt, then I'll have to clean the kill, dry the hides, cook and preserve the meat, set aside the parts I don't use for nature to reclaim. Then there's basic maintenance - things like sharpening my knives, repairing my clothes, checking Wyvern's tack for wear and tear. Oh - tack is what you call the stuff you put on a horse for riding. Saddles, bridles, whatever."
Claude's idly ticking stuff off on his fingers where he's leaning on Dimitri. "If I'm out in the wilderness, then I'll either need to set up or break down my camp. Even on nice nights, it's good to have a tent set up, unless you want to wake up to foxes or deer sniffing your face." He laughs. "And then it's hard to say whose heart tries to leap out of their chest when you wake up more, yours or theirs. If you're unlucky and you can't find two trees a sufficient length apart to string a rope between - and a decent chunk of setting up a camp is finding a good place for one, with a water source nearby and ideally those trees - that might mean having to cut wood to decent lengths for posts. Then you need to clear a spot for a fire, and collect wood for a fire...if you're lucky, again. If you're unlucky, it might be pouring rain and you just get to be cold and soaked all night. You need to plan around horse care, of course - especially if it's raining and you can't count on firelight, which means you might have to stop and see to your horse before it's too dark to be able to. Grooming can take an hour by itself, if you've had a hard or dirty ride. And, of course, none of this takes into account the time you might spend traveling in a day, or going into town and trading, or sleeping and mealtimes."
Claude pauses, looking up at Dimitri. "...anyway, long story short, you don't usually have a lot of free time in my line of work unless you're staying in a town. Or a monastery, as the case may be. And how you kill time in places crowded with other people is totally different from how you might kill time on your own in places like this. On the rare occasions I have free time traveling, though, I usually go over whatever material I might have liberated from the church. Sometimes I take notes, or draw maps. All assuming the weather's not too damp to break out anything papery, of course. Or I might practice my archery, explore the surroundings to get an idea of where animals frequent and plan my hunting for the next day, that sort of thing. That's...about it, really."
Claude has told Dimitri he's a hunter. He may never have elaborated on how a large chunk of that job is, apparently, being a full-time nature survivalist - possibly because it's common knowledge among other people what sorts of things being a hunter entails. But for Dimitri, who's been caged his whole life, he may never even have considered any of the complexities beyond the quite literal act of hunting down game. It'd appear Claude keeps himself quite busy...and also that he's quite skilled.
--
Claude's right: Dimitri is surprised. He'd known, on a theoretical sort of level, that to be a hunter like Claude had to take a good deal of work. After all, if he had made himself valuable to the church, then wouldn't that make sense? Yet there's knowing something must be, and knowing just all that entails.
All he can do, has ever been able to do for a long while now, is listen, and Claude might notice him mirroring the way he counts on his fingers. It's not an exact match for match, however, although close enough. Dimitri seems to wait until Claude has finished explaining one aspect of what he does, and raises a finger based on his own thoughts on the matter. Hunting, cleaning the kill? He... thinks he could do those, if he were taught. Repairing clothes he's not so certain of, however, because he suspects those involve needles, and careful fingers, and his clawed hands aren't suitable for any of that.
Still, that has left him wondering things now. "Am I taking away from important time then...?"
--
"Nope." Claude chuckles. "For one thing, a lot of those tasks aren't necessary when you've got a place like this cabin to stop over at. I also don't need to worry about hunting much since I knew I'd be bringing you here and stocked the pantry in advance. I'll need to bring in some game to supplement what we've got, but that's all. And one deer - which won't be hard to find around here - will be enough to feed us both for days."
He slips an arm around Dimitri's waist. "Besides, why wouldn't this be important time?" He gives Dimitri a sly, flirtatious smile, looking at him out of the corner of his eye.
--
"I see..." He eases up slightly, shoulders losing the tension in them while his ears give a slight flick. Then he has time to adjust to the things that need doing. By the time they set off, he'll have learned one thing. That can be one goal. What that thing is.... Dimitri frowns down at his fingers. Well, he'll have to figure that out in due time.
It's all stuff he's figuring out in his head as Claude speaks up, which means he's not even looking at him when he answers back. "It was only running... I liked it, of course I did, but I do not want to be.... wholly selfish." Finally, he looks down at Claude and pauses at the look on his face.
....He feels as though he's missing something. Or just missed something.
--
Claude just laughs, ducking his head. Oh, Dimitri, never change. "You know, you're obviously different in a lot of ways from when we were little...but in some ways you're still so much the same." This is said with deep affection; Dimitri may not know what Claude is referring to, but evidently Claude likes it.
Obviously they hadn't flirted as kids, but Claude distinctly remembers that Dimitri would just be completely oblivious to things sometimes. Subtleties or sarcasm that even a younger Claude knew how to use. Then, as now, Claude found it incredibly endearing - both because it's charming that someone as intelligent and noble and admirable as Dimitri can be so hilariously naive, and also because it's reassuring to know that Dimitri is so honest and earnest that not only can he be completely trusted, but he doesn't even understand dissembling in others.
--
Alright, laughter he understands, he's not so dense as to miss when something he's done is being laughed about. Tail flicking, he huffs and nudges Claude's face up. "Were you teasing me just now?" He can't see how it was teasing, but Dimitri is willing to admit his own flaws. Some are vast, and many, and depressing, but some he knows he's just... He is simply as he is, and that can't be helped.
--
"Well, originally I was flirting with you, but it's definitely teasing now, yeah." Claude grins up at him, eyes glinting wickedly.
--
...Oh.
"Oh," Dimitri says, echoing his own thoughts immediately, before his ears flick down. "I- I was busy thinking. Of course I would miss that when..." Even he seems to know that excuse wouldn't really change much, however. It's floundering rather much on his tongue.
--
"Maybe so. But you can't tell me it's not funny." Claude's smirk is entirely too smug. "Besides, you've always been fun to tease."
--
"I had always suspected that you found all fun to tease and run circles around." Granted, he's rarely ever seen Claude interact with other people- the incident with Carnius was really the only time and even then that was more like verbal attempted murder.
--
"It's true," Claude agrees, without the slightest hint of remorse. "But it's always more fun with you than anyone else. But most things are more fun with you than anyone else."
--
Carefully, Dimitri reaches up with both hands- one still around Claude's shoulders- to tilt his head back so that Dimitri can lean in close. "You," he informs the other man quiet seriously, "are a menace." And he gives him another kiss.
--
Claude returns the kiss readily, lifting a hand to rest on the back of Dimitri's neck. He considers, reflectively, how hopelessly in love he is; he's been more or less aware of it for quite awhile now, but something about this kiss in particular is making him almost violently conscious of it. The relaxed freedom they can enjoy together now, Dimitri's happiness, the casual teasing, Dimitri's affectionate chiding, the fact that Dimitri has instigated this particular kiss and how warm it is...
Yeah, he's completely gone. Claude doesn't feel any particular chagrin or regret over this; at worst, there's some distant unease in that, all things considered, there are some things he really needs to discuss with Dimitri at some point. But even that isn't the overriding emotion he feels in regards to this. Mostly what he feels is a mixture of a distant sort of surprise - that he can feel this way, or this much, about anyone - and some idle curiosity as to just how he's going to handle something like this. Obviously Dimitri's presence in his life from now on is non-negotiable; it's just a question of how he's going to navigate it.
It's a question he doesn't have an answer to yet, but he's not really worried about it at the moment. He's got faith in his own cleverness - and his stubbornness - that when he needs to find a solution, he will. In the meantime, why not enjoy himself?
--
Now that he actually has the time for it, can lean into this feeling and enjoy it... Dimitri is rather unskilled at kissing. Oh, he certainly likes it, even so, but he's well aware of it. But the thing about having time is that he can take some of it for his own, learning how to do it better, mimicking things Claude has done in the past when he's initiated. It's slow, and soft, and it makes his heart tremble in his chest. When he finally pulls away, even that is simply to stay this close to Claude.
He's seen Claude so many times now, but always on the other side of bars no matter when. The bars of that childhood door. The bars of his cage. Even the arena had some bars, just in case. Now... There's been nothing between them for hours and hours, at this point, yet Dimitri still takes the time to admire it, how close the two of them are, can be allowed to be. It's so...
"I don't feel like myself anymore," he breathes softly, rubbing his thumb into those soft curls. "Ever since we escaped. It's like... shedding, for a new season. It's so different."
Nothing has really changed, of course. It's as Claude pointed out, has pointed out numerous times before. Without the bars and chains and violence of the church... A lot more parts of him have a chance to breathe, again. Have a reason to exist, and don't necessarily have to fear their existence. It's not longer everything else that feels like a dream.
--
"A good kind of different, I hope." Claude smiles up at him. He thinks he could stay like this...pretty much forever. He'd like to tell Dimitri so, too. But, as with his eager interest in Dimitri's knot, Claude refrains from being too forthright with Dimitri about how he's feeling in the moment.
Half of the reason - that it's frankly embarrassing how into Dimitri he is - remains the same. The other half is different, though; with the knot, he'd held back from saying anything because they wouldn't have been able to do anything about it, and it would have just tormented them both - but especially Dimitri, who was the one with restricted freedom and a history of being taunted with what he couldn't have. Holding off on telling Dimitri how unabashedly in love with him Claude is, by contrast, is motivated by Claude's awareness of how overwhelmed with everything Dimitri currently is. Dimitri's already having to cope with a ridiculous amount of things all at once; there's no reason Claude has to shove such weighty emotions on him, too. It's not like it can't wait. And it's not like they have to discuss it in-depth for Claude to be able to act on his feelings, mostly.
The time will come. Claude just doesn't think it's now.
--
"I think... besides a slow death, there are few kinds of differences which would be anything but good." Dimitri's only point of reference beyond his life as an executioner, after all, are childhood memories he's half forgotten. For a good decade and more, he's flatlined right at the very bottom of existence- something he's sure he told Claude at one point in some philosophical bickering. (The third meeting, if he's recalling correctly.) Really, there's only ever been 'up' to go. He was.... scared of that up, bitter of another failure, another thing he could never really touch, but...
His claws gently thread through Claude's hair. "...I think.... I've changed my mind. On what I said back then, the philosophy of how to exist." It's only been so long, but he feels tentatively confident saying that.
--
"Have you?" Claude's eyes are dancing. That Dimitri's already overhauling his entire opinion on existence after less than 24 hours of freedom is the most positive sign he can imagine; he's delighted. He wasn't worried Dimitri was completely beyond recovery...okay, that's a lie, he was a little worried. But he was worried recovery would take ages. He's sure it will nonetheless, in little ways, but it seems like the big things are shifting already. Notable progress will happen quickly. Dimitri's getting to a place he can be happy on the road to recovery - however long it is, and it may well be lifelong - will happen quickly. That's what Claude was worried would take forever, and he's happy to have been wrong.
Dimitri isn't staying caged within his own mind.
"What's changed in your thinking?"
-
"I'm afraid I cannot give you something truly indepth... Not like before." That argument, that way of thinking, that had all been bitterly cultivated for years and years. Dimitri has had more spare time than he knew what to do with or ever wanted just stewing in his own hatred, his own anger, his own misery. This is all.... new. Or perhaps not new, but so different that he's still remembering all the little things again. His head tilts down slightly, forehead bumping against Claude's.
"I merely think... I began to wait for your visits. Even when I did not want to be happy about them... They were still something. Between me and the inevitable end I had envisioned for myself." For dying, violently, after causing what important death he could manage. "And with waiting.... with staying alive, instead of killing myself as soon as I could manage, this was able to happen. That..." He pauses, shaking his head.
"My thoughts are not complete, I apologize. They are... only some of many new things."
