Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The goal in coming to Garreg Mach is closure.

At least, that’s the primary goal, but escaping the clutches of your maniacal adoptive father is a close second. That’s already achieved by skulking around the woods adjacent to the monastery, however; it takes nerve to work your way up to Garreg Mach’s familiar front steps, convincing yourself that seeing it, even if it’s dilapidated and empty, will settle something in you, make it easier to sleep at night. You don’t know what you expect, but when you finally manage to talk yourself past the front gate, it’s the same as you remember, save for some minor damage done by the battle five years prior.

And it’s empty, desolate, reclaimed partially by nature because no one has been here to landscape. Your steps are hesitant, softer than usual because they echo and it’s like everyone in the town nearby can hear each tentative shuffle as you try and unearth something you can’t identify, something you feel you left here following the abrupt evacuation following The Flame Emperor’s attack.

The Flame Emperor, like she didn’t turn out to be Edelgard. Like you didn’t see a friendly rival unmasked, connected to things you can’t imagine her ever being capable of, like you didn’t see it break Dimitri—

Your jaw clenches, teeth grinding. Thinking about it won’t change anything. You’ve survived five years by running, not giving it a chance to catch up to you, and you certainly won’t stop now that you’re so close to putting it to rest. Thinking about it won’t bring Dimitri back, and won’t make the fractured Kingdom suddenly stitch itself back together. It’ll only slow you down, when it is imperative that you stay one step ahead.

What you don’t expect, however, is the double reach-around everything does.

It’s in your head, you tell yourself at first, wistful projecting from when this place smelled of family and friend, but it’s so strong that it’s hard to focus. Dimitri has always smelled of leather and iron, citrus oil and petrichor; it had been comforting during your time at the Officer’s Academy, a way to pick him out amongst crowds, know his proximity and feel safe, but he can’t be here, he’s—

No amount of gritting your teeth makes it hurt less this time. Your abhorrent guardian had gloated about the Prince’s execution, said he’d gone himself after exiling you to the room beneath the stairs, slipping you only the news he wanted you to hear. It’s only then that you realize you’re spiraling, and that won’t solve anything. But you insist that this is the only logical conclusion when you come upon the huddled mass in the shadows, smelling so strongly of Dimitri but looking like a cruel facsimile of him, one conjured specifically to reach into your chest and constrict painfully around your beating heart.

You caution an airy, barely-there “Dimitri?”, like you’re addressing a ghost, but this specter looks up, one eye focused hazily on you, a baleful remnant of the blue eyes you’d known so well. He’s there but he isn’t, seeing you but seeing through you, making this laugh that’s devoid of everything but bitter disbelief. Belatedly, you realize he’s having similar thoughts, that you’re a figment of his imagination, conjured by something desperate.

“You’ve finally come to haunt me, too, have you?” His sneer is cruel, sharp enough to cut straight through your ribcage and find the muscle frantically pounding beneath it. “How foolish I am to hope that you’d show me any kindness. What do you demand of me?”

You’re at a loss, mind traveling at light speeds, but unable to decipher what it is he’s talking about. “Haunt you? I believe that’s my line,” you begin, trying vainly to keep your feet on the ground even as the hurricane in Dimitri’s gaze threatens to uproot you entirely, “My… father told me they executed you.”

Dimitri laughs again, hollow, mirthless, and it makes the hair at the back of your neck bristle.

“I might as well be dead. There’s nothing left of me save for that which the dead use for vengeance. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” He steps forward and unable to help yourself, you take a half-step back, unsure of what he’s capable of when he looks at you like that.

“I’m here because I thought seeing Garreg Mach might bring me peace,” you reply as firmly as you can manage. His gaze pierces, and you get the feeling that one flinch is all he needs rip you open. “But seeing it empty like this hasn’t helped.” You aren’t sure if he’s convinced; he’s unmoved, still as stern and fierce as he had been upon first seeing you. Perhaps now you can try and bridge the gap…?

“Your Highness, I’m no ghost, I promise,” you begin, taking a cautious step forward, an attempt to offer comfort, “I’m real. You don’t have to be alone anymore.” Impulsively, you extend your hand, open for him to take, to touch, confirm for himself that you’re really here. Dimitri stares for an unbearably long moment, waiting, willing this phantom to vanish, before he slowly reaches out to cradle the back of your hand in his palm. You can see it break across his face, the realization that you’re no ghost, and relief so palpable you can taste it washes over you all at once.

“You’re alive,” he breathes, a sharp exhale, and you want to cry. How long has he been here alone, unable to tune out his demons?

“Please, your Highness, let me help you,” you insist, taking another step closer, an attempt to offer more support and comfort if he needs it, and for a moment you’re convinced you can get through to him.

His grip is harsh as it closes around your hand, and the world tilts sharply on its axis; he pulls you close, one hand grabbing at your hair to force you to look up at him. He looks, if possible, even angrier than before. “How cruel you are to tempt me with what I wanted most, wraith,” he snarls, and then his mouth is on yours in a bruising kiss, teeth knocking yours, tongue prying your mouth open like tasting you isn’t enough.

He hopes to consume you, snatching the breath right from your lungs, mapping your teeth and the roof of your mouth with ruthless abandon. Your hands press into Dimitri’s shoulders in an attempt to create space, enough room to think, but he’s immovable, crushing you to him with both hands. The scent of him is overwhelming, uninhibited, so painfully alpha that it becomes almost impossible to think rationally. He infiltrates all of you all at once and it leaves you reeling, unable to put up any kind of fight because you can’t catch up.

Dimitri drops to his knees to drop you onto the floor beneath him and pin you there, both of your hands held in one of his while he pries the glove off the other with his teeth. Dizzily, you watch, malleable, trying to find the spark that’ll jump-start your body so that you can stop him, just long enough to make sense of this. Instead, Dimitri pushes your dirty tunic aside, pawing at your breasts so hard it hurts, thumb swiping across a nipple in a way that makes you shudder.

“I’m real, your Highness, I’m real!” you yelp desperately, but he doesn’t listen, too focused on the familiar scent of your skin. He used to dream about this scent, spread across his sheets, permeating his clothes, but now it’s a cruel reminder of his failure. His hands grab harder, fingertips digging into your skin almost too roughly, and you bite your lip to keep from whimpering again.

It’s only then that you realize he’s speaking, quietly, more to himself than to you.

“They’re quiet, finally,” he grunts, tugging at one of your nipples hard enough to hurt, and you can only stare at him as he continues. His kiss moves, across your chin and neck, tasting your skin and reveling in the brief respite you offer him; he wants everything, now, before his tenuous grasp of sensation, feeling is gone and he’s left again with the demanding, deafening voices of the dead. Your skin has flavor, as does your scent as it fills the empty spaces in his head, and for the first time in years he feels.

Watching him closely, it dawns on you that Dimitri is desperate to silence his demons, and this realization has you relaxing in his hold. Seeing Dimitri like this, a haunted husk, accosted constantly by those he was unable to save, is far more terrifying, more gut-wrenching than the way he handles you, or his intentions. It doesn’t stop your trembling—it’s difficult to tell just what he’s capable of when he’s wild like this, untamed—but it eases the reflexive clench of your muscles around your chest making your breaths shallow. If it helps, if this is what brings Dimitri back from the dead, then you’ll give it to him readily.

He’s impatient, moving down your stomach and waist to grab at your breeches and yank like he intends to rip you out of them. You don’t have any extra clothes and don’t know if there’s anything available here to replace it if it rips, so you shift your hips, plant your heels on the ground to aid in removing your bottoms more easily. Dimitri curses softly, the sight of your flushed cunt everything he has imagined and more; he wonders how many nights he has laid awake, at the Officer’s Academy and after, pining, thinking about the plush embrace of your body in its entirety, soft where he’s hard, comforting and ready for him. It’s all he sees now, all he can think about, finding the solace he has always been sure you’d bring if only he could have you.

Now he does. When he pulls himself out of his pants, he’s so hard that he aches, the noise he makes somewhere between a shudder and a groan as he takes himself in hand to stroke, once, and then search roughly, blindly for your entrance with callused fingers. It happens so fast that you don’t get the chance to tell him that you’re nowhere near ready, but he’s pushing in regardless, grunting as he forces you open. His teeth gnash; you’re so fucking tight, almost uncomfortably so, and much less wet than he expects, but it doesn’t stop him from his ruthless push, until the tip of him is right against your cervix and he’s balls-deep. You feel him in your stomach, diaphragm forced up so hard that all of your air leaves you in a dizzy wheeze, eyes glassy as you try to make this work, even as skin drags and walls stretch too much for comfort.

“Hurts,” you whine, unable to find the traction to say anything else when he’s pulling out and it’s a little wetter—thankfully you aren’t bleeding—but it’s still not enough to make it comfortable. Dimitri’s response is a feral noise that implies he heard but didn’t understand. Omegas are supposed to be wetter, made for taking alpha cock, but much like everything else you’ve done in life, you fuck this up, too, and it makes your shoulders pull up and in, fingers curl in the fabric of Dimitri’s cape as you try not to sob. This is supposed to help him, you need to make this at least bearable. It’s this thought that drives your hand between your thighs, wary of the ragged, graceless thrusts he uses to punch the air out of you, to rub at your clit and try to make this a little less painful. The touch makes you clench up and Dimitri nearly snarls at the feeling, bearing down on you all over again, pinning you bodily to the unforgiving monastery floor as he begins to fuck you in earnest.

It takes a few agonizing strokes to find a suitable rhythm, but once you do, Dimitri’s thrusts aren’t so savage, reaching the same dizzying depth to strike at your cervix each time he pushes in with a fraction of the force. He ruts into you like an animal, merciless and wild, seeking only his own pleasure, taking what he feels the wraith owes him for daring to torture him with the only thing he managed to cling to in his solitude, thoughts of your affection the one thing that he was convinced wouldn’t betray him. You hold on, desperately, along for the ride as he fucks you into the floor without pause or reprieve, until you feel the knot swelling at the base of his cock.

With a howl that cannot possibly be human, he forces his knot into you in its entirety, coming so hard it’s like you feel it in your chest. You feel each searing rope as his cock pulses against the mouth of your womb, his knot snug within you. It feels like he comes forever, time-space agonizingly suspended, your fingers digging into his shoulders to give the too-much sensation somewhere to go.

