Title: something that does right by you
Rating: T for swearing i guess in this lol and general series themes
Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses (modern au) Characters: Edelgard & Dimitri with background Dim/lth
notes: Written as a secret santa gift for Usaigi! Using her modern fe3h verse. I do hope you enjoy :pray: A couple of notes: -Takes place after Dimitri and Byleth get married -They are living in America currently bc I figured it was a Duke and Duchess of Sussex situation. Edelgard is studying for her PHD in the UK. -The story deals with Dimitri having a panic attack, but we only see the after effects. Because it is written from Edelgard's POV there is some amount of tension and worrying if he is alright. He is! I want to make that clear from the get go. Apologies for any inaccuracies and happy holidays/light and love 💖
If Edelgard were being honest she would have assumed she would only have visited America after completing her dissertation (and if she were being really honest she would express doubt she would even get there. The chemo had been working so far but above all Edelgard was a realist, even when hopeful).
She had not anticipated Dimitri making an international call just to leave her a voice message with the simple request: “El, can we talk?”
She had not anticipated any of this, and when she told Helena of it she was of course thoroughly opposed, especially at Edelgard’s immediate decision to pull up an airline app on her phone.
The thing her dear friend didn’t understand was, that Dimitri never asked her for anything – even in their early twenties when he had wanted to reconcile at Garreg Mach of all places (there was sentimental, Edelgard reasoned, and then there was Dimitri) he had left her a way out, and when she had come to his wedding not long after he had insisted her presence was the only gift either he or Byleth needed.
Something must have happened; both she and Helena had reached that same conclusion and while part of Edelgard appreciated how little her closest confidante had changed in her priorities after all this time, she also wanted Helena to respect Edelgard’s own decision on the matter.
“I’ve wanted a gap year, anyway,” she had said, “and you can come along. We’ll be passing through New York and I know you have scathing opinions on the architecture there I can only truly appreciate up close.”
And that had settled it, mostly. Because as supportive as she was Helena still couldn’t quite understand Edelgard’s recent allegiance to her step-brother when for so long she had spoken of him as if he were the devil himself.
The younger Edelgard had needed a devil like that, before confronting her own demons and it wasn’t something she could make up for. Nor did she want to. Both she and Dimitri were comfortable with who they were as adults, even if – and perhaps because the path there had been so treacherous.
What it came down to, she realized, as she placed the white wig on her head that she had recently had styled into an asymmetrical fade was time, really; she wanted to make the best of what she had left, and right now she was sure that the best thing she could do was respond to Dimitri’s call for aid.
She was unable to get Dimitri to pick up either the houseline or his cell prior to landing but Byleth, who was currently visiting Alaska but in a similar vein to Edelgard was one tap away from a direct flight home, told her that was not entirely unusual.
“Disconnecting from social media entirely, even cell phones is always the go-to when things get bad. The news is…”
“Everywhere, yeah; and insidious, I know. But what about the two of you? You must still keep in contact?”
“We have a pager system,” Byleth confirmed, as Edelgard moved to a small café area in the airport to hear her better. “So far he’s been responding with one letter pages back, which isn’t great… but I’m hopeful.”
“Yeah?” Edelgard said, biting her lip.
“Yeah,” her sister-in-law repeated; “he reached out to you. I think there must be something on his mind he thinks only you can relate with, it’s well – I’ve thought it might be something like that for awhile. I just hadn’t expected his isolation to progress so fast.”
Edelgard very slowly let her breath out and tried to emulate the calm, collected way Byleth used to talk to all of them as students: “I’m hailing a cab right now, and then Helena will take me the rest of the way. As soon as I get to the house I’ll text you.”
“I appreciate it,” Byleth answered, even as Edelgard could hear multiple voices in the background trying to get Byleth’s attention, “this conference is important but Dimitri is, he’s much more than that. Everything. Even if he doesn’t know it.”
“He’d want you to stay, but if he’s badly off I’ll let you know immediately. We are family, after all.”
“Yes,” Byleth says, the worry still there in her voice but conviction stronger as she ended the call with: “and family should take care of each other."
She hadn’t thought she would ever need the spare key both Byleth and Dimitri had sent her in their holiday letters stating their change of address, but when no one is there to answer the doorbell she is grateful for it.
Helena was waiting for her right outside, she reminded herself but oddly, as she stepped into the large but surprisingly simple combined kitchen and entryway Edelgard felt fear not for herself but for her brother.
The automatic lights flicker to life one after the other as she makes her way through the house; pausing in the living room to take in the sight of double sofa and large coffee table. She can perfectly imagine Dimitri with a tea kettle and cozy on one side of the table fussing over Byleth with the latest Sports Fishing Annual magazine in one hand and a too-full mug in the other.