--
"It's not like you owe me a wholly coherent explanation of the way your thinking's changed, so why are you apologizing to me for not being able to give one?" Claude lifts a hand to stroke Dimitri's cheek. "But if looking forward to my visits helped you keep going...I can't ask for much better than that.
"Not that I can take all the credit - or even most of it. You stayed alive for years with nothing to look forward to at all. You probably won't believe this, what with the hallucinations and everything you went through, but...you're unbelievably mentally resilient, Dimitri. You didn't break, or go crazy, or kill yourself. Not in all those years." His fingers brush along fur. "I don't know if the hallucinations helped with that or what, but something you did worked. Because believe me, other people would have fallen apart."
--
Automatically, Dimitri tilts his face into Claude's touch. If there had been anything he'd been the most suspectible to in his imprisonment, it had just been touching Claude. First, of course, to make sure he was there. But also just.... Being able to touch someone, of his own will, was so much. Being touched in turn is something even more, something that never fails to make his heart tighten.
"I was simply... too stubborn to want to die." Not without doing... something about his situation, helpless as every option had seemed at the time. His eye slides shut. "Although I am not certain if we can speak about not breaking or losing my mind when hallucinations are spoken about in the same breath."
--
"We can," Claude says firmly. "Firstly, because you didn't give up or lose yourself completely, even with the hallucinations. Secondly...I haven't heard much about you still having them since I started visiting you." He cocks an eyebrow. "Am I wrong about that?"
--
"Ah.... It depends."
A reassuring statement, no doubt. Still, Dimitri rouses himself enough to pull away so this is a proper conversation and tilts his head to one side again. "When you were first gone for some days... I hallucinated to some extent. Not of you, however." Dimitri is still waiting to see when and if that will happen, if he's honest with himself. It feels inevitable, even now that he's free. "Sometimes they would pop up, when you left me alone. They were not always... a lot, and they seemed to ease back, I believe." Trauma and nothing but his own head lead to a bad combination. With the inclusion of just another factor to better occupy his attention- quiet repetition of language lessons he'd picked up from Claude- and better food to help his body, it was amazing what improvement could be made.
But, most importantly in Dimitri's opinion-
"There were also no executions besides the one you first saw me at..." Reaching up, he lightly taps the side of his head. "They become far worse, in the aftermath. Depending on the execution in particular."
--
"And here I thought it was all my doing." Claude smiles. "Ah well. But that still makes it pretty obvious, doesn't it? You don't hallucinate because you lack mental stability. It's more like...that's an outlet. When you're in too much pain, or too alone, your hallucinations are how you cope. They don't come when you don't need them. Without them, your head would probably be messed up all the time." Claude brushes fingers through Dimitri's hair, pushing it away from his eye. "Hopefully you won't need them at all anymore."
--
Even after having his hair washed by this same hand, it's still odd to feel it just be there casually, and Dimitri shakes his head slightly. That this makes his hair start to fall back into place is, well... That just happens.
"Perhaps... If it could be that easy..." Well, he wouldn't complain. "I wonder if my memory will become better as well...."
--
"Who knows." Claude tilts his head. "I don't remember you mentioning any issues with your memory before, though..."
--
"I didn't think to." Dimitri shrugs. "Although... If you had not seemed like a hallucination at the time, I imagine I would not have told you either. It is... normal." A very fucked up normal, but it's such a regular part of his life that Dimitri doesn't think to mention some things over others. "I believe they are tied with the hallucinations as well... Or perhaps it is coincidence." His mental state has been so unsteady that Dimitri hadn't really cared about any minute differences.
"But... You know how it is, to get lost in your imagination while you are doing other things? Like when we were children."
--
"Mmhm?" Claude leans against him, listening, a slight crease of concern to his brow.
--
"It is... similar to that, then. That is the closest I can think to compare it to." In contrast to Claude, Dimitri doesn't show any concern, because there isn't any, at least not on his end. "I would be doing something... and it would be as if I had dozed and suddenly I would realize much time had passed. Sometimes with being in the cage. Sometimes mid-execution, and I would only come to my senses when the guards and controllers were forcing my head under a sprout of water to rid me of blood."
Dimitri shrugs. "I did not like when they occurred during executions, but I suppose it was a far more pleasant experience than the hallucinations." Dissociating is just nothing at all.
--
"When it happened during executions...you're sure that was your memory, and not their control magic?" Claude asks, purely out of curiosity.
--
"Their control magic is a different feeling..." His eye narrows, lip curling up over a fang, and he pulls away even further as he looks out towards the lake. "And... they have not had cause to use it in that manner in a very long time."
--
"Hey...sorry for bringing up a touchy subject." Claude lightly touches Dimitri's arm, but doesn't attempt to re-establish contact otherwise.
--
There's a sharp twitch, muscles tensing, before Dimitri eases up with a slow breath following shortly after. "...I brought it up first. Perhaps that is also to blame, the magic they used. Time will tell, I suppose." His tail snaps from side to side, aggravated despite his own words. "Did you want to head back to the cabin now?"
--
Claude feels as though things took a sharp downturn here, although he's not quite sure if it was something he did specifically, or if it can really be salvaged. He withdraws his hand, looking - not so much upset as preoccupied. He's looking for a solution. "I'm more interested in what you want. But I'd be surprised if you haven't worked up an appetite..."
--
That, at least, redirects Dimitri's attention, and he looks down to his own body thoughtfully. These kinds of things really do require him to actually pay attention- a good a way as any to get him out of his own head. "...Oh." A blink. "I did." He looks up at Claude. "...I can eat whenever I want now." Not just waiting to be fed is.... Huh. He's actually going to have to remember this now, isn't he? This revelation seems to have knocked him off balance slightly.
--
"Not just whenever you want, but whatever you've got available, too." Claude grins at him. "I was thinking we could finish off last night's stew for breakfast, and then lunch - or dinner, at this rate, we got up kind of late - can be the fish we catch. The stew will be nice and filling for a long outing of fishing."
--
"The stew was good...." Food, as is often seeming to be the case, rouses him out of his darker mood, and Dimitri pushes forward so that he can lean around Claude to pick up the two bottles that have been serenely resting along the ground. They can't forget them, after all.
"Will you show me how to fish? I-" He glances back into the lake, tail swaying a little in slow thoughtful movements. "I think what I remember... is not the best."
--
"Of course. It's easy enough anyway." Claude grins. "The hardest part will be not falling asleep."
--
"So I should sit away from you, since it seems easy for you to do while against me," Dimitri says, mouth almost a small smile again before he begins to head in the direction of the cabin again. He can remember that much, roughly, thank the gods. "You would not have fallen asleep fishing on the island, I think. Not from what I remember."
--
"I meant for you," Claude replies with a faint huff. "I stayed awake last night while you kept dozing off, didn't I?" He gets up and follows after Dimitri. "And why's that? How did they fish where you're from?"
--
"So you will not doze off while we are fishing... I see." Needless to say Dimitri will remember this, glancing back to Claude to make sure he's still there before continuing. "And.... I may be remembering this incorrectly. It only came to my mind when I saw the lake. We- the children, my friends and I- would go down to the shallows ."
Adjusting the bottles to one hand, Dimitri starts to gesture slightly as he talks. "I remember doing it at the river and the ocean both... In hindsight, it probably depended on the time of year. I cannot recall if I knew that at the time or not." Just that he went to one place or the other easily enough, as though it made sense. "We would go stand.... in the water? Perhaps on the rocks.... And wait for fish to swim near, where you'd then attempt to catch them."
He looks back over his shoulder again, this time past Claude. "I remember.... children being shoved in the water, amidst lots of talking. I do not think we were particularly good at fishing."
Essentially, the bear method of fishing, as done by a gaggle of excitable Intseh children.
--
Claude laughs. "I bet adult Intseh could be good at it, with those claws you've got; humans wouldn't stand a chance. But little kids...yeah, it probably didn't matter what kind of equipment you had." It makes a nice mental image, though - thinking of Intseh children, splashing and shrieking with laughter in the water. Maybe even fumbling over a fish or two that was particularly slow. Claude - who is accustomed to ulterior motives - wonders if the parents put the kids up to it, just to have something to laugh at(while, incidentally, tiring out the kids for later).
--
"I wonder if I could do it now..." Dimitri considers this idle musing. After all, he's certainly a lot more accurate and fast after so many years, and an adult as well technically. There can't be any harm in trying. You know. When he has time to spare. "I... will look forward to it either way."
He's looking forward to anything and everything, at this point. It's a strange, giddy feeling to have.
--
Claude grins. "Well, wait until I'm finished fishing the human way before you give it a shot. I have a feeling you're going to scare them off pretty thoroughly...at least at first."
--
"I did not say it needed to be today..." The sheepishness leaking off of him seems indicates Dimitri is more than well aware that this will be a disaster at first. He waits for Claude partially up the way to the cabin, ears flicked downwards. "...It would not be advisable to go diving and catch them, would it."
--
"Do you remember how to swim?" Claude asks, cocking an eyebrow at him.
--
"I do not think... swimming is a thing one forgets." Now Dimitri is thoughtful, however, as they continue on. "One wouldn't forget how to run even if they only walked for many years, after all, isn't that right?"
--
"I wouldn't know," Claude replies, with a careless shrug. There's a very interesting fact for you, Dimitri.
--
Extremely interesting, and he outright pauses right by the cabin. "You don't know how to swim?" he asks, ears flicking upwards as if to make sure he understood correctly.
--
"Nah. Never really learned, you know? Almyra only really has much in the way of bodies of water at its borders. Swimming's not really something people had much call to do, and I only had a few years when I could have learned before the church grabbed me. And ever since then...well, there's been no real need and no real opportunity." Claude shrugs. "I bet not one in ten Almyran kids knows how to swim, but I bet not one in ten Intseh kids doesn't know how to."
--
Dimitri had really, genuinely thought that he had run out of energy- or, if not run out, at least exhausted himself for the momentary time being. Yet this realization seems to fill the reserves once more, and he tries his best to show some restraint as he opens the door for Claude. It's not.... quite holding, as there's some quiet excitement in his voice when he asks, "Would you like to learn?"
--
Claude pauses, halfway into the cabin, looking up at Dimitri beside him. Then he grins. "Well, if you'd like to teach me...what could it hurt?"
He chuckles as he slips into the cabin. "So, you'll complain about wet fur when it comes to baths, but you're eager to jump right into a lake...I thought that was a dog thing?"
--
"It is different." How dare you, Claude. The offense is quiet but definitely present in his voice as he trails after him, carefully setting the bottles on the table's surface. "Being submerged in water is different to being wet. It should not count."
Since lighting a fire is something he should possibly not handle at his current state, Dimitri goes over to the pantry and slips down to fetch the stew. He could possibly just slice through the twine again and have that be it... but instead, as he sets it on the table, he tries to fiddle with the knots, claws making the process awkward.
--
"I thought it was the wet fur you objected to?" Claude laughs as he goes to get the fire started. It won't take him too long; there's still, deep down in the ashes, some warm embers. By the time Dimitri emerges with the pot - and certainly by the time he picks apart that twine - there'll be a tiny fire started, and slowly growing.
--
"When I'm in water, I'm not wet." This... is certainly an argument he's making with such solemn seriousness that it's almost kind of funny. Finally done with the twine, he goes to put the pot in its place over the fire while taking extreme care that he doesn't tip it over or put it in an unbalanced position. "It is different."
--
Claude loves this. He loves teasing Dimitri, how indignant the man is, how they're able to have casual fun like this so soon after Dimitri's escape. His eyes sparkle as he looks up at Dimitri. "I wonder what I should wear to swim?" he says, innocently, knowing it's going to completely clothesline whatever train of thought Dimitri was currently having and wanting to enjoy the way the emotions crash into each other on his face.