When he’s finished, you release the breath you realize you’d been holding, and hate the rush of endorphins that comes with taking a knot. It’s almost enough to pull an orgasm out of you, but the heavy weight of his body on top of you is oppressive, suffocating, draining your strength until it’s too much work to get there.

You aren’t sure how long you lie there, listening to Dimitri’s ragged breathing, trying to catch your own breath beneath him, but it’s enough time for his knot to deflate. When he pulls out, your jaw clenches, teeth locked together as his release drools from your swollen cunt. Reality comes back all at once, the realization that this happened, and you let it. Dimitri rolls off you and, just like that, tucks himself back into his pants and stands to speak, irately, with Glenn, as though you aren’t there, prone and fucked open on the floor.

You’ll have to get up and put yourself back together at some point, but you don’t want Dimitri to see you do it. This… helped him, probably. You tell yourself it did, because you don’t think you can stomach the alternative. It’s so much easier to tell yourself to get up than it is to actually do it; again, you aren’t sure how long you lie there, but for a moment, you think you’ve fallen asleep, because the familiar scent of your teacher drifts by, and you swear you see him coming upon you like this, kneeling beside you worriedly.

“(y/n)…?”

Oh shit. He’s real.

“P-professor, I—” The look in his eyes makes your throat swell closed, aching in how it presses against itself, like it intends to crush your larynx.

“What happened to you? Did Dimitri see—” He knows Dimitri is here, he knows, Sothis, he’s going to figure it out, and you can see the moment he does, this terrifying look of sober understanding. “He did this.”

“I let him!” you insist, panicking, because you know that Byleth will know why. Dimitri needs help, needs support, and you gave it to him. “Professor, he’s… he needs help and this is what he needed.” Byleth’s gaze is piercing, like he knows this is a story you’re desperately attempting to sell yourself, as well. “Please, please don’t tell anyone. He’s hurting, he didn’t—I know he didn’t mean to hurt me.”

You don’t even have to see Byleth’s face to know that he doesn’t agree with keeping this a secret, or that this is something understandable given the circumstances, but it isn’t his call. He shifts to remove his cape, wrapping it around you in an attempt to offer comfort of his own. “Come, let’s get you cleaned up.”

When he helps you stand, you feel cum all over the inside of your thighs, and there’s a dizzying moment where you worry someone else will see you. If Byleth is here, who’s to say someone else won’t show up, either?

But he lifts you off your feet easily, pulling you to him, acting as a shield between you and everyone, everything else, and you go willingly, curling into him. You know now that he’s here, everything will be okay eventually.

Chapter Text

Despite your multiple attempts to tell Byleth you’re fine, he insists on hovering, and you have no idea how to explain to him that the thing that happened with Dimitri is nothing new. That’ll throw the door open wide for a conversation you have no intention of having, ever, so you let him fuss, draw you a bath he heats with magic, and stand guard outside the door while you get clean, presentable, look less like Dimitri knotted you on the floor of the monastery like an animal. Byleth is upset, more than upset, his jaw set and fists clenched each time he has to look at the damage done or has a chance to think about it, but he bites his tongue. Despite his feelings, he knows that this is your decision, whether or not you tell anyone, and he can’t tell you how you need to feel about it, but this, what Dimitri did, is… inexcusable.

If he doesn’t stop it, he’s going to make himself angry all over again, a furious frothing rage that threatens to choke him, and that’ll help literally no one. All he can do is offer you the support you need, take the first steps in sorting out the mess Fódlan has become in his absence. Byleth himself is unsure of what happened; one moment, he’s falling, and the next, he’s waking up no worse for wear, and five years have inexplicably passed in the meantime.

You emerge, cleaner and arguably less traumatized, and it helps Byleth at least pretend that things are fine. The only thing he could find for clothing is an Officer’s Academy uniform, so it’ll have to do. Despite five years, you’re still the same size, and he wants to ask why that is, but he knows the defiant look in your eye well enough to know that you’ll waltz right past his questions without pause. If there’s anything you’ve proven to him in his time knowing you, it’s that you’ll talk when you’re ready, so he lets it go for now.

Besides, there are bandits to take care of, as Dimitri explains grimly, his one good eye piercing into you, and you know that he remembers everything that happened on the monastery floor. Is it real to him, you wonder? Or is it white noise, one more exchange with the ghosts that crowd him?

Thinking about it is going to make you hurt, less for you and more for Dimitri. Again, you wonder how to casually inform him and Byleth that this isn’t your first or even most harrowing experience with this sort of thing, that the room under the stairs at your adoptive father’s home is still going to haunt your nightmares more than this ever will, but it goes over so poorly inside your head that you dread to imagine how well it’d go over outside. No, there are more important things to worry about right now.

---

With the reunion of the Blue Lions House comes an inexplicable tension; everyone can see Dimitri, what has become of him, but there’s nothing that can be done for it. You’re overjoyed to see everyone again, beyond grateful that the ugliness in Faerghus hasn’t sunken claws into any of them, but your adoptive father’s blatant and aggressive support for the Empire has you hesitant to engage in any of the reminiscing they do, gathered in the old classroom as promised five years ago.

Felix and Sylvain’s families are holding out against them as best they can, and that man’s money and influence is used to subvert their efforts. How can they even stand to look at you? It doesn’t help that Dimitri is just as caustic as he had been earlier, and you feel stupid for believing that giving him what he wanted would just fix him. You just want to sleep; maybe things will look better in the morning.

Unfortunately, Sylvain finds you before you can make your way to your old room in the dorm, standing beneath the sauna with a thoughtful look on your face. Of course it’s painfully perceptive Sylvain, who has been able to read you ever since your arrival at Garreg Mach, and you only hope that you don’t inadvertently let slip everything that happened before he and the others arrived.

“Any particular reason you’re avoiding us?” he asks with that same charming smile he has perfected, and you really hate that it still works as well now as it did then. His reputation as the Officer’s Academy’s philandering alpha is well-earned, you think, because he has the charm required oozing from every pore, weaponized, honed. “They’re worried about you, y’know.”

You shrug, halfheartedly. “I guess I’m not feeling particularly friendly tonight.” Sylvain snorts in response before he laughs, once.

“You’re pictured in the dictionary next to friendly, (y/n). You’re just as bad as Ingrid when it comes to sticking your nose into others’ business.” Petulantly, you huff, folding your arms stubbornly as you seat yourself on the steps to the sauna.

“You’re all fighting so hard, and he’s out there—he’s out there trying to—”

Sylvain takes a seat next to you, puzzled. “Your father?” he asks, and you can’t help the gut reaction to mentally correct him. Adoptive father, you insist to yourself, who plucked a poor, starving omega off the streets of Fhirdiad in an act of charity only to begin grooming a fourteen-year-old girl as his br—

Deep breaths. You’re starting to spiral again and that’s the last thing you want. You only offer a weak, “yeah,” as you lean against the stone railing, afraid to say more because you aren’t sure you won’t just start oversharing.

“No one blames you for anything he’s doing, least of all Felix.” The reassurance sort of helps. “If anything, Felix is worried about you. Says you’re so soft that a man like your father is only gonna take advantage of you.”

You genuinely hope that your laugh is sincere enough to sell the act, that this isn’t exactly the case. Forget Sylvain, it’s Felix you need to watch out for, apparently. “That sounds like a real Felix thing to say, actually,” you reply thoughtfully, “worried about me because I’m too soft. I can’t tell you how many times he has scolded me for it.”

Sylvain laughs, too, and you’re just relieved enough to relax. “Can’t say I mind how soft you are,” Sylvain mutters, “it’s cute.”

With a roll of your eyes, you stand. “I’m beginning to think you really can’t help yourself, Sylvain,” you lament, turning towards the dorms to excuse yourself. “I wasn’t even that vulnerable and you still went for it.” He’s up like a shot to catch up with you, looking more than a little scandalized at the notion.

“I absolutely mean it!” he insists dramatically, reaching out to take your hand in his, and you don’t pull away. The physical affection feels so good after spending so long without it. “You’re adorable, I’ve always thought so. That proposal I gave you at the ball, about asking your father for your hand, I’m still serious about it.”

Reluctantly, you pull your hand away from him to turn and keep walking. No, really, you’ve never doubted Sylvain’s sincerity on that front, but you’ve been far too terrified to explain why speaking to your guardian about marriage anything is probably the worst idea ever. “Come on, Sylvain,” you complain halfheartedly, more interested in changing the subject than actually stopping him.

“Listen, he’s bound to say yes. Heir to House Gautier, crest, handsome, rich, alpha—what more could he want? Our children would be beautiful, and possible crest-bearers.” You don’t even stop to look at him, so… disgusted isn’t the right word. Sylvain has always been candid about his family and just how callously Miklan was cast aside once Sylvain was born with a crest, and you hate that he’s still doing this, framing the entirety of your relationship in the things he can offer your status. You think you hate Sylvain’s father almost as much as you hate the man insisting he’s yours.

“I’m going to tell you the same thing I told you then: if you ask me to marry you, and it isn’t about your genuine feelings for me, then I’m not interested.” You walk with more purpose now, aiming to put an end to this conversation before it goes somewhere you’d rather it didn’t. Today has been trying enough and the last thing you want is to have to contextualize anything you accidentally reveal. Despite your obvious attempts to escape him, Sylvain pursues, stubbornly walking you back to the dorm to drop you off at the door to your old room. The trip is quiet until you’re ready to shut the door on him, and then he’s obstructing the doorway.

“You think I’d do something like that, just ask you because I think your father would say yes?” he asks quietly, and this time, he’s the vulnerable one, giving you this look that you have never seen him wear before. You take an instinctive step back, suddenly crowded by Sylvain’s presence, especially when his heated gaze falls on you. “You should know me better than that, (y/n). I’m hurt.”

Your brows furrow and you study his face, trying to decide how it is you need to handle this. Sylvain has never been this perplexing—infuriating, yes, absolutely—but never leaving you guessing like this. “I think your father has a long list of omegas for you, Sylvain, and you’d rather be married to one you already know you like and likes you.”

Sylvain insists himself into your room, crowding you against the door until you let him in because you know he won’t go away until he gets what he wants, and then he’s in there with you, just the two of you, wearing that indecipherable gaze that makes heat pool beneath your belly and blood pump harder under your flushed cheeks. You know you need to make him leave, but he’s closing in, pinning you up against the closed door, first with his stare, and then with his body.