It surprises her, the strength of the feeling that comes with the simple imagining and Edelgard again renewed her resolve to help her brother however she could.
Byleth had told her the hallway that extended from the living room to the back of the house mostly consisted of guest rooms, their bedroom, and a study; and so armed with that knowledge, and her phone in hand Edelgard peered into each one calling out Dimitri’s name each time.
It was in the study she found him; though, at the moment it seemed less like a place of higher learning and more like an oddly book-filled cavern. Her step-brother didn’t respond to her call at first, and Edelgard noticed the way he was sitting up against the very back wall with stacks of books bracketing him on either side; she is suddenly aware too that as little height as she has, it is blocking the door – the one way out, and so she shuffles to the side of the entryway and sits down herself.
“El?” She finally hears, and his voice is gravelly from disuse but it’s not as bad as it could be.
“It’s me, Dee. You called me on the phone, remember? And I wanted to come so, here I am.”
Raising his head completely, Dimitri takes her in with a not-quite believing look in his eye; Edelgard slides a bit closer so that when she flips her right bang aside he can make out the beginnings of the eagle tattoo there.
“See, look – it’s really me,” she said, holding her hair up so he can get a better look at the design even from across the room; “I hadn’t gotten this last time we met; and it’s still a work in progress, a secret. Can you even tell it’s a wing?”
Her laugh comes out overly loud to her own ears but Dimitri has not looked away.
“It’s… nice,” he manages after a very long moment, and Edelgard realizes speaking must still be difficult for him but he is here corresponding with her, and that in itself is a great relief.
She has always been too cowardly to reach out her hand before, but for Dimitri in the now – who seems to possess a fear sickeningly similar to what she once she once felt, alone as a child, she can try.
“Do you want me to tell you the story behind it? The tattoo. The eagle. It’s a little embarrassing, actually but well what friend group isn’t.”
Dimitri nods, and as Edelgard speaks his eyes grow clearer.
She tells him first about Helena (aware of course that somehow the woman in question might very well be listening in, an oddly comforting thought), and then reminds him of Ferdinand. It is difficult to keep the subject light when it comes to topics of the Aegir and Vestra patriarchs so she focuses instead on their truly unlikely friendship; on how Ferdinand had in turned changed her and introduced her to Dorothea whose perspective had given them all a whole new world of considerations.
Eventually her own throat grows dry, and Dimitri, still with his back to the wall but leaning forward now asks: “would you like a drink of water?”
“Would I?” She chuckles. “I think we both could use some. Byleth told me you always those reusable bottles in the fridge. Want me to grab a couple?
Dimitri moves his legs, settles and resettles, and finally nods. “I would be in your debt.”
“Weirdo,” Edelgard tells him but when she comes back to see him waiting for her, more alert than he’s seemed all day, she cannot deny the warm surge of relief that rises up within her.
They share their simple drink in silence. Edelgard had found a plate of fresh, cut fruit in the fridge, as well and so it sits between them mostly untouched accept for the few grapes she’s nibbled on in between making sure Dimitri is really drinking (he is, and in fact has almost finished the bottle).
“Listen,” she says, “if I overstep you can tell me. But I saw you tense up when I mentioned Byleth just now so I have to ask: did something happen?”
“Not exact-” Dimitri starts off conversationally but then jolts suddenly, his foot kicking some of the fruit in the direction of the desktop computer in the corner; and he looks toward it frantically, as if it might light up on command: “Edelgard, god, what day is it?”
“Wednesday,” she tells him, unmoving, “two days since her conference began; and before you run out of the room, I literally just texted her to say you were alright. Eating, drinking, talking.”
Edelgard gestures at the displaced plate on the floor and Dimitri huffs out a relieved laugh, taking an apple that had managed to stay mostly in contact and staring at it for a long moment.
“Thank you,” he finally says, “for coming… it was Monday that I called and, you really did come right away didn’t you?” His eyes gaze at her with amazement and embarrassed, Edelgard wrinkles her nose.
“Puppy eyes won’t get you out of this. What were you freaking out about and also not telling your wife prior to her getting on a plane to Alaska?”
Dimitri bites into the apple, before putting it aside and admits: “It’s something I did not want to trouble her with, but something I thought you might understand.”
Edelgard is barely following at all but gives him her best snooty smile: “okay, shoot. You can trouble me with whatever, considering all the shit I used to give you.”
Dimitri goes silent again, but this time she can tell it’s not due to an inability form to words and more how to start, in the end he goes straight for the heart of it.