--
The only other way that one could affect Dimitri so much would be to literally clothesline him, and, frankly, the conversational one Claude has just sent his way might actually have a better chance of getting Dimitri to react. He pauses right in place, crouched by the fire with his face having just... hit a blank spot, brows still partially furrowed as if prepared for an argument but his mouth having fallen open a little for complete lack of words. There are a couple of blinks.
When he recovers, he narrows his eye suspiciously at Claude with all the wariness of someone who knows he's been had but isn't sure how. He just assumes that any mental crashes are made on purpose now.
--
Claude gives him a charming, completely innocent smile, which is more suspicious than any wicked grin in his repertoire. Then he grabs a wooden spoon and starts stirring the stew. It's congealed somewhat in the cold, but it'll go back to its proper consistency once the heat works through it. "Something wrong, Dimitri?"
--
"....Please stop that." Just, in general. That. Still, he lets it go besides that, and his tail flicks around to curl at his feet. "And I do not know what you have. We would wear simply pants or skirts, but I do not know if you have any to wear." There's a pause as he considers Claude's terrible innocent countenance over the pot. "You do not seem as though the sort to be ashamed of going without when in the water...."
--
"In general terms, no. But in practical terms, I'm not sure I want to have, shall we say, anything dangling in a lake full of fish and snapping turtles and things with pincers and gods know what else." Claude manages to say something he's completely serious about in a humorous way, and it's honestly hard to tell if the sincerity or the phrasing is funnier.
Claude isn't comfortable with the concept of being in a legitimate body of water, and it shows in his reservations about it.
--
"There are crabs this far north?" Clear that is what Dimitri is meant to focus on out of everything Claude has said. He can't be blamed, he thinks. After all, they're delicious. He hasn't had crab in very long, but he knows that's essentially true, unless something has gone horrifically wrong with the north. More than it already is, by virtue of having the church exist in it.
Still... He picks his way around the pot, to where Claude is, fingertips light on the floor until he can lean against his friend. "Are you truly worried?" The description had made him want to smile a little bit, but he's still genuinely concerned... so he wants to know how much of that is true on Claude's part as well and not merely that clever tongue going to work once again.
--
"I've no idea. There's probably things like crayfish and stuff, though, right?" Claude shrugs. "As for worried...I mean, a little? Not seriously. But you never know." This is basically Almyran for 'ahaha just kidding...unless...??'
---
Fortunately for Claude's purposefully vague and slightly deceiving ways, even just a little bit of worry is too much by Dimitri's estimate. This is one of the few things he thinks he can do for Claude, at least right away. So he picks up Claude's hand, fingers tilted away to avoid claws to skin. "And here I had not thought there were such little things you were not fully confident of..."
He glances up at Claude from beneath his bangs, just a twitch to show the movement in the fur around it. "Then, shall I tell you something you can know? That 'never' shall not touch?"
--
Why, Claude reflects, is Dimitri so charming? Oh, nothing like him; no learned charisma or smooth talking. It's entirely the product of being so courtly, so earnest, so strangely noble even when the world's done its best to make him otherwise. It unfailingly destroys all of Claude's defenses, undoes all his precautions. Claude thinks that if Dimitri had ever been so lost in his own bitterness as to want to kill Claude, all he would have needed to do was ask Claude to come within arm's reach and it would have been over. Because Claude would have done it.
"What's that?" he murmurs, watching his hand as Dimitri touches it and trying not to give away how his internal consistency is trying to mimic butter in the sun just at the way Dimitri is speaking to him. (He really is hopeless, he muses.) He does his best to pay attention in a way where he'll actually retain anything Dimitri says.
--
"I will be there with you." He raises Claude's hand upwards. "And I will not let anything happen to you." That said, he bows his head and presses a soft shy kiss to Claude's knuckles.
If this is all he can do, then he shall put all of his effort into it. How can he ever give anything less, when he knows Claude has done just as much? This person who risked so much to free him, who went along with his desire to destroy such a cursed room. Maybe something as silly and little as swimming doesn't require such seriousness....
But he wants to repay him. To see him smile more.
The kiss only lasts a second before he looks up from beneath his bangs again, tail twitching. "Does that make you feel better?"
--
Well, Dimitri might be able to judge by how flushed Claude's face is. This is unfair. He is being systematically destroyed by this man. "You've rigged the system," he mutters. "How could anyone say no when you ask them like that?"
Dimitri's going to discover - and Claude is in fact freely imparting this information, perhaps to balance the scales between them a bit - that for as much power as Claude has over him, he has power over Claude.
--
Much like earlier that afternoon, Dimitri can't help but be drawn by the way Claude's skin turns that deep beautiful red. He moves in closer, head tilting to the side in a way that's quickly become learned to make kisses smoother... because that's certainly what he's aiming for, their faces brushing.
"Curious words from one who does it so often," he murmurs, heart hitting the inside of his chest excitedly from attraction and knowledge both.
--
"Exactly," Claude replies, their lips actually brushing as he speaks. "I'm supposed to be on the other side of this."
And then he turns the almost kiss into an actual one, an arm sliding loosely around Dimitri. He doesn't want to get too involved, they're about to eat...but he can't resist temptation completely, either.
--
If they weren't literally right besides the pot... Well, it's debatable Dimitri would remember such a basic thing himself, despite food being what they came back to the cabin for in the first place. Ever since they touched each other through the bars of his cage, or perhaps even before that, it's been so easy to simply... fit against Claude, even when he'd fought against it.
He fits well now, pressing up against Claude with his free hand pinning him in place as it grips his hip. Dimitri can't get enough of kissing Claude, licking his way into his mouth as if chasing a taste far better than anything he could taste here. The other man takes up so much of his attention, Dimitri only begins to realize how close the food is to finishing when he pulls away and his nose finally processes the smell. "Ah..."
--
Claude is already breathless by the time Dimitri pulls away, and he's not sure he would have stopped at all if Dimitri hadn't first. He follows the Intseh's gaze to the pot, and it takes a few unseeing moments before his brain actually restarts itself enough to process what it means. "Oh, yeah, the food," he mumbles, with a level of suavity and collectedness he'll kick himself for later.
He drags himself reluctantly away from Dimitri to go fetch the bowls and spoons. Gods, he's in so much trouble. They're on the run. In church-controlled lands, still, in a place people friendly with the church occasionally use! He can hardly afford to have his higher thought processes shorted out by his libido, can he?
A helpful part of his brain points out that it's happening whether he can afford it or not; he does his best to shush it. He scoops some stew for himself and Dimitri - a bit more for Dimitri than himself, although not an overly significant difference - and hands Dimitri's bowl over to him.
--
Letting go of Claude isn't something Dimitri particularly wants to do, but which he allows to happen regardless. He still watches Claude, claws kneading into his paws with the desire to hold him all the more. It's that pulse of attraction not unlike that one night, all the hard edges of the initial experience softened since then. If not for food, what would he do, truly? Would it be something good, something he could be certain Claude would like?
Silly questions to ask, when they've already gone so far and Claude has made the invitation.... But Dimitri worries over it even as he accepts his bowl of stew with quiet thanks. At least the first spoonful distracts his thoughts, and Dimitri sighs through his nose. "It is still as good as the first time..." Amazing.
--
Claude grins at him. "Might be even better. Sometimes letting the flavor develop overnight actually improves it a little bit." It's a good thing they're both hungry; it helps keep them on track. Otherwise, Claude suspects, they'd be much more tempted to let themselves be distracted by each other.
He is wondering whether they're actually going to go fishing before evening, though, at this rate. (Which wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, either, a small part of his brain that insists it's logical but might just be self-serving insists. It's practically midday by this point, and fish bite more at dawn and dusk.)
--
"Really? I wonder why that is... Interesting." Surely not all food do the same as stew, but now Dimitri is left thinking on it. If he focuses on only the immediate things in front of him, he's fairly certain he can keep from being overburdened by his own thoughts.... Maybe. If nothing else, he feels a little more confident in remembering bits of information like this.
It's something that, for the most part, keeps his mind occupied. Even still, however, he continues to glance over to where Claude is, ears twitching. This isn't last night, after all, with both of them too exhausted to want to do anything but bathe, eat, and go to sleep. Feeling that urge, watching Claude be so... so... cute, when will that next strike him.... and how far will they go that time? It's some pondering that has his tail swishing from side to side, eager and curious.
--
Claude doesn't miss this body language as he eats; he might even have some inkling of what it's about. It helps that he's having similar thoughts of his own, even if he has fewer ways to accidentally signal it.
"What?" he teases, between bites of stew. "Have I got something on my face?"
--
One of these days, Dimitri will realize how obvious he makes himself. As it is, being called out like this takes him by surprise, and he straightens up with his ears flicking back. "No." A pause as he actually looks over at Claude to actually make sure of this instead of answering automatically. Okay, no, that was the right answer.
Stirring his spoon in the stew automatically just for something to do, Dimitri glances away. "I was... merely thinking how... attractive you are."
--
Claude grins broadly at this. "Oh~? You don't say..." If you ever wanted an open invitation to flatter Claude, Dimitri, you've just been given one.
Claude will remember, in a second, that Dimitri absolutely destroys him when he says nice things about him, and will come to regret this offer. At least partially. But for now, he's forgotten - yet again - that Dimitri doesn't do titillating banter; he's just unbearably honest.
--
"I do." Dimitri glances back to him again, a minute shift of his head. There's that charming wide grin again, matching that beautiful look in his eyes. He'd hesitate a little more, not wanting to seem too much... But Claude has asked for this every time, hasn't he? When confirming Dimitri's feelings outside, earlier, and now just a few minutes ago, when he'd indicated just how much he wants to hear it from Dimitri to fall into that lovely blushing state...
...Perhaps it's fine.
"I was simply thinking... earlier, when I was by your side. I've so rarely seen you in the daylight.... I did not pay much attention, back in my cage, due to circumstances." You know, laughing at Carnius' self-inflicted misfortunes. "But just now, it occurred to me what a sight it is. I have not ever cared on the church's views of religion.... yet if they had even a fraction of how heavenly you had looked, with sunlight falling across your hair in such a manner that my breath was stolen, perhaps it would have made some sense. Yet it was the way you blushed, seeing your skin deepen and warm so near to me, that made me want to draw in close..." He finally remembers to take a bit of his food, even as he glances over to Claude again. "It has imparted into me such an urge that has not left."
--
How. How did Dimitri manage to take something as pointedly sexy as telling Claude he's attractive, and turn it into yet more soul-bearing, heart-rending, earnest romance? Claude thought he was on familiar territory here, and Dimitri's just swept his legs out from under him again.
(Or, in a romantic context, would it be sweeping him off his feet? Can they mean the same thing?)
Claude swears that before Dimitri, he can't even remember the last time he blushed or felt the slightest bit self-conscious. Now he's blushing again for the second time in...what? Hours? This can't be good for him.
He has to look back down at his soup; he'd swear his ears are burning. "From anyone else, that'd sound like a really cheesy pick-up line," he mutters into his bowl. "But you really mean every word..."
--
There it is. Dimitri's tail is audible as the end smacks from side to side. If not for the food he still has in his own hands, he knows he would be going over to Claude once again much in the same way as he did before, chasing after that endearing and soft look on his friend's face. Well, the food and-
"Is cheesy bad? But it is such a delicious food."
--
Claude laughs at that. "I don't know why it's supposed to be bad exactly, but it's supposed to mean something like...over-the-top, or ridiculous. Or maybe embarrassing."
--
"I am not embarrassed." The feeling isn't exactly foreign to him- he's felt some shame at a few different things, although he has to admit that he possibly feels it less than different people, or at least in different scenarios. He's still figuring things out. But to feel embarrassed about his feelings for Claude, his attraction?
Never.
Dimitri finishes off his stew, considering the definition he's been given. "...Although it certainly causes you to react far more." Another few excited flicks of his tail. "I like that."