“You’ve always been my first choice,” he murmurs, and when he kisses you, it’s more dizzying than anything, the scent of warm yeasted bread, cashmere, rosemary permeating the air around him, even more than the scent of the cologne he wears. He licks into your mouth slowly, savoring the feel of you, and you are suddenly breathless at the notion that he has thought about this before; the way he takes his time, lingering to feel your tongue against his, says as much. It’d be a lie, saying you haven’t thought about it either, but Sylvain has always been safe, his interest similar to his interest in every other young lady that happens upon him, sincere, you suppose, as he insists all his feelings are. But this is different, bigger, possibly more dangerous, and you have half a mind to unceremoniously share the incident with Dimitri because you think Sylvain can’t possibly know what he’s getting into, that if he really did know, he’d leave, now.

“You don’t mean that,” you protest, but it lacks the punch of sincerity when you’re this breathless, pupils wide and skin flushed all the way down your neck and across the tips of your ears. The smile Sylvain gives you is positively heartbreaking in its earnestness, and that you’ve never seen him wear one like it before is nothing short of terrifying. You try to remind yourself that Sylvain is a professional and consummate skirt-chaser, that this has to be part of his practiced act, but he’s prepared to intercept your concerns before you can really run with them.

“Allow me to prove it to you, milady,” he replies warmly, and follows it up with another kiss that fills you with enough raw electricity to short-circuit you in your entirety, so that all you can do is feel instead of think. You can’t bring yourself to give even a feeble attempt at objection, swept up by the sincerity and genuine affection he offers. It can’t be any worse than what has happened already, you think in an attempt to justify yourself, like better women than you haven’t fallen prey to that same charming smile.

Sylvain is slow, thorough, licking over each tooth individually before coaxing your tongue into his mouth to suck, and the noise you make is so wanton that you stiffen, mortified, between him and the door, eyelids heavy despite how shocked you are that a moan like that came out of you. He pulls away slowly, grinning, and reaches up to thumb across your cheekbone affectionately. “As cute as that sound is, you’re going to need to keep it down.” Before you can even try and agree, he adds, “unless you’d like someone walking by to hear you?”

All of your half-formed objections attempt to come out at once, a stammering mess of syllables that gets you nowhere in telling him that he’s on thin fucking ice with that line of thinking, and he swallows them all with another kiss that leaves you breathless and ready for more. “I wouldn’t mind having an audience,” he continues against your mouth as he begins to pull at the clasps holding your borrowed uniform on, pulling the blouse open with agonizing slowness. “Can you imagine Ashe’s face? He’d be red all over.”

You can see it, effortlessly, freckles smattered over flushed skin, and you hate that it goes straight to the steady ache between your thighs, a jolt that makes pleasure spike beneath your belly so hard it might hurt. “I think you like that, (y/n),” he all but growls, voice deep, and you’re positive you’ve never heard him sound like this, ever, “a cute boy like Ashe powerless to do anything but watch as you’re displayed for him. Or maybe you’d rather think about Felix? He might get even redder.”

“Don’t,” you tell him in warning, but it is easily the most toothless, hollow attempt at a threat, not even worth the air it took to say it, because Sylvain’s hands find your breasts beneath your opened top, and you nearly choke on the sharp inhale that follows. Sylvain chuckles and you’re mortified, both because you’re so into it, and he knows you’re so into it.

“Mercedes might get a little red, too, I think,” he murmurs, and at that thought you whimper outright, “insist on kissing it better, maybe?” Unable to help your gut reaction, you shove Sylvain’s shoulder, and it’s enough to allow you an escape, making a mad dash for your bed in hopes of finding something to say that’ll make him stop narrating every hormonal thought you ever had during your time at the academy, like he himself was there to have them with you. It doesn’t really work—you only consider another six ways to say stop in a vaguely threatening tone of voice—but it allows you a chance to cool off as he follows after you, absolutely unafraid to pursue this to its end, until you tell him to stop.

He really hopes you don’t, though, not when he is so, so close, even closer than his heartfelt proposal of marriage. Sylvain doesn’t intend to leave without making you understand his feelings, even if it takes all night.

Before you can throw yourself onto the mattress in an attempt to make it harder for him to see the way he makes you writhe, he pulls you back against him, flush against his armor, and presses his hand flat against your belly to slide slowly downwards, towards the waist of your uniform skirt. Your breath catches, anticipation making your already pounding heartbeat even more frantic, and you wonder if it’s possible for Sylvain to kill you like this, go so slowly that your heart gives out because the excitement his touch inspires is too much. His hand finds the button keeping the skirt snug on your waist and the question, much like every other thought you’re trying to have, effervesces, until all that’s left is desire intense enough to scare you.

Your skirt’s gone, gathered around your ankles as soon as the button is undone, and it leaves you in your open blouse and panties, still pressed bodily to Sylvain as his hand rests on your belly, fingers just barely touching the fabric covering your pubic mound. You make every effort to keep from trembling against him, but he’s breathing in your ear, warm and strained, obviously as affected as you are and that thought frays every nerve, and you quiver like an arrow hitting its mark. For a moment, it’s just this, holding and sharing body heat, savoring closeness, but you find yourself quickly dumped onto your old bed so that Sylvain can undress himself, and you’re reasonably sure you’ve never seen anyone remove armor faster than he does in that moment, shucking pieces onto the floor without pause or even care for where they end up.

When he joins you in bed, he’s as undressed as you are, in his smallclothes and so eager to feel your skin on his, pulling you to him to hold for a long moment. After the day’s trials, you’d be more than happy with just this, closeness and affection, but the heady scent of Sylvain’s arousal is more than enough to make you respond in kind, flushed all the way down your chest, across your belly as his erection presses into your thigh. He leans in to kiss you again and you meet him halfway, so eager for more affection that your noses bump and the little laugh Sylvain gives in response makes your heart thump against the inside of your ribcage.

“You smell so good,” he grunts against your mouth, “you always have.” He trails kisses across your cheeks and chin, down your neck and the center of your collarbone and sternum. For a brief moment, he pauses, and then he’s leaning over to tongue at one of your nipples, the heat of his mouth almost more than you can take. You thread fingers through his hair, cradling the back of his head as you arch your back, moaning for more. Sweat beads along your hairline, the insides of your elbows, beneath your breasts, and the scent of it, the heat of your skin, makes you all the more tempting. Thinking about anything else becomes difficult; Sylvain has wanted this for so long that holding off now almost hurts.

“Tell me to stop and I will,” Sylvain whispers, voice ragged, and then laps at your areola teasingly, and your lips tremble apart at the feeling. It doesn’t even cross your mind, asking him to stop, and instead you pull him back up to kiss him again, knee pressed teasingly against the bulge in his underwear. He groans, but he’s smiling, and returning your kiss eagerly, earnestly, and you can’t deny that it makes you giddy. Abruptly, Sylvain shifts, moves so that he’s under you, and you’re breathless as you look down at him.

“That’s it, sweet girl,” he murmurs, reaching down to push your panties aside and stroke teasingly across your entrance, and your shoulders tremble. When he moves to pull himself out of his smallclothes, your breath catches at the sight of him, the shaft pressed into your slick cunt, and you grind slowly, anticipation spiking all over again as desperation begins to settle.

“Please, Sylvain,” you whine, and then he’s got his hands on your hips to help you position yourself over him and sink down onto his cock, slow enough to feel every inch of him slide in, until the head of him is pressed up against your cervix. For a split second, he looks absolutely enraptured, eyes glassy as he looks up at you like you’re responsible for hanging up the stars. You plant your knees on the bed to give yourself better leverage as you ride him, slowly, meant to savor the feel of him stretching you open. It’s wholly unlike Dimitri, meant to be about you as much as it is about him, and the realization makes your chest tight.

Sylvain notices the look of pain that crosses your face, only briefly, but he doesn’t press the issue, because he knows the last five years have been hard on everyone.

“There you are, sweet girl,” he grunts, hands moving from your hips to cup your breasts, thumbing across your nipples to feel you clench up around him. “Feels good?” You nod breathlessly, leaning into his touch, seeking more of his hands, his skin on yours. “You feel good, so good.” He pinches at your nipple again and you’re bearing down on him, seeking more of his touch, finding comfort in his affection.

You feel the beginning of his knot smack wetly against the lips of your cunt, and you want more, want him buried so deep inside you that you have trouble telling where he ends and you begin. It’s like he reads your mind, because he flips you over to drive into you like a man possessed, pushing deep and steady, leaning in to kiss you again. You’re practically bent in half, spread open wide enough for his knot to slide in easily, and when you clench up around it, he’s gone, coming hard with a strained groan, and just when you think that you can’t take anymore, he’s got his thumb up against your clit to rub, mercilessly, and you’re bucking and squealing and coming before you can even catch up, his knot pressed up against your g-spot as you writhe against him. It’s intense, enough to make you tear up, and Sothis, you’re crying despite yourself.

Sylvain looks genuinely worried, immediately cupping your cheeks, catching your tears with his fingertips. “Hey, you’re okay,” he sooths gently, “it’s fine, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” You cling to him, and Sylvain is more than happy to let you, kissing across your forehead as he gently turns to lay you on your side with him. He talks there, against your forehead, but you don’t catch much of what he says; you realize he’s trying to give you something to focus on, help calm you down, but you unwind slowly, the stress of everything, the past five years, the thing with Dimitri, making it difficult to relax.

Even when his knot deflates, Sylvain doesn’t pull out, tangling your legs together, pulling you up against his chest to listen to the steady beat of his heart. You’re calmer now, and with the clarity comes exhaustion. Drowsily, you press your lips to the top of Sylvain’s sternum, a quiet thanks for his support despite the fact that he really didn’t sign on for the waterworks at the end, and he embraces you to squeeze reassuringly.

Sleep comes easy for once, and for what feels like the first time in years, you don’t worry about what’s going to happen when you wake up.

Chapter Text

If it isn’t Sylvain doting on you hand over foot, looking for every excuse to touch you, scent you, be around you, it’s Byleth’s stony gaze at Dimitri every time he dares to enter your vicinity, ready to strike if his distraught student tries to make a move resembling the one he made previously, the one you refuse to let him talk about. Byleth had been too late to stop him, but he will be damned if he lets Dimitri get away with it, or anything even remotely close to it, again. Your heart is too big, and at this point, the depth of your affection is the only thing keeping Dimitri from what he deserves.

