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Dimitri is quite perplexed, when he opens the store cupboard door, to find Mercedes propped up against the shelves.
“Oh,” he says, and conjures a pleasant smile on top of the bone-deep weariness that weighs down the corners of his face. “Good evening, Mercedes. I am sorry to interrupt.”
“Oh, Dimitri! Good evening. I lost track of time,” Mercedes says, stifling a yawn.
“What—are you alright?”
“Yes, thank you. I came looking for ink refills for the children I’m teaching, but they’re sadly out of my reach.”
Dimitri may not be able to fix relations with Sreng, or convince the border lords to agree upon trade routes with Duscur, or even have a quill survive longer than a fortnight in his monstrous hands, but he can fetch ink pots for Mercedes.
Finally, a problem he can solve.
He steps forward and reaches up while Mercedes is talking, careful to keep his body from touching hers as he looms over her head to retrieve the supplies in question.
“And because the door can’t be opened from the inside, I’ve been stuck here ever since,” Mercedes says, as the door clicks shut behind Dimitri like a death knell.
“I beg your pardon?” He says into the sudden darkness.
“Oh,” comes Mercedes’ voice from just below and in front of his chin. “That’s very unfortunate. I’ve been here since teatime.”
A strangled noise is choked off in Dimitri’s throat before it can escape from his mouth. Moving with care—and delicacy, lest he accidentally strike Mercedes—he transfers the ink pots to a single hand and searches for the door handle in the dark.
“Sylvain and Felix have been intending to replace the handle for several days now,” she says, as Dimitri’s hand blindly finds the blank space that should contain a handle but now, in an unprecedented absence, does not.
“Why are those two responsible for a handle on the inside of a store cupboard?” Dimitri’s cloak is much heavier than he has previously noticed. In the darkness, the warmth is suffocating, and sweat gathers at his collar. If he moves, he’ll risk brushing against Mercedes in this cramped and stuffy space.
Mercedes giggles; high and light, and Dimitri turns toward it like a ship to a beacon. “I’m afraid I made a promise that I wouldn’t tell!”
“Right,” Dimitri says, overheating. “I shall once again have a word with Felix about delegating appropriately. He insists upon taking all matters into his own hands, I don’t know what to do with him sometimes. Once we escape, of course,” he finishes with a self-deprecating chuckle, embarrassed at his own wordiness.
“Dimitri!” Mercedes says his name as though he’s delivered a raucous joke, despite his utter sincerity. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what goes on in supply cupboards?”
“I thought you were sworn to secrecy.”
In attempting to fix his first problem—a snapped quill—he has acquired two more: his sudden onset rapid breathing indicates claustrophobia, which is both newfound and unwelcome knowledge due to his status as ‘locked in a cupboard’, and the feeling that he is missing the punchline to a joke he did not hear being spoken.
“Of course, but—my, Dimitri, are you alright?”
“Yes,” Dimitri says, as his fingers go numb. “I may pass out. Nerves only, so kindly pay me no mind.”
Mercedes tuts, but fondly, and says, “It’s just a cupboard, silly. We could probably break the door down in a pinch.” The reminder of his destructive capabilities does little to reassure him. “I’m going to touch you, if that’s okay?”
“Of course,” Dimitri says faintly, assuming that he’s about to be positioned to give his unfortunate companion more space.
Mercedes’ hands fumble at his face until they wind through his hair and pull his head down against her shoulder. Dimitri tenses, unsure, but Mercedes clasps her hands together behind his shoulders and—
Oh. He’s receiving a hug.
The shock of it startles him out of the incoming panic attack, but replaces it with a new problem.
His skin now burns for an entirely different reason.
Despite his heavy layers of fur, each point of contact between him and Mercedes is hot and filled with static. Her deceptively soft body must be wrapped around a core of steel, for she holds tightly onto Dimitri and refuses to let him shy away.
“Mercedes, the ink pots,” he says, strangled not by any physical concern but by the weight of her continual, unconditional love.
“They’ll be fine on a shelf,” Mecedes says in her sweet, lilting voice. Dimitri fumbles to deposit the pots on an empty portion of shelf and then stands there, unsure what to do with his hands.
And equally unsure what to do about his newest problem.
Dimitri is blind in one eye, not both, and he bears witness to her gentle smile and soft touches. His brain conjures horrid, disgusting visions on his sleepless nights, where he imagines he can feel her thighs under his hands or the brush of her lips against his, or, perhaps, lower—
Denial has so far not resolved this issue, and the thoughts return in full force (with a flanking battalion) as Mercedes presses her chest against his and he cannot think about anything else. She’s merely comforting him, he would never do her such a disservice as revealing the depths of his base desires—
Her hand cups his erection through his clothes.
“Mercedes!” He whisper-shouts, voice breaking in a way that he’s been free of since his pubescent years. “I—I apologise, but, ahem, your hand.”
“Sorry, am I too cold?” Mercedes says, and grinds the heel of her hand against his eager erection.
“No,” Dimitri wheezes.
“And do you feel better about the current situation?”
“Yes, but—”
“I’ve been very much looking forward to spending time with you, for a while now,” Mercedes says, her free hand slipping over Dimitri’s shoulder, down Dimitri’s chest, resting on Dimitri’s belt buckle. Between the insinuation and the insistent press of her palm against him, he is undone. His emotional dam breaks, the physical touch overflows, and he comes, hard, into his trousers and against Mercedes’ insistent body.
When he next remembers to breathe and stumbles back from his semi-unconscious state, we would blush, were all the blood in his body not diverted elsewhere. “Mer-Mercedes, I am so sorry, I most sincerely apologise, I don’t even—”
A small flame flickers to life between them, illuminating Mercedes’ face with orange and gold against the darkness of the cupboard, and despite everything, Dimitri is relieved to see her.
“There we go. Doesn’t that feel so much better?”
Dimitri’s head is empty.
Utterly, peacefully, blissfully empty.
“Yes,” he says, and means it. And opens his mouth again to speak further, but Mercedes gets there first.
“Then we’re both satisfied, aren’t we? Now, would you be a big strong Dimitri and help a lady escape this supply cupboard?”
“Uh, anything,” Dimitri says, and forces the door without a shred of self-recrimination.
Mercedes emerges from the darkness behind him and places a delicate hand on his arm, heedless of the act it had just been complicit in. She instigated and shows no signs of remorse, and Dimitri’s whirlwind of thoughts has quieted down to a gentle zephyr.
Perhaps this is okay?
Perhaps, for just this moment, with this woman, he is okay.