--
"You like making me blush, huh?" Claude grins sidelong at him, even as he finishes his own stew, setting the bowl aside. "That's probably the tamest thing you could feel satisfied about making me do...I don't know whether to be relieved or disappointed about that."
--
"Well. It is.... connected." He twists the spoon inbetween his fingers, the end bumping into the bowl with every turn. "These instances... are not the only times I have seen your face flush, after all."
In some ways, it was quite different from when he had Claude pinned on the other side of the bars, claws twisted in his hair and fingers wrapped around his cock, but.... It's certainly a connecting factor.
--
"You've got a point." Claude smirks at him. "Have you given a lot of thought to that other time...?"
--
His tail stills. Ah, there it is, the embarrassment. "Yes. Often." He grinds his thumb against his spoon further. "And... today."
--
Claude shifts a bit closer to Dimitri. Later, when the parts of his brain not wired directly to his libido regain control, he'll remember that he had things he wanted to do today and that this was maybe not the wisest of plans. But for now, temptation has fully won him over. "And what exactly were you thinking about it~?" he teases, eyes sparkling wickedly.
--
Tempting others- or maybe simply Dimitri, specifically- really does seem to be Claude's favorite past time, and Dimitri's tongue pokes out briefly as he flicks it over his fangs. The bowl is quickly becoming forgotten now as he watches Claude lean in ever closer. "If I were to be exact.... pinning you down. Seeing... the different ways you'd react to the claws and fangs you said you were so interested in. That is to start with."
--
Claude glances over, briefly, to make sure the pot is off the fire; that's about all the brainpower he can spare for practical concerns. Then his attention goes right back to Dimitri.
If he had a tail, it'd be lashing. As it is, Dimitri's only warning system for when Claude is feeling predatory is...pretty much just when Claude acts like it, by which point it's already too late.
A hand lifts up to cup Dimitri's cheek, tilting his face more towards Claude as Claude leans up and nips lightly at the corner of Dimitri's mouth. "If the appetizer sounds that...appetizing," he purrs, "then what's the entree...?"
--
If Claude's weakness is Dimitri's soft words, then Dimitri's is definitely Claude's equally soft touch, and he presses down into his hand with a warm sigh. Biting is new, and his lips quirk a little bit in amusement. It's hardly anything at all, with blunt teeth like that. "Taking my time to enjoy you... in ways I never would have been able to before."
And to show him how it's done, Dimitri winds his claws through Claude's hair again to nudge his head aside so there's nothing interfering when he leans down further. More than anyone else, Dimitri knows how to use his teeth- where to bite that's fatal, how much pressure is too much. The pleasure aspect of such a thing has been foreign to him... so he's more than glad to learn more as he grazes his fangs along the side of Claude's neck.
--
Claude makes a low sound of satisfaction. "And when were you planning to do that?" he murmurs, in a voice that indicates his preference is 'now'.
--
So about that honesty of his... Dimitri hums, nipping at the junction between neck and shoulder. "I don't know. I was still thinking..." There's been so much, he can barely keep up. "You make it so difficult...."
--
Claude laughs at that. "I get that a lot." He combs fingers through Dimitri's hair. "We don't have to rush anything if you don't want to, though."
--
"Mm.... I want to..." But right now? Something suddenly occurs to Dimitri, and he straightens up to blink down at Claude. "You just ate." His brow draws in. "I shouldn't do anything when you've just eaten..."
Technically, Dimitri has just eaten too, but he's less concerned about that.
--
Claude blinks, then laughs. "So did you," he points out. "But when are we going to have a better opportunity today? After we go fishing, we'll have to cook the fish up and eat them pretty quickly. Fish doesn't keep well.
--
"Claude, you'll get sick." There are a few thumps from his tail, and Dimitri uses his hand where it is so that he can lightly bump their foreheads together. "Weren't you the one who said we don't have to rush?"
--
Claude grins up at Dimitri, gazing into that blue eye with those dangerously devious green ones. "I said we don't have to if you don't want to. If you do want to, then I'm totally fine with rushing." He gives Dimitri a chaste - and, somehow, cute, perhaps due to how uncharacteristic it is for anything Claude does to be so innocent - peck on the lips. "Would it make you feel better if we waited an hour? Napped or something?"
--
"You will feel better." Still, that does seem to be a plan of action which reassures him, and Dimitri rises to his feet. "Is there anything that needs to be done in that time...? You just woke up, so I doubt you feel the need to nap..."
Dimitri could, he's sure, both because he's used to napping his time away and also because he just threw himself all around a lake shore. Still, his concern is with Claude, and will be for the foreseeable future.
--
"You're adorable when you're considerate, you know that?" Claude smiles fondly at him. "Let's see...there's hardly any stew left, so you could finish that if you wanted. Then we can wash out the pot, and the bowls. The horses could use some exercise...and we can check their feed and water, but I gave them plenty of both last night so they should be okay there. Beyond that...I think we're good for the moment."
--
Finishing the stew doesn't sound like a bad thing to Dimitri at all, which already seems to be leading up to a good.... noon? afternoon? He's going to have to start caring about the times of day now. However, there's one thing in that list which perks him up.
"The horses... That's right. I've been.... trying to think carefully on a name. Perhaps I will be certain once I see him again."
--
"Do you want to help me with them, then? I can wait for you to finish eating, if so." The glint in Claude's eyes suggests he already knows Dimitri is going for the stew.
-
Dimitri's ears lower very slowly. "It is very good stew," he says quietly, because dammit Claude he doesn't need to defend himself with this. Still, he goes to refill his bowl now that he remembers it exists, and makes sure to scrape the very bottom of the pot so that nothing is left. Food shouldn't be wasted, after all.
Horses shouldn't be kept waiting, either, and Dimitri goes a little quicker even though he can't help but savor the occasional bite. Soon enough, he's eagerly gathering the bowls in one hand, and reaching for the pot with the other to do a repeat of last night. He's eager to show he can remember these things as well, minor though they may be.
--
Claude lets him take the lead, merely supervising; he's more than a little proud. Not at his own teaching skills, really - it's simple enough a task to have taught - and not because he necessarily wants Dimitri to have to do the work. It's more in seeing how happy Dimitri is to have learned, and how happy he is to be useful. And, of course, how quickly his friend (they still need a better word for it; Claude resolves to discuss it directly with him soon) picks up on these things. It just proves what he's always believed - Dimitri was never meant to be an executioner.
He'll follow Dimitri over to the bathroom, but only to the door; he doesn't feel the need to hover over his shoulder. He's sure Dimitri's got this.
--
"This is what I've got." Claude looks mildly amused. He's wearing his armor; that's about it, at least for this time of year. He'll need more soon, but carrying extra burdens isn't something one generally does while traveling unless it's strictly necessary. "A little chill isn't going to kill me." He gets to his feet. "Maybe I'll borrow your cloak while you're tearing around."
--
"I will not tear around..." Dimitri's own tone betrays that he's actually not certain on this fact (and is in fact completely wrong). rising up to his feet as well, he looks down to the bottles he's still carefully cradling. "...Is there... somewhere we could put them? To... watch things, while not being seen."
He's not a person with any knowledge of the spiritual... but if there is one of his kin trapped within, as Dimitri feels would have happened to him, then he doesn't want to leave them stuck in yet another place while only 'technically' free. Even if they can't recognize it... He wants them to have the chance of enjoying the forest as well.
--
"I can look after them while you're having fun." Claude grins, holding out his hands. "I'm pretty lazy; I'm just gonna sit back and watch anyway."
--
"I am not sure I would use such a word to describe someone who broke into a bishop's quarters...." Still, after only a moment of hesitation does Dimitri carefully transfer the bottles from his hands to Claude's. There is no one else, he's sure, who would keep them so safe. "Then, do we merely continue in that direction...?" He points down into the forest, away from the cabin and the road connected to it.
--
Claude nods. He takes the bottles carefully, tucking them into his pouch for now; he can take them out when they get where they're going, but no need to risk randomly dropping them by holding them for the whole walk. "There's a small lake that way; it's one of the reasons the cabin was built here. More to the point, the trees thin out around there, which means you'll have more room to run."
--
"I see." The mention of a lake reminds him of something, however, and Dimitri pauses, tail twitching, as he digs through the hazy memories of the night prior. It hits him in short order. "You wanted to fish, didn't you?"
--
"I did," Claude agrees with amusement, "but I was planning on doing that after breakfast." Which neither of them has had.
--
It's almost possible to see the way Dimitri's thoughts are actually churning and plopping into place within his skull. "Should.... we eat first?" he asks, trying to remember how a regular person's day should go and completely failing.
--
"If we only want to make one trip there, and do the fishing while we're there, then we'd better," Claude replies, resting a hand on his hip. "Fishing takes awhile, y'know. We'd be starving almost before we caught anything to eat! But if you want to go run around, come back, eat, and then go fishing, then maybe breakfast can wait."
--
Another moment as Dimitri puts that all together before nodding. He's going to remember this for later, other days. "Then... Let's do that." He's trusting Claude on this one- something he'd never think to do before but that he's quickly learning will never be a mistake. Now that that's decided, he begins to head in the direction that Claude indicated, constantly looking back to make sure that the other is following.
His eagerness is really starting to show now as well... His steps seem to speed up slightly, eagerly, before Dimitri remembers to rein himself back, and his tail's twitching becomes all the more pronounced.
--
Claude follows, grinning to himself. Seeing Dimitri so excited for something feels...wonderful, really. It's the kind of thing he's wanted for Dimitri ever since they were kids, and really has only glimpsed once or twice - usually when they were little and Claude brought Dimitri some treat, like the honey candy. Now he's getting to see it in the man as an adult - not just enthusiasm for something personally fulfilling, but the opportunity to have it.
It only takes about fifteen minutes' walk to reach the lake. There's a decent stretch of open ground before the lake's edge, as Claude had promised - and if Dimitri wants to run through the trees, those are close at hand as well. He's got his pick of places to romp.
--
Seeing a body of water like this- even if it's small, even if he can see the opposite shore in a way he never could in his childhood memories- grips Dimitri for a moment. His hand reaches up, claws kneading through the short fur over his chest. When's the last time he felt this excited, felt this genuinely eager? The executions never did, only flipped his mind into fighting for survival, and sometimes worse. It was only adrenaline. This... It's so much more. Dimitri glances back at Claude, as if seeking reassurance that all of this is alright, before he turns back to the stretch of land in front of him.
Dimitri only means to take a step, yet that turns on something in him. Before he knows it, a step turns into a jolt forward turns into a full on sprint along the shoreline. There's dirt beneath his toes- not hard packed earth, not stone, dirt, damp and soft and easy to tear up as he goes running with no interest in holding back. This becomes a problem in short order, Claude will get to see, when so much force and soft ground send Dimitri tripping over himself into a rolling ball of Intseh. When he stops, sitting up in a daze, Dimitri can only stare for a moment before just... laughing. It leaves him once, a sharp delighted burst, and hearing himself make such a noise.... It's not the same kind as back in the church, when he'd laughed at Carnius' misfortune. It's just... It's just a laugh, bright, happy, and realizing that he might have something to actually laugh about brings the rest of it out to fill the quiet air of the lake. He pulls himself back onto his feet immediately, still laughing as he runs off again.
There's no plan to his actions; Dimitri runs just for the sake of running. He circles back, takes sudden sharp turns, at one point races back into the trees to claw his way up a tree apparently just to jump back down again so he can keep running.
It's bigger than his room, his cage, the arena. Everything is so big, so much, and he can actually reach all of it.