As heartwarming as it is to know you have people that care so much about you, the overt protectiveness puts you on edge. You never actually discussed what that night with Sylvain meant, if it even meant anything, and Byleth being so painfully obvious with his protection is going to raise questions. Your classmates aren’t blind, nor are they stupid, and you aren’t sure you have it in you to actually lie to them instead of simply lying by omission. It’s with this thought that you decide to confront the problem directly, and at least tell Byleth that there’s a need for more discretion. That’ll be one problem sort of solved, and then you can work up the bravery to ask Sylvain if his feelings are genuine (and you know he’s going to say they are, but you mean genuine genuine, the kind of sincere that means you’ll actually have to consider explaining to him that marriage is more than likely never going to be an option).

The thought makes your stomach drop. Sylvain has always been separated by a distance that had seemed, until now, insurmountable, but five years has either sanded all of his edges off or simply made you that much softer, because the night spent with him seems frighteningly, distressingly real.

One problem at a time, you remind yourself desperately. That you can barely handle one makes it that much more intimidating to even try; juggling two simultaneously is a guaranteed emotional shutdown you really can’t afford. Byleth seems the easier fix, so starting there is logical.

Like everything lately, telling yourself to handle it is so much easier than actually handling it. There are at least three different attempts to hype yourself up enough to visit Byleth after lights out so that this conversation is private, concise, as it needs to be, but it’s an impulsive, frightened pull of his sleeve after he outright growls at Dimitri in the hall that finally does it, and the nearest room available is the war room, where anyone can walk in, but you have to put a stop to this before someone with even partially-functioning eyes begins asking questions.

“Professor, what was that?!” you ask frantically, trying not to sound as panicked as you feel. “I understand your concern, but that’s—you can’t do that, people are going to start asking—”

“Good,” Byleth interjects, as calm as ever despite how you seem to be unraveling in real time in front of him, “I hope they do.” Hot tears of frustration gather at the corner of your eyes and you wonder if he’s doing this on purpose, trying to circumvent your request for silence by goading others into asking him what’s wrong. For a moment, all you can do is bite your lip and squeeze your eyes shut in hopes of holding back overwhelmed tears; this isn’t your professor’s choice to make and you know that he knows that, but his concern for you is strong enough to make him push his toes over the boundaries you laid out and you’re simultaneously humbled and furious.

“Please, please Professor, I know you’re upset and worried and… and that I’m asking a lot of you, but I can handle this.” Before you can stop yourself, you lay on the table a card you swore you’d only play if he turned out to be particularly stubborn about the issue, and add a quiet, “I’ve handled this before, so at least trust me when I tell you that I’ve got this under control.”

That is, you realize even before you finish speaking, the absolute worst, most wrong decision to make in this situation. You don’t simply drive the final nail into this coffin with a hammer, you do so with a fucking polearm, with obvious intent to destroy; the look in Byleth’s normally serene eyes is more terrifying than you have ever seen, and you can’t help the way your hands shake in the way of your monumental mistake.

“He raped you, (y/n),” he retorts, and even though he still sounds perfectly composed, you know he is anything but, and that he’s four seconds from swinging that door open and telling the first person he sees, if not going straight to Dimitri for a very public fight, “and you ask me to stand down, pretend I didn’t see the aftermath, in the same breath you imply that this isn’t the first time you’ve handled this.”

He takes your own phrase and buries it in your chest, twists like a corkscrew, and watches as you begin to bleed in hot panic, hemorrhaging words to try and give just enough context to this to get him to back down.

“It’s not your business, Professor, who I tell and who I don’t, and I know you know this,” you begin frantically, “and I understand that you’re upset but we have more important things to deal with right now. Fódlan is in pieces, war is destroying everything—we need him, Professor, the kingdom needs him, and punishing him for something I let him do isn’t going to solve anything.”

Byleth, for a moment, is stunned into silence. He has no idea where to begin dissecting the monstrous thing that comes out of your mouth, because all of it is a hot, rehearsed mess, and it occurs to him only then that this is something you’ve been trying to talk to him about for days, if not weeks. Each time he thinks he finds a starting point, he finds himself taking another step back to make sure you understand where he’s coming from, and in the end, he feels it’s necessary to start at the very beginning, the most basic, fundamental brick layer that he needs to lay to ensure you understand.

“You matter, (y/n),” Byleth begins, perfectly calm, “what happens to you matters. War doesn’t justify what he did, trauma doesn’t justify what he did, and holding him accountable isn’t a matter of picking and choosing our battles. He can still be the king Faerghus needs even if, especially if he atones for it.”

All of your brave attempts to keep from crying don’t do any good. The verbal punch to the gut leaves you winded and trying not to sob, tears dropping down your cheeks and dripping off your chin. You can’t find a place to start to tell him that this isn’t the time to deal with this, even if you’re the one who brought it up, and watching you flounder is almost more than Byleth can bear. When you lift your chin to look at him, eyes full of tears and pain that you’re too terrified to share, something in him snaps.

He pulls you to him and holds, so tightly he fears he might hurt you, and the bitter scent of distressed omega makes his head hurt. It has never been like this before, a physical wrenching in his gut, a driving need to soothe you that pulls at his biology as much as it does his heart; people have always called him strange for an alpha, envied the control he has over his urges to the point that they imply he doesn’t have any, but you have always been right there in his peripheral vision, something about your earnest nature giving him the want to protect you beyond base instincts. Seeing you like this, flayed down to the bone by things outside of your control, hurts more than he can describe, a physical pain in his chest that persists even when he’s able to comfort you. You clutch at his clothes as you sob, full-bodied and anguished, and it’s like all of the crying you’d been unable to do in the past five years comes out at once.

Byleth holds you as you weep for the almost five miserable years you spent in the room beneath the stairs, punished for indiscretions that never occurred, for traipsing around the Officer’s Academy like the wanton omega whore he always knew you were, and for your rescue being the unintended side-effect of a home burglary of your adoptive father’s estate. You cry for Dimitri and how you can’t help him, and for the fact that it feels like all you’ve ever done is cause trouble simply by being there. Byleth strokes your hair and kisses your temple as he lets you get it all out, and you aren’t sure when his comforting murmurs turn to kisses, but you accept them eagerly regardless, drinking down everything he offers like it’s the only thing keeping you alive (because it very well might be).

“It’s going to be okay,” he whispers reverently between kisses, licking into your mouth with painful tenderness, offering relief even as he takes your taste for himself, “I’m here. No one is going to hurt you while I’m here.” You believe him, as you always have, because not once has your professor ever made a promise he didn’t keep; he holds you like you’re spun entirely of magic, fleeting, ready to slip through his fingers if he lets you, and he wants you here, with him, as long as he can manage it.

“I’m sorry, Professor,” you sniffle miserably, an attempt to try and at least acknowledge that you didn’t intend to cry all over him like this, but he hushes you with another kiss that fills you with raw lightning as he holds your face in his hands. Further attempts to apologize are defused the same way, until your breathing is steady and your reflexive hiccups are fewer and far between. It’s calmer, yes, but urgency remains, especially when Byleth removes his gloves and strokes his thumbs across your wet cheeks tenderly.

You aren’t sure how long it’s just this, kissing and tender touches, physical closeness a balm to that which you’ve been unable to share, but the shift to gentle pulls at clothing is so gradual that by the time you’re aware of what you’re doing, Byleth has your blouse undone and skirt hiked up around your hips as you rest on the table behind you, the sturdiness of his body holding you against it as he palms your breasts eagerly, but softly, focused more on feeling your skin than staking claim. He pulls back to take a deep breath and his pupils are dilated, the desire reflected in his irises so strong that you’re momentarily breathless. You smell like him now, patchouli and vetiver, cassia bark and pepper, and the thought satisfies him, that, if only briefly, his scent will be enough to ward off other alphas.

It’s stupid of him, he knows it’s stupid, but it doesn’t help. That you’re so receptive, grabbing at his clothes to wrap yourself up in them and him, serves only to make the feeling more intense.

You pull back to look at him, eyes puffy from crying, and what he finds there in your eyes feels like enough to destroy him. Trust is there, laid bare for him, and he promises himself that he will do everything in his power to make sure it’s not misplaced.

He intercepts your hands as you reach for his pants, placing kisses on each wrist before he drops to his knees, and the air in your lungs vacates instantaneously, leaving you reeling as he eases your panties down your hips and thighs, over your knees, until he can pull them from around your ankles as he pushes you further back onto the war table, legs spread to keep yourself placed on the surface for him. Your pussy glistens invitingly, wet from prolonged touching and kissing, and for a moment, all Byleth does is stare, admire as one does artwork, and you hastily attempt to close your legs in embarrassment, only for him to catch them and hold only enough to keep them from pressing together.

“Just breathe,” he tells you quietly, kissing the inside of each knee before he moves in closer, the warmth and scent of you enough to make him drool. You were his student, one of his wards, and it was never more than that before the war, but now, returning here, seeing you a young woman, it’s different. His desire to protect goes beyond a teacher, and he has only just now realized that it changed. He hesitates only a moment; if you didn’t want to proceed, you’d tell him, and he would listen. One look in his eyes confirms this, that you hold all the control, and all you have to do to stop is say so.

Instead, he leans in to stroke from the bottom of your slit to the top with the blade of his tongue, slowly, until he feels your thighs stiffen because he brushes up against the underside of your clit. The noise you make, breathless and needy, is accelerant to the fire raging beneath his skin, and he doesn’t think he can stop as the taste of you covers his tongue, honey-thick and sweet. Each stroke of his tongue is slow, meant both to savor you as well as make sure you feel everything he can give, and you’re so responsive, trembling as you grasp at his hair, a silent request for more that he can’t help but fulfill. He can die here, he thinks hazily, in this moment, keeping you on the edge of rapture with his tongue, fingers pressed gently into the meat of your thighs, just enough to keep you in place as he drowns himself in you; there is no finer way to go.

