Lavender & Lilies

Worthy

TW: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS VISCERAL DEPICTIONS OF MENTAL ANGUISH AND SELF HARM. ONLY READ IF THIS DOES NOT TRIGGER YOU.

Dimitri ran his hands through his hair.

And then he did again. And again. And again.

Try as he might, the sensation of Lilli— no, von Elway's fingers massaging his scalp refused to go away. He found himself longing for another kiss, to finish what was started.

He felt like screaming, crying. He was so... confused. Disoriented. Addled. Distressed.

Glenn berated him. Patricia sobbed. His father refused to look at him.

Dimitri couldn't stand to look at himself either. He pulled his knees to his chest, folding in on himself, curling into a ball and clawing at his skull. Though tears stung his eyes he held them back as much as he could.

Her hands on his chest, on his back, on his neck, in his hair, holding him, touching him. It was amazing. It was horrid. It was.

"I cannot do this anymore," he whispered to himself, tone barely restrained. "Why must you torture me so?"

Feeling a teardrop escape and trail down his cheek, he cried out in agony. "Why? Why must you do this to me?" he howled, his voice cracking as he dissolved into tears.

It was wrong, but it was right, but it was so much more and so much less and he couldn't understand it. He had a mission, a duty to fulfill: a vow to his family, his friends, all those who took his place.

"D-D-D-Dedue," Dimitri choked out. "I n-need Dedue. A-and the P-P-P-P-Professor. I need someone!" The scream shook the furniture.

He needed to scratch his skin off. He needed to tear himself apart. He needed to tear her apart. He needed it all to end. The disapproving stares of the only family he ever knew burned right through his soul. No part of him was worthy. Not a single hair on his body could atone. Not a single deed could make up for their saving of flesh that should have been theirs.

Before he realized it, his fist clenched and he pounded the floorboards. Again and again and again he pounded, smashing through wood planks and stone, knuckles and fingers raw and bleeding. Dimitri could hardly see the red-stained hole through the film of tears in his eyes. He was oblivious to the pain, but only because other matters pained him more.

He wanted to throw something. To stab something. To destroy, to kill, to pay, to redeem himself, to become something that was anything other than what he was.

The agony in his soul drove him mad. He clutched his head in his bloodied hands, rolling around on the ground with broken wails. The mixed cacophony in his ears included Glenn's screams, his stepmother's cries, his father's rebukes, and his own pitiful sobs.

"Why, why why why why why?" he screamed, gasping for air. The urge to rip off his own limbs was almost unbearable.

He hugged himself, nails digging into the muscles of his back, his arms. Everywhere she touched him, everywhere she saw something worth looking at, everywhere she saw something worth being in love with.

Scratches and punctures and scrapes from his fingers and the splinters on the floor gushed blood. Dimitri's vision swam so he scrunched his eyes closed and yelled unintelligibly at himself as though any of it meant anything.

He couldn't bring himself to stop even after he felt the contact of another's hand frantically grab at his wrists. Tears streamed down his cheeks, the salt mixing with the blood of his wounds only to sting and aggravate him more.

More hands joined the fray, not to aid in his destruction of himself, but to scrabble around attempting to restrain him. At last, Dimitri opened his eyes to be greeted with the alarmed expression of Webbs, who grasped his wrists as tightly as possible while the prince thrashed and kicked and shrieked.