--
Claude, for his part, finds a fallen tree near the shoreline to sit on, pulling the bottles out of his pouch again and setting them down on the ground nearby. He's less of a proponent of believing that the Intseh whose body (bodies?) now make up the contents of those bottles get anything out of things like scenery the way Dimitri does, but even if he weren't willing to go along with it for Dimitri's sake alone, he's got nothing against treating them that way on the off chance. There's a lot of considerations those Intseh weren't given; anything at all to make up for that is worth doing.
He watches Dimitri's antics with incomparable fondness, a smile on his lips. This? This alone is worth every risk he ran. This alone would be worth being caught for.
--
Maybe it's the excess of energy that comes with rediscovering freedom. Maybe it's just years of being an executioner that gave him stamina. Whatever it is, it takes ages before Dimitri finally collapses with a flop onto the more grassy areas near the forest. He lays there a bit, body heaving with every breath that takes in the smell of dirt and grass and water. It's.... amazing. So much so that he doesn't know how to process it, entirely- has very possibly been out of it for the last few minutes. Laying down like this allows him to just... get a moment for his brain to reconcile reality to itself, when reality for once is pleasant.
Finally, he pushes himself and only wobbles a little bit as he heads to where Claude is sitting. "I apologize," he says, voice rough from running nonstop at full speed. "I'm free, I shouldn't act so-" So bestial, maybe, is the word he's looking for. Dimitri just makes a sort of helpless gesture for what he means. "It's simply- grass smells so good, doesn't it?"
For all that he's apologizing, Dimitri is actually... grinning, now, an almost shy curl of his mouth and just the barest hint of fang that's anything but a threat. He feels so good. It's been a long time since that's happened.
--
Claude grins broadly at Dimitri. "Being free is all about being able to do the stuff you want to do. Even if it's wild or ridiculous. What're you apologizing for?"
He pats the stump next to him. "But you're right, grass does smell good. Enjoy it while you can, since it'll be winter before you know it." Claude says the word 'winter' with clear distaste.
--
Tail swishing out of the way, Dimitri takes a ginger seat. With the table in the cabin, at least the food had been an adequate distraction. Just... sitting on something makes him feel strangely like he doesn't know what to do with his arms or hands, even though he does. Resting them along his knees, Dimitri blinks over at Claude's description. Or, rather, his tone.
"Will it be a problem as you're hunting...?" Animal habits do change as the seasons change.... He remembers learning that young.
--
"Not for the hunting itself, no. For me, yes." Claude's all but sulking at the thought of it. He's really not fond of the cold.
--
....This... is incredibly cute. Dimitri doesn't mean this in a condescending way. He genuinely can't take his eyes off of Claude, utterly endeared by how so cunning and skillful a man can transform into a sulking child at the prospect of cold. Dimitri's tail twitches minutely.
"It will be easier with shelter, will it not? And you said that we will be traveling south, where it will be warmer."
--
"True." Claude sighs. "Maybe we can migrate for the whole winter? I wonder if I can bargain that much time away from the church without them kicking up a fuss..."
If Dimitri was embarrassed that he was perhaps being silly or childish, then this is extremely reassuring because apparently, Claude has that kind of side to him too.
--
"Perhaps it will snow too much for safe travel." Dimitri doesn't actually suggest lying about there not being safe travel, despite knowing Claude can lie and is very good at lying. He's too distracted by the way Claude's mouth is sticking out as he pouts about the weather.
Yet something else occurs to him, and Dimitri shifts off of the stump to tentatively sit on the fallen tree itself, besides Claude.
--
Claude seems pleased enough about the position change, letting himself almost press against Dimitri with how close they're sitting. "I could probably get them to buy that..."
--
Oh, he didn't even have to make any sort of move himself. Dimitri supposes that works too, although he has some opinions on how it should be. He closes what little distance is left, wrapping his arm around Claude's shoulders to pull him in. Going even further, he directs his friend's head into the crook of his neck.
It had been warm enough in the bed, hadn't it?
"And if nothing else... there is always this."
--
Claude melts immediately, nuzzling into the soft fur of Dimitri's neck. "Mm...that's true. I've never had a walking, self-heating fur blanket to see me through the winter before." His eyes are sparkling mischievously.
--
The first time, Dimitri thought it had been because Claude had simply been tired. Rather quickly, he's beginning to realize that this might simply be the reaction every time. Well... He doesn't really have any problem with that, truly.
He nuzzles into Claude's hair. "I like holding you." So no argument.
--
"Do you?" Claude laughs. "I like being held by you, so that's convenient. Everything about you feels good."
--
"After your complaints, I see why." It's only a light jest, and he shifts his head to look up into the sky. Things have become much brighter, sun further along in the sky, with how long he's been at it. "I could probably carry you to the cabin..."
....
"At a different time. I think I may have tired myself out...."
--
"Well, it's not like we have tp rush back...or that my legs don't work." Claude grins. "Mind you, I don't have any actual complaints about being pampered like that..."
--
"I think I would like to do so." He's starting to see why Claude fed him so much... There's something really nice and satisfying about just pulling him close and feeling the resulting happy melt. Still, now that they're just sitting there, with nowhere pressing to be...
"...What do you normally do here? Besides hunt. When it is only yourself." A question that's a far cry from the stubborn refusal to inquire about Claude's life when they first met each other after so long.
--
"Like, to kill time?" Claude muses on the question. "I don't actually have a lot of time to just do nothing. I don't usually stay in one place for as long as we're going to here, for instance. And you'll be surprised how much there is to do from day to day. If I hunt, then I'll have to clean the kill, dry the hides, cook and preserve the meat, set aside the parts I don't use for nature to reclaim. Then there's basic maintenance - things like sharpening my knives, repairing my clothes, checking Wyvern's tack for wear and tear. Oh - tack is what you call the stuff you put on a horse for riding. Saddles, bridles, whatever."
Claude's idly ticking stuff off on his fingers where he's leaning on Dimitri. "If I'm out in the wilderness, then I'll either need to set up or break down my camp. Even on nice nights, it's good to have a tent set up, unless you want to wake up to foxes or deer sniffing your face." He laughs. "And then it's hard to say whose heart tries to leap out of their chest when you wake up more, yours or theirs. If you're unlucky and you can't find two trees a sufficient length apart to string a rope between - and a decent chunk of setting up a camp is finding a good place for one, with a water source nearby and ideally those trees - that might mean having to cut wood to decent lengths for posts. Then you need to clear a spot for a fire, and collect wood for a fire...if you're lucky, again. If you're unlucky, it might be pouring rain and you just get to be cold and soaked all night. You need to plan around horse care, of course - especially if it's raining and you can't count on firelight, which means you might have to stop and see to your horse before it's too dark to be able to. Grooming can take an hour by itself, if you've had a hard or dirty ride. And, of course, none of this takes into account the time you might spend traveling in a day, or going into town and trading, or sleeping and mealtimes."
Claude pauses, looking up at Dimitri. "...anyway, long story short, you don't usually have a lot of free time in my line of work unless you're staying in a town. Or a monastery, as the case may be. And how you kill time in places crowded with other people is totally different from how you might kill time on your own in places like this. On the rare occasions I have free time traveling, though, I usually go over whatever material I might have liberated from the church. Sometimes I take notes, or draw maps. All assuming the weather's not too damp to break out anything papery, of course. Or I might practice my archery, explore the surroundings to get an idea of where animals frequent and plan my hunting for the next day, that sort of thing. That's...about it, really."
Claude has told Dimitri he's a hunter. He may never have elaborated on how a large chunk of that job is, apparently, being a full-time nature survivalist - possibly because it's common knowledge among other people what sorts of things being a hunter entails. But for Dimitri, who's been caged his whole life, he may never even have considered any of the complexities beyond the quite literal act of hunting down game. It'd appear Claude keeps himself quite busy...and also that he's quite skilled.
--
Claude's right: Dimitri is surprised. He'd known, on a theoretical sort of level, that to be a hunter like Claude had to take a good deal of work. After all, if he had made himself valuable to the church, then wouldn't that make sense? Yet there's knowing something must be, and knowing just all that entails.
All he can do, has ever been able to do for a long while now, is listen, and Claude might notice him mirroring the way he counts on his fingers. It's not an exact match for match, however, although close enough. Dimitri seems to wait until Claude has finished explaining one aspect of what he does, and raises a finger based on his own thoughts on the matter. Hunting, cleaning the kill? He... thinks he could do those, if he were taught. Repairing clothes he's not so certain of, however, because he suspects those involve needles, and careful fingers, and his clawed hands aren't suitable for any of that.
Still, that has left him wondering things now. "Am I taking away from important time then...?"
--
"Nope." Claude chuckles. "For one thing, a lot of those tasks aren't necessary when you've got a place like this cabin to stop over at. I also don't need to worry about hunting much since I knew I'd be bringing you here and stocked the pantry in advance. I'll need to bring in some game to supplement what we've got, but that's all. And one deer - which won't be hard to find around here - will be enough to feed us both for days."
He slips an arm around Dimitri's waist. "Besides, why wouldn't this be important time?" He gives Dimitri a sly, flirtatious smile, looking at him out of the corner of his eye.
--
"I see..." He eases up slightly, shoulders losing the tension in them while his ears give a slight flick. Then he has time to adjust to the things that need doing. By the time they set off, he'll have learned one thing. That can be one goal. What that thing is.... Dimitri frowns down at his fingers. Well, he'll have to figure that out in due time.
It's all stuff he's figuring out in his head as Claude speaks up, which means he's not even looking at him when he answers back. "It was only running... I liked it, of course I did, but I do not want to be.... wholly selfish." Finally, he looks down at Claude and pauses at the look on his face.
....He feels as though he's missing something. Or just missed something.
--
Claude just laughs, ducking his head. Oh, Dimitri, never change. "You know, you're obviously different in a lot of ways from when we were little...but in some ways you're still so much the same." This is said with deep affection; Dimitri may not know what Claude is referring to, but evidently Claude likes it.
Obviously they hadn't flirted as kids, but Claude distinctly remembers that Dimitri would just be completely oblivious to things sometimes. Subtleties or sarcasm that even a younger Claude knew how to use. Then, as now, Claude found it incredibly endearing - both because it's charming that someone as intelligent and noble and admirable as Dimitri can be so hilariously naive, and also because it's reassuring to know that Dimitri is so honest and earnest that not only can he be completely trusted, but he doesn't even understand dissembling in others.
--
Alright, laughter he understands, he's not so dense as to miss when something he's done is being laughed about. Tail flicking, he huffs and nudges Claude's face up. "Were you teasing me just now?" He can't see how it was teasing, but Dimitri is willing to admit his own flaws. Some are vast, and many, and depressing, but some he knows he's just... He is simply as he is, and that can't be helped.
--
"Well, originally I was flirting with you, but it's definitely teasing now, yeah." Claude grins up at him, eyes glinting wickedly.
--
...Oh.
"Oh," Dimitri says, echoing his own thoughts immediately, before his ears flick down. "I- I was busy thinking. Of course I would miss that when..." Even he seems to know that excuse wouldn't really change much, however. It's floundering rather much on his tongue.
--
"Maybe so. But you can't tell me it's not funny." Claude's smirk is entirely too smug. "Besides, you've always been fun to tease."
--
"I had always suspected that you found all fun to tease and run circles around." Granted, he's rarely ever seen Claude interact with other people- the incident with Carnius was really the only time and even then that was more like verbal attempted murder.
--
"It's true," Claude agrees, without the slightest hint of remorse. "But it's always more fun with you than anyone else. But most things are more fun with you than anyone else."
--
Carefully, Dimitri reaches up with both hands- one still around Claude's shoulders- to tilt his head back so that Dimitri can lean in close. "You," he informs the other man quiet seriously, "are a menace." And he gives him another kiss.