“We had a pregnancy scare last month,” he says, eyes downcast and Edelgard moves closer, asking immediately: “is Byleth alright? Did you go to see a doctor?”
“It’s, no – well, yes. We did. And it was nothing, actually. A false positive. Byleth was fine, except that well, I think she was disappointed.”
Nodding, Edelgard backs up a bit; drumming her fingers against one knee. “She’s always been good with kids,” is what she finally settles on.
“That’s exactly it!” Dimitri tells her, looking close to tears (and sweet jesus Edegard is not good with those but hell if she’s running away now); “she’s amazing with children, and I… it’s come up before. I know she wants them but I-”
“You…?” Edelgard prompts, when Dimitri stops suddenly. He looks her dead in the eye then, seemingly disappointed. “Edelgard. I do not have to tell you that our family has a history of mental illness among other maladies.”
Oh. Oh, fuck. Duh. Starting a family had and continues to be the furthest thing from Edelgard’s mind as she continues to piece her life together, but of course this is something that would worry Dimitri, and of course someone would have to be there in person to pull it out of him.
“Have you talked about in-vitro, at all? Or adopting?” Her words seem painfully rote but Dimitri really looks at her as she speaks and the pure hurt on his face says everything he cannot.
“It isn’t… just that, Byleth would be a wonderful mother; I know. But how can someone like me be a father?”
It is official, he has called upon the singular worst person to talk to about this subject; but thankfully, this Worst Person knows him well enough to see what bullshit direction his brain might be leading him in. Dimitri and Byleth have beaten the odds before and if Edelgard of all people has to remind him of that, then yeah, she’ll do it no matter what.
“First, don’t talk about yourself like that. If I can’t, then neither can you, second…”
Second, she thinks, and it is a thought she is cognizant of for perhaps the first time: I wish mom were here; still, regardless of how Patricia might have spoken with Dimitri Edelgard can only ever be herself. She hopes it is enough.
“Second,” she restates, “as a raging lesbian known for her anti-establishment ways I probably don’t have the widest view on the subject: but I know one thing for damn sure, parenting is the work of two people, and you and Byleth are partners.”
“But – ”
“Partners. I was there when you said your vows. And I’ve seen the two of for a long time, together, even if it’s only now I can say I really know you. So listen up: Byleth would want to hear your thoughts, and she would never, ever think you lesser for them.”
Dimitri’s eyes are still dark and hurting but she can see herself and the reflection of the desktop’s light reflected in them, and so she continues, voice softening as she does: “she told me on the phone not a few hours ago how important to her, you are. She said you were everything. Look, I, it’s different for me with my friends I get that but, Dima, you can’t just assume you’re the only one who loves. You need to accept being loved, that you are loved.”
Again, she inches closer and wonders what on earth she is saying; how she could possibly be the same Edelgard who insisted the earth was merely a one-in-a-million mistake, that the universe was godless and more than that, cruel – but as she speaks, she knows she is right and something of that belief must be transfer to Dimitri because he nods. He nods and he cries.
As it turns out, it isn’t so bad after all; fetching tissues, and sitting next to him as he lets it out. She tears up a few times herself actually and is in the process of blowing her nose when her phone beeps with a notification.
Dimitri’s pager, somewhere across the room, does the same.
She smiles down at her phone as she watches Dimitri shakily stand and find his device; smiles wider when she sees he must have gotten the same message she did.
“Told you,” is all she says as Dimitri comes to sit back down with her. Byleth’s ETA is sometime in the late evening, and Edelgard thinks to herself she is so not letting Dimitri go to the airport alone.
“Guess I’ll let the hotel know I’ll be a little late,” Edelgard says, swiping at her phone screen. “Helena too, you know; basically the same thing.”
“Hotel?” Dimitri says as if she’s just insulted the adorable plush bear sitting at the desktop computer. “Edelgard, you did not - you came here at my behest, so of course you and Helena both will stay here!”
She grins. At one time she would have denied she had taken the trip just for him, but considering she’d basically admitted he was someone she loved earlier that seemed excessive (she wonders if Helena is listening in and if so has been keeping a bingo card of all this).
“It’s not a problem. I had been planning to sight see, anyway,” she says, standing to stretch. “Found a great little place with not too many paparazzi. And breakfast is all day.
“Let me at least refund you!” Dimitri says, walking after her; and Edelgard laughs: “let’s talk about it later. With Byleth.”
Dimitri lets out a long breath at that, and then nods, finally returning her grin with a small smile of his own.
“Yes, let’s all talk later. I would like that.”