When his fingers press inside and curl, right into that spot that makes your whole body go rigid, you hurtle over the edge all at once with a startled gasp, toes curling inside your boots as your fingertips dig into his scalp. You try to apologize if you’re hurting him, but he’s enchanted by the way you convulse around his fingers and squirm, full of too much electricity for your muscles. Byleth doesn’t stop, continues to rub with his fingers without pause as his lips and tongue zero in on your clit exclusively, and you aren’t sure if this orgasm doesn’t stop or if he pulls a second one from you, but by the time you’re coming down, there are tears at the edge of your waterline, gathered and threatening to fall as you warble clumsily, attempting to convey that you’re going to burst, a lit firework, if he doesn’t stop.

He pulls away, slick halfway across his cheeks and down his chin, sweat gathered at his hairline and eyes hazy as he breathes deep. Byleth has no idea how to tell you that he can keep going forever, if you want, but you don’t seem to mind, because you’re pulling him up to kiss him, uncaring of the mess on his face, tasting yourself in his kiss before you lap at the corners of his mouth, cleaning his cheeks, and it’s only then that he realizes he’s painfully hard, the fabric of his pants pulled taut around his erection. Before he can tell you that this is about you, that he’ll be fine finishing himself off, you’re undoing his belt and shifting his clothes out of the way just enough to get your hands around him, stroking firmly, slowly, making his hips stutter as he seeks more of your touch, whatever you’ll give him. Your name is on his lips, a prayer, and just as he thinks he’ll beg to worship you again, you’re spreading your legs, an invitation that he wants to commit to memory, every line and angle, so that he can conjure it at will whenever he wants.

You have your own gravitational pull, beckoning him into your orbit as inexorably as the sun, and he has no choice but to go, until he’s pressed between your soft thighs, so close to where you want him most, and he searches your eyes for even traces of hesitation, only to find desire, and as he pushes inside in one slow, smooth thrust, you want to remember the look of ecstasy on his face. Time is still; for just this one infinitesimally small moment, the world outside this room ceases to exist.

When he moves, he does so purposefully, slowly, desperate to savor each slow drag of your cunt around him and point of pressure your fingers make on his back. It takes him one, two, three thrusts for him to realize he’s holding his breath, like if he exhales too hard, the illusion will shatter, and all he can do to keep you here is cradle you like the crystal you’re made out of. Byleth wants this to last as long as he can make it, convince himself that at least one problem is solved if even for a little bit, and the sight of you trembling beneath him, grabbing at his back and his hair as you cling to him, only makes him want it more.

You’re convinced you’re going to wake up now, any moment, because your professor has never been this, a storm that drowns out the other noise, easing you out of your skin to cover you with his; it’s okay to be vulnerable because he stands between you and everything else, and when his mouth finds yours (or yours finds his? It’s difficult to tell), you steal the breath from his mouth because it’s so hard to breathe. His pace is steady even if it’s slow, reaching deep each time to punch at your cervix, and you try to be quiet, because every few seconds you remember you’re in the war room, but he makes it so difficult, pushing you closer and closer to that edge because he refuses to finish before you do.

This orgasm is a slow, steady crest, manageable waves that persistently push you against the shore, but it feels like it lasts forever, each contraction of your cunt so long that it’s almost painful. Byleth makes a noise you have never heard him make before, something between a groan and a growl as he takes advantage of your fluttering pussy to force his knot inside you, and each time you bear down on him anew, you pull another shudder from him, his release searing hot as it fills you. By the time you come down, you’re unsure, again, if this lasted longer than usual, or if one orgasm bled into another.

Boneless and gasping for breath on the table, you aren’t sure it matters, either; you feel as though someone wrung you out. Byleth makes an honest attempt to keep from collapsing on you, half-lying on the table, but the angle’s awkward, tugging at his knot in this way that makes you squirm uncomfortably. In the end, he’s still lying on you, but the weight is comfortable, welcome, secure.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes after a long moment of silence, and he still sounds like he ran laps around the entire monastery, “I didn’t—that wasn’t what I wanted to—”

You get it. This wasn’t your intention when you sought him out, either, but you aren’t about to hold it against him, given how things have gone since your return. Tenderly, you run your fingers through his hair and offer him a reassuring smile. “S’fine,” you reply sleepily, and you try to remind yourself again that you’re in the war room, but crying really takes it all out of you.

You’re out of it enough to miss the look Byleth gives you, the one that effectively says this conversation isn’t over, but he knows that now, when you’re sleepy and comfortable, isn’t the time to spring it on you. Instead, he presses a reassuring kiss to your forehead, a wordless promise that he’ll be there for you every step of the way, and takes care to bring you back to your room once he can pull out.

Chapter Text

When you wake, it’s pitch dark, and you’re still in your uniform in bed.

In the bleary moments before consciousness truly settles in, you’re prepared to roll over and sleep again, but it’s during your sluggish attempt to get comfortable that you realize you’re both still in your day clothes, and without panties; all at once, your encounter with Byleth is all you can think about, and you know your professor well enough to recognize that what transpired doesn’t guarantee anything, least of all less obvious protection. Just the thought makes you exhausted all over again, and while you really just want to sleep, you also want to clean up and get comfortable. A hot bath will be relaxing, you tell yourself, and with some convincing, you’re able to lift yourself out of bed and towards the door. You aren’t sure where your boots are, and you don’t care, opting instead to stay in just your socks as you grab another pair and your robe off the back of the desk chair where you usually keep it.

You pull your door open and standing there is Sylvain, his bright eyes uncanny, and you can’t decide if you have it in you to deal with him in your present state; there’s still the matter of the night you spent with him, and after how things went with Byleth, you’re keenly aware of how desperately you need different de-escalation tactics. Painfully perceptive Sylvain, however, doesn’t give you the chance to retreat, strategically positioning himself in the doorframe to make it difficult to close the door on him, and you’re forced to accept that, for the time being, at least, you’re stuck with him.

“I was just thinking about you and here you are,” he says with a playful smile, and your face must communicate the fact that you’re about to tell him that he’d been outside your door to begin with, because he doesn’t give you the chance to do so. “What are you doing up at this hour?” Thoughtfully, he pauses, leaning in just a fraction before you can lean away defensively. “You smell like the professor.”

The excuses you’d been sleepily drafting to avoid Sylvain for the time being are wholly and unceremoniously upheaved and you’re suddenly wide-awake, spluttering and trying to offer a bevy of half-baked reasons for Byleth’s closeness, but he is unfazed, reaching out to take your hands in his to silence you gently. It only occurs to you now that he more than likely brought it up to get a rise out of you, and like the sleepy, stressed hot mess you are, you performed exactly as expected. You’re about to tell Sylvain that you don’t have time for this when he shifts gears, and suddenly all of that playful bravado is gone. In its place is that same nerve-wracking honesty that you’ve been pitifully attempting to convince yourself you’d simply imagined.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks quietly, the concern in his eyes alarmingly genuine, and for a moment you simply stare, desperate to conjure a tell, a reason to believe this is another part of his act, only to find nothing of the sort. You really don’t have the emotional capacity to deal with this right now. All you want is a bath and more sleep.

“I just want a bath,” you whine, voice thick with sleep, and you only realize your mistake in telling him your plans once his eyes light up. Before you can come up with an excuse to shake him off, he’s pulling you in close, scenting you, warm and comforting in a way that takes the edges off your hesitance

“That sounds like a perfect idea,” he murmurs into your hair, and you worry he’s going to smell more of Byleth on you, but he simply runs his fingers up your arms soothingly. You’re absolutely positive that Sylvain has never been this adept at disarming you, and you have to wonder what he has been doing for five years that has made him so. Part of you is anxious about spending more time with him given you haven’t actually managed to address any of your problems, but before you can even try and weasel your way out of Sylvain’s company, he’s all but lifting you right off your feet, pulling you out into the hall and towards the bathroom.

You turn to tell him you’re fine and don’t need him to waste energy helping you when you just need to rinse off, but he’s running the water before you can, and you get the feeling he’s acutely aware of your objections and is purposefully giving you no chance to voice them. Again, you’re torn between feeling humbled—so many people care for you, so much—and frustrated that no one around here can seem to respect your autonomy, but the bathroom fills with warm steam, billowing curls carrying the herbaceous scent of marjoram through the air. It’s enough to make your tense muscles relax, and for a moment, you manage to forget, at least a little, the past few weeks’ stresses. Thoughts of ditching Sylvain melt away, especially when he approaches from behind, pulling at your shirt’s shoulders gently. You prepare to undo the buttons yourself, but his hands stop you, covering yours before he undoes them for you. It’s like this that he undresses you, unhurried, savoring the closeness, running his fingertips across your skin as he reveals it, and you’re torn between wanting to savor the feeling as he does, and just wanting to get it over with, get back to sleep as you’d planned.

Sylvain is so achingly tender, callused fingertips tracing lines between your erogenous zones that make your heart race, already aching muscles melting beneath his touch; the stress of the last few days seems so far away now, and you wonder how Sylvain does it, manages to sweep you off your feet every time you insist you’re not going to fall for his charm.

By the time you’re completely undressed, you’re leaning on him for support, and he helps you into the tub before climbing in behind you, legs spread so he can pull you back against his body and wrap himself around you. Briefly, again, you want to just get this over with, go back to sleep and make sense of things later, but Sylvain is three steps ahead of you, pulling your hair back from your face to wet it before carefully massaging shampoo onto your scalp. He’s meticulous and gentle, using his hands and the way the marjoram oil in the bath mixes with his scent to ease your pent-up stress, until you’re practically dozing on his shoulder. It isn’t until he’s retracing the paths he’d laid out when undressing you that you realize that this is his plan, so that he can touch you as he pleases without your protests.

He starts slow, thumbing at your shoulders while his palms move warm water and soap across your back and shoulder blades, pushing you forward just enough to fit his hands between your bodies before he pulls you back against him again, this time to run his hands up your arms, slowly and purposefully, until he reaches your breasts, and despite your sharp gasp in sensitivity, he thumbs at your nipples teasingly. You squirm in his lap almost sleepily, pleasure bursting through you like barbs; it’s almost too much, but he manages to keep pulling you back from the edge, and by the time his hand is drifting down your quivering belly, you’re soaking wet and wanting. You know what his destination is and you aren’t sure you want more, but his fingers slip between your thighs just as he hushes you quietly, against your ear.