--
Claude returns the kiss readily, lifting a hand to rest on the back of Dimitri's neck. He considers, reflectively, how hopelessly in love he is; he's been more or less aware of it for quite awhile now, but something about this kiss in particular is making him almost violently conscious of it. The relaxed freedom they can enjoy together now, Dimitri's happiness, the casual teasing, Dimitri's affectionate chiding, the fact that Dimitri has instigated this particular kiss and how warm it is...
Yeah, he's completely gone. Claude doesn't feel any particular chagrin or regret over this; at worst, there's some distant unease in that, all things considered, there are some things he really needs to discuss with Dimitri at some point. But even that isn't the overriding emotion he feels in regards to this. Mostly what he feels is a mixture of a distant sort of surprise - that he can feel this way, or this much, about anyone - and some idle curiosity as to just how he's going to handle something like this. Obviously Dimitri's presence in his life from now on is non-negotiable; it's just a question of how he's going to navigate it.
It's a question he doesn't have an answer to yet, but he's not really worried about it at the moment. He's got faith in his own cleverness - and his stubbornness - that when he needs to find a solution, he will. In the meantime, why not enjoy himself?
--
Now that he actually has the time for it, can lean into this feeling and enjoy it... Dimitri is rather unskilled at kissing. Oh, he certainly likes it, even so, but he's well aware of it. But the thing about having time is that he can take some of it for his own, learning how to do it better, mimicking things Claude has done in the past when he's initiated. It's slow, and soft, and it makes his heart tremble in his chest. When he finally pulls away, even that is simply to stay this close to Claude.
He's seen Claude so many times now, but always on the other side of bars no matter when. The bars of that childhood door. The bars of his cage. Even the arena had some bars, just in case. Now... There's been nothing between them for hours and hours, at this point, yet Dimitri still takes the time to admire it, how close the two of them are, can be allowed to be. It's so...
"I don't feel like myself anymore," he breathes softly, rubbing his thumb into those soft curls. "Ever since we escaped. It's like... shedding, for a new season. It's so different."
Nothing has really changed, of course. It's as Claude pointed out, has pointed out numerous times before. Without the bars and chains and violence of the church... A lot more parts of him have a chance to breathe, again. Have a reason to exist, and don't necessarily have to fear their existence. It's not longer everything else that feels like a dream.
--
"A good kind of different, I hope." Claude smiles up at him. He thinks he could stay like this...pretty much forever. He'd like to tell Dimitri so, too. But, as with his eager interest in Dimitri's knot, Claude refrains from being too forthright with Dimitri about how he's feeling in the moment.
Half of the reason - that it's frankly embarrassing how into Dimitri he is - remains the same. The other half is different, though; with the knot, he'd held back from saying anything because they wouldn't have been able to do anything about it, and it would have just tormented them both - but especially Dimitri, who was the one with restricted freedom and a history of being taunted with what he couldn't have. Holding off on telling Dimitri how unabashedly in love with him Claude is, by contrast, is motivated by Claude's awareness of how overwhelmed with everything Dimitri currently is. Dimitri's already having to cope with a ridiculous amount of things all at once; there's no reason Claude has to shove such weighty emotions on him, too. It's not like it can't wait. And it's not like they have to discuss it in-depth for Claude to be able to act on his feelings, mostly.
The time will come. Claude just doesn't think it's now.
--
"I think... besides a slow death, there are few kinds of differences which would be anything but good." Dimitri's only point of reference beyond his life as an executioner, after all, are childhood memories he's half forgotten. For a good decade and more, he's flatlined right at the very bottom of existence- something he's sure he told Claude at one point in some philosophical bickering. (The third meeting, if he's recalling correctly.) Really, there's only ever been 'up' to go. He was.... scared of that up, bitter of another failure, another thing he could never really touch, but...
His claws gently thread through Claude's hair. "...I think.... I've changed my mind. On what I said back then, the philosophy of how to exist." It's only been so long, but he feels tentatively confident saying that.
--
"Have you?" Claude's eyes are dancing. That Dimitri's already overhauling his entire opinion on existence after less than 24 hours of freedom is the most positive sign he can imagine; he's delighted. He wasn't worried Dimitri was completely beyond recovery...okay, that's a lie, he was a little worried. But he was worried recovery would take ages. He's sure it will nonetheless, in little ways, but it seems like the big things are shifting already. Notable progress will happen quickly. Dimitri's getting to a place he can be happy on the road to recovery - however long it is, and it may well be lifelong - will happen quickly. That's what Claude was worried would take forever, and he's happy to have been wrong.
Dimitri isn't staying caged within his own mind.
"What's changed in your thinking?"
-
"I'm afraid I cannot give you something truly indepth... Not like before." That argument, that way of thinking, that had all been bitterly cultivated for years and years. Dimitri has had more spare time than he knew what to do with or ever wanted just stewing in his own hatred, his own anger, his own misery. This is all.... new. Or perhaps not new, but so different that he's still remembering all the little things again. His head tilts down slightly, forehead bumping against Claude's.
"I merely think... I began to wait for your visits. Even when I did not want to be happy about them... They were still something. Between me and the inevitable end I had envisioned for myself." For dying, violently, after causing what important death he could manage. "And with waiting.... with staying alive, instead of killing myself as soon as I could manage, this was able to happen. That..." He pauses, shaking his head.
"My thoughts are not complete, I apologize. They are... only some of many new things."
--
"It's not like you owe me a wholly coherent explanation of the way your thinking's changed, so why are you apologizing to me for not being able to give one?" Claude lifts a hand to stroke Dimitri's cheek. "But if looking forward to my visits helped you keep going...I can't ask for much better than that.
"Not that I can take all the credit - or even most of it. You stayed alive for years with nothing to look forward to at all. You probably won't believe this, what with the hallucinations and everything you went through, but...you're unbelievably mentally resilient, Dimitri. You didn't break, or go crazy, or kill yourself. Not in all those years." His fingers brush along fur. "I don't know if the hallucinations helped with that or what, but something you did worked. Because believe me, other people would have fallen apart."
--
Automatically, Dimitri tilts his face into Claude's touch. If there had been anything he'd been the most suspectible to in his imprisonment, it had just been touching Claude. First, of course, to make sure he was there. But also just.... Being able to touch someone, of his own will, was so much. Being touched in turn is something even more, something that never fails to make his heart tighten.
"I was simply... too stubborn to want to die." Not without doing... something about his situation, helpless as every option had seemed at the time. His eye slides shut. "Although I am not certain if we can speak about not breaking or losing my mind when hallucinations are spoken about in the same breath."
--
"We can," Claude says firmly. "Firstly, because you didn't give up or lose yourself completely, even with the hallucinations. Secondly...I haven't heard much about you still having them since I started visiting you." He cocks an eyebrow. "Am I wrong about that?"
--
"Ah.... It depends."
A reassuring statement, no doubt. Still, Dimitri rouses himself enough to pull away so this is a proper conversation and tilts his head to one side again. "When you were first gone for some days... I hallucinated to some extent. Not of you, however." Dimitri is still waiting to see when and if that will happen, if he's honest with himself. It feels inevitable, even now that he's free. "Sometimes they would pop up, when you left me alone. They were not always... a lot, and they seemed to ease back, I believe." Trauma and nothing but his own head lead to a bad combination. With the inclusion of just another factor to better occupy his attention- quiet repetition of language lessons he'd picked up from Claude- and better food to help his body, it was amazing what improvement could be made.
But, most importantly in Dimitri's opinion-
"There were also no executions besides the one you first saw me at..." Reaching up, he lightly taps the side of his head. "They become far worse, in the aftermath. Depending on the execution in particular."
--
"And here I thought it was all my doing." Claude smiles. "Ah well. But that still makes it pretty obvious, doesn't it? You don't hallucinate because you lack mental stability. It's more like...that's an outlet. When you're in too much pain, or too alone, your hallucinations are how you cope. They don't come when you don't need them. Without them, your head would probably be messed up all the time." Claude brushes fingers through Dimitri's hair, pushing it away from his eye. "Hopefully you won't need them at all anymore."
--
Even after having his hair washed by this same hand, it's still odd to feel it just be there casually, and Dimitri shakes his head slightly. That this makes his hair start to fall back into place is, well... That just happens.
"Perhaps... If it could be that easy..." Well, he wouldn't complain. "I wonder if my memory will become better as well...."
--
"Who knows." Claude tilts his head. "I don't remember you mentioning any issues with your memory before, though..."
--
"I didn't think to." Dimitri shrugs. "Although... If you had not seemed like a hallucination at the time, I imagine I would not have told you either. It is... normal." A very fucked up normal, but it's such a regular part of his life that Dimitri doesn't think to mention some things over others. "I believe they are tied with the hallucinations as well... Or perhaps it is coincidence." His mental state has been so unsteady that Dimitri hadn't really cared about any minute differences.
"But... You know how it is, to get lost in your imagination while you are doing other things? Like when we were children."
--
"Mmhm?" Claude leans against him, listening, a slight crease of concern to his brow.
--
"It is... similar to that, then. That is the closest I can think to compare it to." In contrast to Claude, Dimitri doesn't show any concern, because there isn't any, at least not on his end. "I would be doing something... and it would be as if I had dozed and suddenly I would realize much time had passed. Sometimes with being in the cage. Sometimes mid-execution, and I would only come to my senses when the guards and controllers were forcing my head under a sprout of water to rid me of blood."
Dimitri shrugs. "I did not like when they occurred during executions, but I suppose it was a far more pleasant experience than the hallucinations." Dissociating is just nothing at all.
--
"When it happened during executions...you're sure that was your memory, and not their control magic?" Claude asks, purely out of curiosity.
--
"Their control magic is a different feeling..." His eye narrows, lip curling up over a fang, and he pulls away even further as he looks out towards the lake. "And... they have not had cause to use it in that manner in a very long time."
--
"Hey...sorry for bringing up a touchy subject." Claude lightly touches Dimitri's arm, but doesn't attempt to re-establish contact otherwise.
--
There's a sharp twitch, muscles tensing, before Dimitri eases up with a slow breath following shortly after. "...I brought it up first. Perhaps that is also to blame, the magic they used. Time will tell, I suppose." His tail snaps from side to side, aggravated despite his own words. "Did you want to head back to the cabin now?"
--
Claude feels as though things took a sharp downturn here, although he's not quite sure if it was something he did specifically, or if it can really be salvaged. He withdraws his hand, looking - not so much upset as preoccupied. He's looking for a solution. "I'm more interested in what you want. But I'd be surprised if you haven't worked up an appetite..."
--
That, at least, redirects Dimitri's attention, and he looks down to his own body thoughtfully. These kinds of things really do require him to actually pay attention- a good a way as any to get him out of his own head. "...Oh." A blink. "I did." He looks up at Claude. "...I can eat whenever I want now." Not just waiting to be fed is.... Huh. He's actually going to have to remember this now, isn't he? This revelation seems to have knocked him off balance slightly.
--
"Not just whenever you want, but whatever you've got available, too." Claude grins at him. "I was thinking we could finish off last night's stew for breakfast, and then lunch - or dinner, at this rate, we got up kind of late - can be the fish we catch. The stew will be nice and filling for a long outing of fishing."
--
"The stew was good...." Food, as is often seeming to be the case, rouses him out of his darker mood, and Dimitri pushes forward so that he can lean around Claude to pick up the two bottles that have been serenely resting along the ground. They can't forget them, after all.
"Will you show me how to fish? I-" He glances back into the lake, tail swaying a little in slow thoughtful movements. "I think what I remember... is not the best."
--
"Of course. It's easy enough anyway." Claude grins. "The hardest part will be not falling asleep."
--
"So I should sit away from you, since it seems easy for you to do while against me," Dimitri says, mouth almost a small smile again before he begins to head in the direction of the cabin again. He can remember that much, roughly, thank the gods. "You would not have fallen asleep fishing on the island, I think. Not from what I remember."
