"Sometimes I can't tell the difference between who is talking to me and who is talking to me but also isn't real."
@vindictiveking. / meme i can’t be assed to find. / not accepting.
claude sighs quietly , looking to dimitri with a smile that looks too tired to really be his. in rare moments like this , claude allows himself to be vulnerable , to seem less put together than he has to be , a burden he’s all too aware the king understands. they are the same , leaders , people who are expected to have all the answers all the time , even in the most impossible situations.
but in the end , beneath the many mantles they may wear , they are so unfortunately human. & being human only gets you so far , even under the best of circumstances. & in being human , they come with baggage , they come war-torn & beaten , they come fraying at the edges & tearing at the seams , & they come with their secrets , ones that claude is comfortable keeping close to his chest.
but dimitri , it seems , comes with more baggage & secrets than most , but he is different than most , in that claude is ever so interested in picking him apart to find them all , to find the secrets dimitri may not even know he holds . the duke of riegan does not doubt that he could spend his whole life picking dimitri’s brain , pulling at his fraying threads until they all unravel.
‘ you know, you’ll have to try harder than that if you want to scare me off, dima. ’
he laughs softly , hand reaching up to rest on dimitri’s cheek , almost studying him now. the conversations dimitri holds with himself are of no secret to claude , but right now , he thinks , is not the time for pulling threads. it’s a rare moment they can come together , shed their titles if only for a few hours , & simply be human .
what a terrible & terrifying thing to be sometimes.
‘ but i’m real, promise. feel for yourself if you don’t believe me. ’