“I have to wash you here, too, sweet girl,” he murmurs, and while this had been your plan, you know that Sylvain’s intentions are more than just cleaning. You grab at his wrist, a flimsy attempt to stop him or at least curb the spike of arousal between your thighs, but instead he curls his fingers and presses into that spongy spot that makes your body go rigid. Fatigue and drowsiness make it difficult to keep up, and you’re left writhing in his lap as he presses in deeper, pulls fingertips along your walls to force what’s left of your rendezvous with Byleth out into the water. You whimper, unsure of whether to spread your legs wider or clamp them shut; Sylvain’s insistent, using his free hand to cup your chin, turn your head and kiss you, and you eagerly fall into the warmth and affection he offers.

“That’s it, princess, just relax,” he whispers, and you’re so eager to comply, all but resting on him as he gently works you open, “let me take care of you.” There’s little choice you have when you’re spread across his lap, sleepily bearing down on his fingers as he brings you achingly close to that precipice steadily, in no rush to pull you up and over that edge. In the golden haze of raw pleasure, you briefly think you want him to hurry up and finish, but the thought is gone as quick as it comes, and you’re left with the low rasp of his voice against your mouth as he coaxes you to a slow, purposeful orgasm, prolonging it with his fingers until you have tears rolling down your cheeks in pleasure-pain. You’re begging for respite, and you only get it when you almost sob his name into his mouth between kisses.

He’s hard against your lower back, and just as you begin to tell him you definitely don’t have another orgasm in you, he shushes you again, planting a slow trail of kisses from your hairline to your temple, murmuring quiet reassurance that this is just for you. If you weren’t so wrung out and sleepy, you’d pay more attention to that disquieting gut reaction to leaving an alpha unsatisfied, but the last thought you have before you begin to doze is that Sylvain more than likely intended this; that he’s so adept at reading and anticipating your feelings should worry you, but he’s so warm and gentle wrapped around you like this that it’s much easier to just let yourself drift. There will be time to worry about it later.

---

Dedue is alive.

This has to be it. This is the key to bringing Dimitri back from the edge; if anyone can get through to him when he’s suffering like this, it’s Dedue. The relief is so intense and tangible that you feel like you can overcome any and every obstacle laid before you. You’re suddenly brave enough to engage with your classmates regularly, instead of shying away from them in groups bigger than two, or avoiding them outright. Finally, everyone can begin to heal.

When Dimitri doesn’t change, the effects are devastating. Allowing yourself to get your hopes so high only means a greater fall, and what had seemed so easily remedied in the immediate days following Dedue’s triumphant return comes back with added ferocity to make you withdraw more than ever. You are so stupid to keep expecting things to get better; who’s to say Dimitri being himself again would change anything?

Would he remember? It’s only now that you think about what that might mean, if the gentle young man you remember from the Officers Academy has to think about what transpired upon your arrival, faced with something he did when he was out of his right mind with grief. Maybe it’s better he doesn’t remember. You promise yourself that Dedue can never find out about it; you refuse to put him in any position where he feels forced to question his loyalty to Dimitri. Now, more than ever, Dimitri needs him.

All of the melancholy is a stark contrast to your noticeable mood improvement; you’re reminded time and again that while your classmates have their eccentricities, they’re sharp, and if you’re not careful, you’re going to play the hand you’re trying so desperately to keep close to the chest regardless of your intentions.

Of everyone that could try and seek you out about your behavior, you’re glad it’s Ingrid. She is painfully steadfast, and just as nosy as you are, even if her intentions are usually more intrusive. Ingrid is a problem-solver, and you’ve always valued her honesty, but now it seems dangerous; she can easily force you to talk if she knows what she needs to ask about, and the thought is a little terrifying. But she’s the reality check you need, so it’s a risk you’re willing to take.

“Is it his Highness?” she asks you as you overlook the fishing pond one afternoon. “Is that what has you so upset?”

There is an honest attempt to downplay the panic that rises in the center of your chest at how spot on her observation is. If she sees weakness now, she’s going to zero in on it, and that isn’t a conversation you want to have with her, or anyone.

“It doesn’t make you upset?” you fire back defensively, faster than your restraint can keep it in, and you regret saying it before it’s even out of your mouth. “He’s hurting so much, Ingrid, and nothing we do helps him.” You pause, brows furrowed in thought. “I thought if anyone could help him, it’d be Dedue.”

Ingrid sighs, both resigned and, if you aren’t mistaken, a little irritated. “Of course I’m upset, (y/n), we all are,” she begins, and she does her best not to sound as aggravated as she usually does when you’re getting on her nerves (five years have really changed her, you think, struck by her growth), “but taking it this personally, letting it affect your mood like this, won’t help anyone.”

She isn’t wrong. For all of her nosiness and her firm hand, Ingrid’s got a level head on her shoulders and is always there to listen, even if you know she’ll go and act on what you tell her if you aren’t careful. You must have some kind of look on your face, because before you can reply, Ingrid sets a hand on your shoulder to catch your attention, and you look up at her timidly, almost afraid of what you might find.

It’s that warm gaze she has for all of your classmates when she thinks they aren’t looking (you probably included, now that you think about it), and for a moment, you’re afraid of what it is she’s going to say. “You know you can come to us if you need anything, right? We’re your comrades, your friends—we care about you.”

Unable to help yourself, you think about Byleth, and his insistence about how much you matter, and for one small moment, you think you might be able to tell Ingrid about everything that has happened since your return to the monastery. But all at once, you remember Dedue, and Ingrid’s loyalty to Dimitri, and the thought of them finding out about this is actually physically sickening. The thing with Dimitri is going to be something you’ll take to your grave.

“I know,” you reply, forcing a smile. “I care about you, too.” So much, you think desperately, that you’ll never burden her, or your classmates, with this knowledge.

You think the conversation is over, and prepare to turn and leave, but before you can, Ingrid steps in close, so close that you can smell her skin through her clothes—cinnamon, vanilla, ginger, something creamy and soft and so undeniably her—and you don’t stop her when she pulls you into her arms, hugging you tightly, and it’s at this point that you know she’s aware you’re hiding something, and it’s all you can do to hug her back and keep from spilling your guts all over her. She doesn’t know what she’s asking. If she did, she wouldn’t ask.

“I’m always here to listen,” she murmurs, and kisses you once above your ear, and again on your forehead. When you meet her gaze, her eyes are smoldering, intense, and your breath is caught in your throat. You focus on her mouth, suddenly borderline obsessed with the thought of kissing her, to the point that you’re leaning in to do so and she isn’t stopping you.

“There you ar—oh.”

She turns to glare at Sylvain so hard you half-expect his eyebrows to catch fire from the intense heat alone. You yourself are torn between being happy to see him and being frustrated that he ruined the moment, because Ingrid’s definitely not in the mood for kissing now. You think to yourself that you’ll take this up with her later, but then feel… a lot of things, to the point where it’s really hard to tell what all of it is.

Five years ago, you could scarcely believe that any of these people would look at you, and now, kissing them, sinking into their beds and bodies, seems within easy grasp. You wonder if Ingrid would still be interested in kissing you if she knew how many of her peers you’ve already fucked just since coming back to Garreg Mach. Your would-be father had been right all along, you realize with an especially violent twist of your gut: you really are a wanton omega whore, traipsing about the monastery taking any and every knot presented to you.

Ingrid sees the change in your demeanor again, and moves to comment on it, or at least reassure you, but before she can, you’re pushing past Sylvain into the dining hall, eager to be alone. You throw a hastily-concocted excuse over your shoulder, something about the library, before you excuse yourself. If you stay now, you are absolutely sure you won’t be able to keep from crying, and you’ve had enough of that to last a lifetime.

--

You honestly intend to sulk in the library, pour yourself into a history book until the weird ache in your chest stops, but en route, you find Byleth speaking to someone in Jeralt’s old office, and while this normally wouldn’t matter much, it’s what you manage to overhear that makes you stop and press yourself up against the wall to listen.

“(y/n)’s not handling it well.”

Your stomach drops. Is he… is he going to tell someone…?

“Understandable. It’s exactly as you thought—her father’s a monster.”

You struggle to decide how you need to unpack this, because several things become apparent at once: one, Byleth has suspected your father or being precisely what he is; two, he has been looking into this situation; three, the person speaking to him sounds a lot like Yuri, and you’re too terrified of making your presence known to check. Frozen, weighed down by icy fear, you try not to hyperventilate. You have to listen in, you have to find out how much they know.

“What all did you find?” Byleth asks, and you try not to lean in further in horrible anticipation.

“He was keeping her in a bedroom smaller than this office, chained to a bed, leashed like an animal,” the man who might be Yuri explains, and you try not to pass out when all of the blood in your body goes to your head. You feel weightless and numb, like you might leave the ground if you aren’t careful. You have to be imagining it, because he sounds livid, but that can’t possibly be right. “My men enabled her escape. Has she indicated she’s aware of my involvement?”

You can answer that for him, readily: no.

“While she hasn’t brought it up, admittedly, I don’t think she suspects you’re looking into him.” Byleth sighs, and you can just picture the way he drags a gloved hand over his face in exhaustion. “By the look on your face, I take it you found something else.”

The other man laughs, bitterly, and you are absolutely convinced that this has to be Yuri, the way he sounds so beautiful and so angry at the same time. “It’s why I didn’t come back immediately. I needed to make sure I had all the information available.” Another hollow, mirthless laugh that makes your hair stand on end. “This man, Byleth, he’s disgusting. Did you know (y/n) used to be homeless? She lived on the street in Fhirdiad until she was fourteen.”

How in the hell did he find out?

Did he torture your father? Is that how he knows all this? The thought is simultaneously satisfying and absolutely gut-wrenching. You should leave. Now, before they realize you’re here, but you have to know how much they’re aware of so you can prepare for the inevitable fallout.

Byleth is quiet for a long moment. “No, but what else is new? So he isn’t her biological father?”

“No, as far as I can tell, he never had any children, or even a spouse.” Yuri pauses. “Until now. He has a marriage certificate already filled out, for him and (y/n). All it needs is church approval.”

There’s another long moment of silence, and you find that you’re equally stunned. You hadn’t known about that bit. He’d been absolutely, unflinchingly transparent in his intention to wed you, but for him to already have the certificate… You feel numb, exhausted, frayed—you’d been so careful to hide it, but it’d been pointless. How long has Byleth suspected something isn’t right? For how long have your attempts to hide it fooled no one?