--
"I meant for you," Claude replies with a faint huff. "I stayed awake last night while you kept dozing off, didn't I?" He gets up and follows after Dimitri. "And why's that? How did they fish where you're from?"
--
"So you will not doze off while we are fishing... I see." Needless to say Dimitri will remember this, glancing back to Claude to make sure he's still there before continuing. "And.... I may be remembering this incorrectly. It only came to my mind when I saw the lake. We- the children, my friends and I- would go down to the shallows ."
Adjusting the bottles to one hand, Dimitri starts to gesture slightly as he talks. "I remember doing it at the river and the ocean both... In hindsight, it probably depended on the time of year. I cannot recall if I knew that at the time or not." Just that he went to one place or the other easily enough, as though it made sense. "We would go stand.... in the water? Perhaps on the rocks.... And wait for fish to swim near, where you'd then attempt to catch them."
He looks back over his shoulder again, this time past Claude. "I remember.... children being shoved in the water, amidst lots of talking. I do not think we were particularly good at fishing."
Essentially, the bear method of fishing, as done by a gaggle of excitable Intseh children.
--
Claude laughs. "I bet adult Intseh could be good at it, with those claws you've got; humans wouldn't stand a chance. But little kids...yeah, it probably didn't matter what kind of equipment you had." It makes a nice mental image, though - thinking of Intseh children, splashing and shrieking with laughter in the water. Maybe even fumbling over a fish or two that was particularly slow. Claude - who is accustomed to ulterior motives - wonders if the parents put the kids up to it, just to have something to laugh at(while, incidentally, tiring out the kids for later).
--
"I wonder if I could do it now..." Dimitri considers this idle musing. After all, he's certainly a lot more accurate and fast after so many years, and an adult as well technically. There can't be any harm in trying. You know. When he has time to spare. "I... will look forward to it either way."
He's looking forward to anything and everything, at this point. It's a strange, giddy feeling to have.
--
Claude grins. "Well, wait until I'm finished fishing the human way before you give it a shot. I have a feeling you're going to scare them off pretty thoroughly...at least at first."
--
"I did not say it needed to be today..." The sheepishness leaking off of him seems indicates Dimitri is more than well aware that this will be a disaster at first. He waits for Claude partially up the way to the cabin, ears flicked downwards. "...It would not be advisable to go diving and catch them, would it."
--
"Do you remember how to swim?" Claude asks, cocking an eyebrow at him.
--
"I do not think... swimming is a thing one forgets." Now Dimitri is thoughtful, however, as they continue on. "One wouldn't forget how to run even if they only walked for many years, after all, isn't that right?"
--
"I wouldn't know," Claude replies, with a careless shrug. There's a very interesting fact for you, Dimitri.
--
Extremely interesting, and he outright pauses right by the cabin. "You don't know how to swim?" he asks, ears flicking upwards as if to make sure he understood correctly.
--
"Nah. Never really learned, you know? Almyra only really has much in the way of bodies of water at its borders. Swimming's not really something people had much call to do, and I only had a few years when I could have learned before the church grabbed me. And ever since then...well, there's been no real need and no real opportunity." Claude shrugs. "I bet not one in ten Almyran kids knows how to swim, but I bet not one in ten Intseh kids doesn't know how to."
--
Dimitri had really, genuinely thought that he had run out of energy- or, if not run out, at least exhausted himself for the momentary time being. Yet this realization seems to fill the reserves once more, and he tries his best to show some restraint as he opens the door for Claude. It's not.... quite holding, as there's some quiet excitement in his voice when he asks, "Would you like to learn?"
--
Claude pauses, halfway into the cabin, looking up at Dimitri beside him. Then he grins. "Well, if you'd like to teach me...what could it hurt?"
He chuckles as he slips into the cabin. "So, you'll complain about wet fur when it comes to baths, but you're eager to jump right into a lake...I thought that was a dog thing?"
--
"It is different." How dare you, Claude. The offense is quiet but definitely present in his voice as he trails after him, carefully setting the bottles on the table's surface. "Being submerged in water is different to being wet. It should not count."
Since lighting a fire is something he should possibly not handle at his current state, Dimitri goes over to the pantry and slips down to fetch the stew. He could possibly just slice through the twine again and have that be it... but instead, as he sets it on the table, he tries to fiddle with the knots, claws making the process awkward.
--
"I thought it was the wet fur you objected to?" Claude laughs as he goes to get the fire started. It won't take him too long; there's still, deep down in the ashes, some warm embers. By the time Dimitri emerges with the pot - and certainly by the time he picks apart that twine - there'll be a tiny fire started, and slowly growing.
--
"When I'm in water, I'm not wet." This... is certainly an argument he's making with such solemn seriousness that it's almost kind of funny. Finally done with the twine, he goes to put the pot in its place over the fire while taking extreme care that he doesn't tip it over or put it in an unbalanced position. "It is different."
--
Claude loves this. He loves teasing Dimitri, how indignant the man is, how they're able to have casual fun like this so soon after Dimitri's escape. His eyes sparkle as he looks up at Dimitri. "I wonder what I should wear to swim?" he says, innocently, knowing it's going to completely clothesline whatever train of thought Dimitri was currently having and wanting to enjoy the way the emotions crash into each other on his face.
--
The only other way that one could affect Dimitri so much would be to literally clothesline him, and, frankly, the conversational one Claude has just sent his way might actually have a better chance of getting Dimitri to react. He pauses right in place, crouched by the fire with his face having just... hit a blank spot, brows still partially furrowed as if prepared for an argument but his mouth having fallen open a little for complete lack of words. There are a couple of blinks.
When he recovers, he narrows his eye suspiciously at Claude with all the wariness of someone who knows he's been had but isn't sure how. He just assumes that any mental crashes are made on purpose now.
--
Claude gives him a charming, completely innocent smile, which is more suspicious than any wicked grin in his repertoire. Then he grabs a wooden spoon and starts stirring the stew. It's congealed somewhat in the cold, but it'll go back to its proper consistency once the heat works through it. "Something wrong, Dimitri?"
--
"....Please stop that." Just, in general. That. Still, he lets it go besides that, and his tail flicks around to curl at his feet. "And I do not know what you have. We would wear simply pants or skirts, but I do not know if you have any to wear." There's a pause as he considers Claude's terrible innocent countenance over the pot. "You do not seem as though the sort to be ashamed of going without when in the water...."
--
"In general terms, no. But in practical terms, I'm not sure I want to have, shall we say, anything dangling in a lake full of fish and snapping turtles and things with pincers and gods know what else." Claude manages to say something he's completely serious about in a humorous way, and it's honestly hard to tell if the sincerity or the phrasing is funnier.
Claude isn't comfortable with the concept of being in a legitimate body of water, and it shows in his reservations about it.
--
"There are crabs this far north?" Clear that is what Dimitri is meant to focus on out of everything Claude has said. He can't be blamed, he thinks. After all, they're delicious. He hasn't had crab in very long, but he knows that's essentially true, unless something has gone horrifically wrong with the north. More than it already is, by virtue of having the church exist in it.
Still... He picks his way around the pot, to where Claude is, fingertips light on the floor until he can lean against his friend. "Are you truly worried?" The description had made him want to smile a little bit, but he's still genuinely concerned... so he wants to know how much of that is true on Claude's part as well and not merely that clever tongue going to work once again.
--
"I've no idea. There's probably things like crayfish and stuff, though, right?" Claude shrugs. "As for worried...I mean, a little? Not seriously. But you never know." This is basically Almyran for 'ahaha just kidding...unless...??'
---
Fortunately for Claude's purposefully vague and slightly deceiving ways, even just a little bit of worry is too much by Dimitri's estimate. This is one of the few things he thinks he can do for Claude, at least right away. So he picks up Claude's hand, fingers tilted away to avoid claws to skin. "And here I had not thought there were such little things you were not fully confident of..."
He glances up at Claude from beneath his bangs, just a twitch to show the movement in the fur around it. "Then, shall I tell you something you can know? That 'never' shall not touch?"
--
Why, Claude reflects, is Dimitri so charming? Oh, nothing like him; no learned charisma or smooth talking. It's entirely the product of being so courtly, so earnest, so strangely noble even when the world's done its best to make him otherwise. It unfailingly destroys all of Claude's defenses, undoes all his precautions. Claude thinks that if Dimitri had ever been so lost in his own bitterness as to want to kill Claude, all he would have needed to do was ask Claude to come within arm's reach and it would have been over. Because Claude would have done it.
"What's that?" he murmurs, watching his hand as Dimitri touches it and trying not to give away how his internal consistency is trying to mimic butter in the sun just at the way Dimitri is speaking to him. (He really is hopeless, he muses.) He does his best to pay attention in a way where he'll actually retain anything Dimitri says.
--
"I will be there with you." He raises Claude's hand upwards. "And I will not let anything happen to you." That said, he bows his head and presses a soft shy kiss to Claude's knuckles.
If this is all he can do, then he shall put all of his effort into it. How can he ever give anything less, when he knows Claude has done just as much? This person who risked so much to free him, who went along with his desire to destroy such a cursed room. Maybe something as silly and little as swimming doesn't require such seriousness....
But he wants to repay him. To see him smile more.
The kiss only lasts a second before he looks up from beneath his bangs again, tail twitching. "Does that make you feel better?"
--
Well, Dimitri might be able to judge by how flushed Claude's face is. This is unfair. He is being systematically destroyed by this man. "You've rigged the system," he mutters. "How could anyone say no when you ask them like that?"
Dimitri's going to discover - and Claude is in fact freely imparting this information, perhaps to balance the scales between them a bit - that for as much power as Claude has over him, he has power over Claude.
--
Much like earlier that afternoon, Dimitri can't help but be drawn by the way Claude's skin turns that deep beautiful red. He moves in closer, head tilting to the side in a way that's quickly become learned to make kisses smoother... because that's certainly what he's aiming for, their faces brushing.
"Curious words from one who does it so often," he murmurs, heart hitting the inside of his chest excitedly from attraction and knowledge both.
--
"Exactly," Claude replies, their lips actually brushing as he speaks. "I'm supposed to be on the other side of this."
And then he turns the almost kiss into an actual one, an arm sliding loosely around Dimitri. He doesn't want to get too involved, they're about to eat...but he can't resist temptation completely, either.
--
If they weren't literally right besides the pot... Well, it's debatable Dimitri would remember such a basic thing himself, despite food being what they came back to the cabin for in the first place. Ever since they touched each other through the bars of his cage, or perhaps even before that, it's been so easy to simply... fit against Claude, even when he'd fought against it.
He fits well now, pressing up against Claude with his free hand pinning him in place as it grips his hip. Dimitri can't get enough of kissing Claude, licking his way into his mouth as if chasing a taste far better than anything he could taste here. The other man takes up so much of his attention, Dimitri only begins to realize how close the food is to finishing when he pulls away and his nose finally processes the smell. "Ah..."
--
Claude is already breathless by the time Dimitri pulls away, and he's not sure he would have stopped at all if Dimitri hadn't first. He follows the Intseh's gaze to the pot, and it takes a few unseeing moments before his brain actually restarts itself enough to process what it means. "Oh, yeah, the food," he mumbles, with a level of suavity and collectedness he'll kick himself for later.
He drags himself reluctantly away from Dimitri to go fetch the bowls and spoons. Gods, he's in so much trouble. They're on the run. In church-controlled lands, still, in a place people friendly with the church occasionally use! He can hardly afford to have his higher thought processes shorted out by his libido, can he?
A helpful part of his brain points out that it's happening whether he can afford it or not; he does his best to shush it. He scoops some stew for himself and Dimitri - a bit more for Dimitri than himself, although not an overly significant difference - and hands Dimitri's bowl over to him.
--
Letting go of Claude isn't something Dimitri particularly wants to do, but which he allows to happen regardless. He still watches Claude, claws kneading into his paws with the desire to hold him all the more. It's that pulse of attraction not unlike that one night, all the hard edges of the initial experience softened since then. If not for food, what would he do, truly? Would it be something good, something he could be certain Claude would like?
Silly questions to ask, when they've already gone so far and Claude has made the invitation.... But Dimitri worries over it even as he accepts his bowl of stew with quiet thanks. At least the first spoonful distracts his thoughts, and Dimitri sighs through his nose. "It is still as good as the first time..." Amazing.
--
Claude grins at him. "Might be even better. Sometimes letting the flavor develop overnight actually improves it a little bit." It's a good thing they're both hungry; it helps keep them on track. Otherwise, Claude suspects, they'd be much more tempted to let themselves be distracted by each other.
He is wondering whether they're actually going to go fishing before evening, though, at this rate. (Which wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, either, a small part of his brain that insists it's logical but might just be self-serving insists. It's practically midday by this point, and fish bite more at dawn and dusk.)
--
"Really? I wonder why that is... Interesting." Surely not all food do the same as stew, but now Dimitri is left thinking on it. If he focuses on only the immediate things in front of him, he's fairly certain he can keep from being overburdened by his own thoughts.... Maybe. If nothing else, he feels a little more confident in remembering bits of information like this.
It's something that, for the most part, keeps his mind occupied. Even still, however, he continues to glance over to where Claude is, ears twitching. This isn't last night, after all, with both of them too exhausted to want to do anything but bathe, eat, and go to sleep. Feeling that urge, watching Claude be so... so... cute, when will that next strike him.... and how far will they go that time? It's some pondering that has his tail swishing from side to side, eager and curious.
--
Claude doesn't miss this body language as he eats; he might even have some inkling of what it's about. It helps that he's having similar thoughts of his own, even if he has fewer ways to accidentally signal it.
"What?" he teases, between bites of stew. "Have I got something on my face?"
--
One of these days, Dimitri will realize how obvious he makes himself. As it is, being called out like this takes him by surprise, and he straightens up with his ears flicking back. "No." A pause as he actually looks over at Claude to actually make sure of this instead of answering automatically. Okay, no, that was the right answer.
Stirring his spoon in the stew automatically just for something to do, Dimitri glances away. "I was... merely thinking how... attractive you are."
--
Claude grins broadly at this. "Oh~? You don't say..." If you ever wanted an open invitation to flatter Claude, Dimitri, you've just been given one.
Claude will remember, in a second, that Dimitri absolutely destroys him when he says nice things about him, and will come to regret this offer. At least partially. But for now, he's forgotten - yet again - that Dimitri doesn't do titillating banter; he's just unbearably honest.
--
"I do." Dimitri glances back to him again, a minute shift of his head. There's that charming wide grin again, matching that beautiful look in his eyes. He'd hesitate a little more, not wanting to seem too much... But Claude has asked for this every time, hasn't he? When confirming Dimitri's feelings outside, earlier, and now just a few minutes ago, when he'd indicated just how much he wants to hear it from Dimitri to fall into that lovely blushing state...
...Perhaps it's fine.
"I was simply thinking... earlier, when I was by your side. I've so rarely seen you in the daylight.... I did not pay much attention, back in my cage, due to circumstances." You know, laughing at Carnius' self-inflicted misfortunes. "But just now, it occurred to me what a sight it is. I have not ever cared on the church's views of religion.... yet if they had even a fraction of how heavenly you had looked, with sunlight falling across your hair in such a manner that my breath was stolen, perhaps it would have made some sense. Yet it was the way you blushed, seeing your skin deepen and warm so near to me, that made me want to draw in close..." He finally remembers to take a bit of his food, even as he glances over to Claude again. "It has imparted into me such an urge that has not left."
--
How. How did Dimitri manage to take something as pointedly sexy as telling Claude he's attractive, and turn it into yet more soul-bearing, heart-rending, earnest romance? Claude thought he was on familiar territory here, and Dimitri's just swept his legs out from under him again.
(Or, in a romantic context, would it be sweeping him off his feet? Can they mean the same thing?)
Claude swears that before Dimitri, he can't even remember the last time he blushed or felt the slightest bit self-conscious. Now he's blushing again for the second time in...what? Hours? This can't be good for him.
He has to look back down at his soup; he'd swear his ears are burning. "From anyone else, that'd sound like a really cheesy pick-up line," he mutters into his bowl. "But you really mean every word..."
--
There it is. Dimitri's tail is audible as the end smacks from side to side. If not for the food he still has in his own hands, he knows he would be going over to Claude once again much in the same way as he did before, chasing after that endearing and soft look on his friend's face. Well, the food and-
"Is cheesy bad? But it is such a delicious food."
--
Claude laughs at that. "I don't know why it's supposed to be bad exactly, but it's supposed to mean something like...over-the-top, or ridiculous. Or maybe embarrassing."
--
"I am not embarrassed." The feeling isn't exactly foreign to him- he's felt some shame at a few different things, although he has to admit that he possibly feels it less than different people, or at least in different scenarios. He's still figuring things out. But to feel embarrassed about his feelings for Claude, his attraction?
Never.
Dimitri finishes off his stew, considering the definition he's been given. "...Although it certainly causes you to react far more." Another few excited flicks of his tail. "I like that."
--
"You like making me blush, huh?" Claude grins sidelong at him, even as he finishes his own stew, setting the bowl aside. "That's probably the tamest thing you could feel satisfied about making me do...I don't know whether to be relieved or disappointed about that."
--
"Well. It is.... connected." He twists the spoon inbetween his fingers, the end bumping into the bowl with every turn. "These instances... are not the only times I have seen your face flush, after all."
In some ways, it was quite different from when he had Claude pinned on the other side of the bars, claws twisted in his hair and fingers wrapped around his cock, but.... It's certainly a connecting factor.
--
"You've got a point." Claude smirks at him. "Have you given a lot of thought to that other time...?"
--
His tail stills. Ah, there it is, the embarrassment. "Yes. Often." He grinds his thumb against his spoon further. "And... today."
--
Claude shifts a bit closer to Dimitri. Later, when the parts of his brain not wired directly to his libido regain control, he'll remember that he had things he wanted to do today and that this was maybe not the wisest of plans. But for now, temptation has fully won him over. "And what exactly were you thinking about it~?" he teases, eyes sparkling wickedly.
--
Tempting others- or maybe simply Dimitri, specifically- really does seem to be Claude's favorite past time, and Dimitri's tongue pokes out briefly as he flicks it over his fangs. The bowl is quickly becoming forgotten now as he watches Claude lean in ever closer. "If I were to be exact.... pinning you down. Seeing... the different ways you'd react to the claws and fangs you said you were so interested in. That is to start with."
--
Claude glances over, briefly, to make sure the pot is off the fire; that's about all the brainpower he can spare for practical concerns. Then his attention goes right back to Dimitri.
If he had a tail, it'd be lashing. As it is, Dimitri's only warning system for when Claude is feeling predatory is...pretty much just when Claude acts like it, by which point it's already too late.
A hand lifts up to cup Dimitri's cheek, tilting his face more towards Claude as Claude leans up and nips lightly at the corner of Dimitri's mouth. "If the appetizer sounds that...appetizing," he purrs, "then what's the entree...?"
--
If Claude's weakness is Dimitri's soft words, then Dimitri's is definitely Claude's equally soft touch, and he presses down into his hand with a warm sigh. Biting is new, and his lips quirk a little bit in amusement. It's hardly anything at all, with blunt teeth like that. "Taking my time to enjoy you... in ways I never would have been able to before."
And to show him how it's done, Dimitri winds his claws through Claude's hair again to nudge his head aside so there's nothing interfering when he leans down further. More than anyone else, Dimitri knows how to use his teeth- where to bite that's fatal, how much pressure is too much. The pleasure aspect of such a thing has been foreign to him... so he's more than glad to learn more as he grazes his fangs along the side of Claude's neck.
--
Claude makes a low sound of satisfaction. "And when were you planning to do that?" he murmurs, in a voice that indicates his preference is 'now'.
--
So about that honesty of his... Dimitri hums, nipping at the junction between neck and shoulder. "I don't know. I was still thinking..." There's been so much, he can barely keep up. "You make it so difficult...."
--
Claude laughs at that. "I get that a lot." He combs fingers through Dimitri's hair. "We don't have to rush anything if you don't want to, though."
--
"Mm.... I want to..." But right now? Something suddenly occurs to Dimitri, and he straightens up to blink down at Claude. "You just ate." His brow draws in. "I shouldn't do anything when you've just eaten..."
Technically, Dimitri has just eaten too, but he's less concerned about that.
--
Claude blinks, then laughs. "So did you," he points out. "But when are we going to have a better opportunity today? After we go fishing, we'll have to cook the fish up and eat them pretty quickly. Fish doesn't keep well.
--
"Claude, you'll get sick." There are a few thumps from his tail, and Dimitri uses his hand where it is so that he can lightly bump their foreheads together. "Weren't you the one who said we don't have to rush?"
--
Claude grins up at Dimitri, gazing into that blue eye with those dangerously devious green ones. "I said we don't have to if you don't want to. If you do want to, then I'm totally fine with rushing." He gives Dimitri a chaste - and, somehow, cute, perhaps due to how uncharacteristic it is for anything Claude does to be so innocent - peck on the lips. "Would it make you feel better if we waited an hour? Napped or something?"
--
"You will feel better." Still, that does seem to be a plan of action which reassures him, and Dimitri rises to his feet. "Is there anything that needs to be done in that time...? You just woke up, so I doubt you feel the need to nap..."
Dimitri could, he's sure, both because he's used to napping his time away and also because he just threw himself all around a lake shore. Still, his concern is with Claude, and will be for the foreseeable future.
--
"You're adorable when you're considerate, you know that?" Claude smiles fondly at him. "Let's see...there's hardly any stew left, so you could finish that if you wanted. Then we can wash out the pot, and the bowls. The horses could use some exercise...and we can check their feed and water, but I gave them plenty of both last night so they should be okay there. Beyond that...I think we're good for the moment."
--
Finishing the stew doesn't sound like a bad thing to Dimitri at all, which already seems to be leading up to a good.... noon? afternoon? He's going to have to start caring about the times of day now. However, there's one thing in that list which perks him up.
"The horses... That's right. I've been.... trying to think carefully on a name. Perhaps I will be certain once I see him again."
--
"Do you want to help me with them, then? I can wait for you to finish eating, if so." The glint in Claude's eyes suggests he already knows Dimitri is going for the stew.
-
Dimitri's ears lower very slowly. "It is very good stew," he says quietly, because dammit Claude he doesn't need to defend himself with this. Still, he goes to refill his bowl now that he remembers it exists, and makes sure to scrape the very bottom of the pot so that nothing is left. Food shouldn't be wasted, after all.
Horses shouldn't be kept waiting, either, and Dimitri goes a little quicker even though he can't help but savor the occasional bite. Soon enough, he's eagerly gathering the bowls in one hand, and reaching for the pot with the other to do a repeat of last night. He's eager to show he can remember these things as well, minor though they may be.
--
Claude lets him take the lead, merely supervising; he's more than a little proud. Not at his own teaching skills, really - it's simple enough a task to have taught - and not because he necessarily wants Dimitri to have to do the work. It's more in seeing how happy Dimitri is to have learned, and how happy he is to be useful. And, of course, how quickly his friend (they still need a better word for it; Claude resolves to discuss it directly with him soon) picks up on these things. It just proves what he's always believed - Dimitri was never meant to be an executioner.
He'll follow Dimitri over to the bathroom, but only to the door; he doesn't feel the need to hover over his shoulder. He's sure Dimitri's got this.