Their conversation carries on, but you’re too distracted to really listen in. You decide to duck out before you do something stupid like start bawling, and let them know you’ve been eavesdropping. So much for not crying, you think miserably as you turn and head back towards the stairs as quietly as you can make yourself walk; tears gather at the edges of your eyes and no matter how hard you try, you can’t keep them from falling.

What you want more than anything is to be alone somewhere loud, so that you can’t hear yourself think, and can’t hear the way you sniffle as you try to hold yourself together, but there’s nowhere here that’s loud like that anymore, at least not where you won’t be noticed. There’s this moment of crushing despair that stops you in your tracks; no matter where you go, you’ll be alone with this, forced to acknowledge it. How are you ever going to face your professor again?

In all of your wisdom, your existential crisis has you at a standstill in the open, in the entrance hall, and before you can wise up and excuse yourself, what you’re sure is the absolute last person you want to deal with when you’re like this happens upon you. In that moment, you think you’d even rather deal with Byleth and having to pretend you don’t know that he knows what it is you’ve been hiding.

“Are you okay?” Felix asks brusquely, in that way that has always let you know he cares, even if he isn’t very good at showing it. He looks as sour as ever, but there’s this soft edge to his eyes that says he’s genuinely trying not to come out swinging when you’re like this. you can’t even find the words to conjure a pitiful excuse for yourself; he asks, and you promptly burst into tears, and you hate that it’s Felix you’re blubbering all over. You remember Sylvain’s observations about Felix, that he’s at least somewhat clued into what kind of man your would-be father is, and you feel like he’s already aware of what it is that’s clawing you up inside.

“M’fine, really,” you try to tell him, but he just looks mad that you even bothered to waste breath on a lie so obvious, especially to him. “J-just… it’s hard, sometimes, you know…?”

The look in Felix’s eyes is terrifying, like he knows precisely what it is you’re referring to, and the thought of Felix knowing is… more than you can bear. You can’t keep your gaze on his as you sob again, squeezing your eyes shut as you try to keep from drenching your cheeks with tears all over again. He reaches out to pat your head, and it’s a little awkward, admittedly, but he’s doing his best to comfort you when he really hates things like this, so you remain silent and accept the stilted affection gratefully. You think back to Ingrid, about how she’d been so adamant about how much they all care about you, and for a tiny moment, you consider sharing some of this weight that’s crushing your ribcage. It has to go somewhere.

But all at once, you catch Felix’s gaze, this burning, intense thing he has fixed on you, like he’s waiting for you to tell him what it is he can fix, with his sword, and instead of the truth, bile rises at the back of your throat, and you feel physically nauseous for a moment. Felix might not be the most emotionally savvy, but he still cares, and he would absolutely try and make it right the only way he knows how.

“Please, Felix, it’s not… you don’t have to look so angry, it’s fine, I promise,” you insist, and his cheeks flush and he looks a little upset, if nothing else because you called him out on the unspoken moment you’re having with him.

“You don’t just cry like this, (y/n),” he points out, trying not to sound irritable. “I mean, you’ve cried before, yeah but… not like this.” Tentatively, like he’s not sure this is okay, he reaches out to hold your cheeks in his gloved hands. “You can tell me if something’s bothering you. I can listen, at least.”

It’s not that, it’s… Sothis, if he knew, he wouldn’t ask. You know he wouldn’t.

“I’m really… not ready to talk about it,” you say finally, having managed to pull yourself together enough to hiccup instead of bite your tongue to hold back your sobs. “M’sorry but I can’t, it’s…”

Felix tousles your hair affectionately. His body language speaks of what you know he can’t say and the thought has you tearing up all over again. “I’ll be here when you’re ready to talk.” He prepares to walk away, maybe, but before you can really figure it out, you’re pulling him into a hug and he stiffens in his entirety. He kind of returns it, loosely, and keeps his other hand on the top of your head where it has been. For an uncomfortably long moment, it’s just this, weird one-sided half-hug as he pets the top of your head, but he begins to relax into the hold in stages. First, his shoulders relax, then his back slouches, and then he’s actually hugging you instead of loosely encasing you in one arm, and you know that this is as close as Felix gets to meaning it, so you take what you can get.

He has always smelled as sharp as his blades: peppermint, pine, juniper berries, and this close to him, it’s like you feel the scent of him at the back of your head. You’re so desperate for relief that you only realize you’re scenting him when you hear the rumble of a growl in his chest, and you’re mortified, trying to take a step back to apologize for how utterly inappropriate this is. You try hard not to think of how lividly your father calls you an omega whore, because you’re still sort of reeling from earlier, but what really chases the thought away is Felix pulling you back in to scent you himself, using his hand to tilt your head to give him better access to your neck. His hand isn’t in your hair, but instead gently pulling at the nape of your neck, trying to be as gentle as he knows how even when the fire beneath the alpha part of him is stoked, and the last rational thought you have before his hot tongue strokes at your skin is that Felix’s self-control is something to be marveled.

One taste is enough to set both him and you off. You aren’t sure if he moves in to kiss first or you do, but you meet halfway, ravenous and desperate, pulling at each other until Felix has you pinned up against the brick wall adjacent to one of the side exits. You’re still in the entrance hall, and it’s only when he begins to pull away that you realize someone might see; after your tryst in the war room, you aren’t willing take a that risk again.

“Not here,” you gasp, “there’s—might see—”

Felix’s reply isn’t verbal. He makes this noise that’s equal parts growl and grunt before he snatches your hand and pulls you along after him, until you’re back in the stairwell. This isn’t much better, and you’re ready to tell Felix this, but he has you pinned to the wall again to kiss you, one hand around your wrist and the other at the nape of your neck again, so that you’re angled just right for him. He snatches the breath right from your lungs and tastes every part of your mouth, until you’re hazy and waiting for that next touch, whatever he’ll give you, and in the low light of the stairwell, you can only see the way sparse light reflects in his dark eyes, but you know the intensity of the stare he gives you, can see it perfectly in your mind’s eye, and it’s just as devastating as his kiss.

Only when you come up for air do you realize how close you are to drowning in him, and Felix seems to know this intuitively, pulling back to nuzzle at your temple as he cages you against the wall full-body, all of him pressed up against all of you, and the feeling of his body heat through your clothes is soothing, loosening the knots in your muscles, uncoiling you slowly. Briefly, it’s just holding, feeling as he catches his breath, but then he has a hand beneath your skirt, pulling at your undergarments just enough to get them out of the way, so that the leather of his gloves can stroke at your slick cunt directly, touch just firm enough to you to feel. You gasp again, louder, higher, and the pleased growl Felix makes has your shoulders shaking. Your eyes are adjusting to the lack of light and the look he gives you is enough to make your cheeks burn.

You think he’s going to get himself ready, pull himself out of his trousers, but instead, he is unrelenting, shoving two of his fingers inside you all at once and curling them so that they press agonizingly into your g-spot, and with his free hand, he seeks to apply pressure from the outside as well, forcing his fingers harder into that spongy spot until you’re on your toes, babbling in desperation for relief, begging him to stop or keep going or whatever makes the pleasure less sharp beneath your belly. His thumb finds your clit and at the feeling you actually shriek, air punched out of you as you come without warning.

Felix drags you through it, prolongs the feeling until it is actually physically painful, and you cry in overstimulation. You aren’t sure if you beg, or just make noise, but it seems to work, because he finally, blessedly pulls his hand away, and you’re left trying to catch your breath, only to have his fingers inside of your mouth before you can even try and close it. The taste of you is all over his glove, smeared across your mouth and rubbed onto your tongue, and the growl he makes is downright predatory, teeth bared as he tries to hold off long enough to let you clean him. It sort of works; he manages to pull his hand away before he crushes his mouth to yours in another ferocious kiss, his tongue in your mouth to taste you from your tongue, and drink deep of your mouth again.

In your daze, you realize the sound of footsteps almost too late. Someone is coming from upstairs, and both you and Felix realize it at the same time. There’s just enough time for him to fix your smallclothes and adjust your skirt before both of you bolt, and go in separate directions as soon as you’re out of the stairwell. Somehow the thought of being caught together by anyone right now is a little much, and you promise yourself you’ll thank Felix later, if nothing else, for taking your mind off everything briefly.

Until then, you need to decide how you’re going to handle Byleth, if you can even do it. Again, you wish for somewhere loud, too loud to hear yourself think, and it’s with this thought that you begin to wander Garreg Mach in search of respite.

Chapter Text

It feels like everyone knows.

You find yourself constantly looking over your shoulder, attempting to pinpoint who it is that’s onto you this time, given your attempts to keep your home situation secret have been pointless, but there’s never anyone there; you expect to find someone staring at you, into you, seeing into your secrets, and it wears you down to your last nerve in a few short days. It feels like eons; time becomes nonlinear, uncoiling to be longer than it actually is, so that each day feels like decades. Talk breaks out among your classmates that Yuri has inexplicably showed up, and is actively staying at the monastery again, and you make it your personal mission to avoid him at all costs, which is much easier said than done. Your game of espionage is exhausting, but it’s the only thing you can think of given the circumstances. You aren’t prepared to deal with someone else knowing that which you’ve worked what feels like your whole life to hide.

Disappearing, at this point, is preferable to lying in this mess of a bed you’ve made yourself. You can’t face Byleth, Yuri, or Sylvain, and Felix has been painfully awkward around you since the stairwell incident. It’s kind of a blessing that he seems to be unable to be around you, because it makes avoiding him and the problem that much easier. Dedue also tops the list of people you can’t bring yourself to approach; he cannot find out about the thing with Dimitri, and the constant feeling of vulnerability makes it nearly impossible to be around him without bursting into tears. He’ll find out, you think each time you consider approaching him, and that cannot happen. The thought anyone, but especially Dedue, finding out, misunderstanding, approaching it with as much anger as your professor does, is physically nauseating. Dimitri needs help, and you will not let anyone hold him accountable for something you readily let him do while he wasn’t in his right mind.

The self-imposed isolation only goes so far. You crave physical affection after spending nearly five years in the room beneath the stairs, and the knowledge that it’s available to you if you ask is temptation at every turn, and your vitriolic reprimands—that sound suspiciously similar to your would-be father’s castigation—are proving less and less effective. You realize that it cannot go on like this, even as you’re too terrified to try and fix any of it. Just when you seriously consider leaving Garreg Mach to be the most viable option, Annette emerges from the tangled clusterfuck with perfect calmness, as though she has been guided by Sothis herself, to extend the hand you need.

Annette had been the first of your classmates to really take to you, all but ingratiating herself into your routines and providing the kind of enthusiastic support that only she is capable of, and instituting mandatory slumber parties that were for everything from studying to making the makeup palates your would-be father had dumped on you something other than more miserable gifts from an abuser. With her friendship comes her astuteness, and the fear of her reading you like a book has kept your interactions minimal. Ingrid’s sharp and knows how to make you talk, but Annette is razor-sharp and is able to take a guess with naught but the situational equivalent of context clues.

But once she actually corners you for conversation longer than passing pleasantries or hasty excuses for why you need to be elsewhere, you wonder why you ever felt the need to make yourself scarce. It’s a relief as much as it is this reminder that you’re a selfish asshole, avoiding your friends because you’re too caught up in your own problems. Annette doesn’t deserve to be treated like this, and certainly deserves better friends than you.

“I think the war has been hard on all of us,” she begins as she takes a seat next to you on the bench overlooking one of the gardens, “but for you… I can’t imagine having to oppose my family.”

You think you’re going to cry. All this time you’ve been avoiding her, she’s been worried about you and how you’re handling your father’s support of the empire; you have no idea how to tell her that your only concern is how any of your friends can stomach being around you when they know your alleged parent is dumping his exorbitant wealth into supporting the empire’s foothold in Faerghus. How had you ever deserved Annette’s friendship in the first place?

You want to say something like he’s not my father but you’re terrified that Yuri or Byleth might overhear you; somehow the thought of saying that, in front of them, even accidentally, is too much. It takes you a long moment to decide how you want to answer because Annette deserves at least something for her trouble.

“He made it abundantly clear that I’ve no home with him,” you tell her finally, after spending too long chewing the inside of your mouth. The habit started as a way to keep from saying too much—as if it actually prevents you from talking—but now is just a nervous habit you do, almost constantly, to the point where the area around your lips is almost raw. “My fear of his vision for Faerghus outweighs anything else.”

It’s the truth, just not the whole truth, and it’ll have to do.

There’s a comfortable silence now, and with silence comes the encroaching dread that this is going to end up a conversation that you’ve no way out of. You love Annette, so much it might physically hurt the inside of your chest, and it’s precisely for this reason that you can’t unload on her. The past five years have been hard enough for her, for everyone, and they certainly don’t need your baggage on top of their own. You’re about to excuse yourself when she sets her gaze on you, kind and genuine, and so fucking perceptive that you know where this is going before she even speaks.

“Is everything okay? You’ve been acting so strange since we’ve come back to the monastery… did something happen?”

Panic, searing hot and ringing in your ears, fills you. For a moment you’re convinced you’re going to combust. Your immediate thought is that she, like your professor, has you figured out, and in typical Annette fashion, is attempting to cajole the answer out of you without an accusation. Despite your shaking hands, you make an honest effort to play it cool, but your mouth is full of cotton and your ears are full of rushing water. The knowledge that your professor has had you figured out for longer than you’ve been aware makes lying seem impossible, because suddenly the possibility that all of your classmates have figured you out, as well, is there and so fucking real that it threatens to choke you.

It dawns on you only now that Byleth is sworn to secrecy only about the thing with Dimitri, and that it is entirely possible that he has shared his suspicions about your father with your friends. They’re going to stage an intervention, and this is just testing the waters, seeing if you’re even open to being truthful, or if they’re going to have to pry it out of you forcibly. They know, they know, and your stomach is in tumultuous knots, threatening to upend if you don’t stop spiraling.

“A lot has happened in five years,” you tell her, and it sounds like your voice isn’t your own, spoken from miles away, through walls and water. You’re so close to falling apart that you don’t know how to proceed from here in a way that doesn’t result in a complete meltdown. Annette must sense it or something, that you’re not ready to talk about it, because she’s quick to set a gentle, delicate hand on your knee. The torrential downpour quiets, the despair in the pit of your gut uncurls if only a little, but there’s still this sense of terrifying urgency, that you need to contextualize just enough to avoid everything being dredged up, forcibly brought into the light. If she knows, you have to let her know that you know without actually saying it.

In your exhaustion and despair, you wonder for an infinitesimally small second if this is any better than having everyone actually know, everything: your father, the thing with Dimitri, how things have spiraled out of your control since your return to Garreg Mach. When you see Annette’s face, however, worry at the edges of her smile, you force everything down along with the bile rising at the back of your throat. Fódlan is at war; the last thing anyone needs to deal with is your personal bullshit, caused specifically by your inability to do anything right.

“You don’t have to talk about it now,” Annette tells you softly, suddenly coming in close, her words all but whispered in your ear, “we’re here when you’re ready.”

The levees break. You love your friends so fucking much that it borders on physical pain, and you hate that you’re so inept, and worthless that you can’t even tell them how much you care, because you might end up oversharing and burdening them. You’re already barely worth your weight on the battlefield, and now you can’t even keep your shit together outside of battle to avoid inconveniencing them further.

When it’s obvious that this is going to be a hell of an ugly cry, you find Annette wrapped around you, pulling you in close and just holding you as you let it all out on her shoulder. You’ve already done this to your professor; why can’t you stop blubbering?

“It’s okay,” Annette murmurs, voice as soft as her scent, all hyacinth, sage, and black tea, in addition to that special layer of candle wax and ink that she always has from studying, and you all but fall into her, desperate for comfort even as you attempt to chastise yourself for wanting it. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t prod or attempt to pry, she just lets you cry, until you have nothing left to give, and you’ve practically crawled into her lap. Distantly, you’re terrified that one of your classmates (especially Sylvain or Felix) will happen by, but you’re exhausted and want nothing more than comfort; the thought is gone before it has even fully formed.

You remember late nights spent curled up talking with Annette like this, soaking in her scent, burrowed beneath the blankets in her bedroom as she recites the things she read that day to help the information sink in, and you realize only now how much you’ve missed her companionship during your self-imposed isolation. In a fit of something like loneliness, you lean in to nuzzle at Annette’s neck, the skin over her gland, and you can feel the way her body stiffens. You should pull away, you should get off her and apologize because she certainly didn’t give you permission and she definitely didn’t ask for it, but you can’t help yourself. There are fresh tears on your lashes, frustration at your inability to stop yourself made tangible, and you want to sublimate, turn gaseous and escape into the air so that all of this hot fucking mess ceases to matter.

You know you’re the one that kisses Annette and not the other way around, because she’s more than a little startled by how brazen you are, with what must seem like no provocation, and all your attempts to explain come out as breathy sobs against her mouth. You want to fall into her, you want to crawl inside Annette and live that year at the officer’s academy all over again, the one place you have ever felt safe, happy, and wanted. You think of that look in Ingrid’s eye, the one you’ve been unable to forget since speaking to her on the balcony, and you try to recreate it when you pull back for Annette, but the face she makes is nothing like the one you expect. She’s breathless, frazzled, and not because she’s enjoying it—she is, you can tell, but more pronounced is the worry there.

You know what she’s thinking: you’ve never been like this. You want to tell her about how she’s wrong, that since your return to Garreg Mach, this is who you’ve become, the very wanton omega whore your would-be father always said you were, dissolving into starved tears the instant an alpha so much as gives you a smile. But seeing her like this, something that approximates afraid, is more than enough to snap you out of it.

You flinch, all but fall off Annette’s lap onto the ground, leaving her panting, confused, and visibly aroused on the bench you’d been sitting on, and you nearly fall apart all over again right there. You’re fucking losing it, and if you aren’t careful, you’ll take your friends with you.

“I’m sorry,” you sob, borderline hysteric, “I’m sorry, Annette, I didn’t mean to—”

She moves to speak, still reeling from your kiss, and before she can even attempt to vocalize, you’re up like a shot, and running. You’re too terrified to hear it; the possibility that it could be the same harsh castigation your father rips you to shreds with is too terrifying, and you want to pretend for just a little while longer that you didn’t just completely fuck up a friendship for no reason.

At this rate, you’ll have no friends left, and the harshest part of you wonders if that isn’t for the best.

--

Despite your desire to seal yourself in your room until the end of the war, it’s the easiest place to find you, and with the amount of people you’re looking to avoid, it just seems like a surefire way to get cornered with conversation you aren’t ready to have. There’s a thought, briefly, about moving into Abyss, but existing in Yuri’s territory is—

“You’re incredibly difficult to track down, you know.”

Speak of the devil and he appears, or so the saying goes; Yuri appears behind you like a phantom, blocking the sole exit to the private study room you’ve been holed up in since bailing on Annette, trying to figure out where to spend the rest of your day so that hopefully no one can find you. Your heart is immediately in your throat and tears are right behind your eyes again, because Yuri knows—not all of it, but enough—and you have no idea how to face him or fend him off.

Talking about it makes it real. As long as no one else knew about it, you could pretend it—he—didn’t exist, that Garreg Mach is a reality completely separate from the rest of Fódlan.

You hold your breath, biting your lip to keep from blurting out something you’ll regret, and don’t turn to face him. If Yuri’s going to start this, he’s going to show his hand, and if he sees how close you are to crumbling apart, there’s no way he’ll go first. There has to be some way to salvage this, to get Yuri to drop it and swear to secrecy, or something similar. Maybe if he’ll back off, you can get your professor to do the same thing.

“I take it you know what I’d like to talk about, given you’ve been avoiding me like the plague, so I won’t waste your time trying to get you to admit it. I just want to know why you didn’t tell anyone.”

That’s what he’s curious about? He knows, and he’s asking why you didn’t tell anyone? You can’t tell if you’re shocked, angry, or both.

“We let you go back there, to him. If you’d told us—”

“It wasn’t any of your business,” you bite out, your voice wavering despite yourself, “and it still isn’t. I don’t know if the professor got you involved, or if you got the professor involved, but it stops now.”

Yuri scoffs in disbelief. “If it weren’t for my men, you’d still be chained like a dog in that secret room of his. You know he never would’ve let you out alive.” The urge to whip around and face him is so strong that it takes digging your fingernails into your palms to keep from doing so, because you don’t have it in you to say what you want to say to his face. You’ll properly chastise yourself for being a coward once this is over.

“Are you looking for a thank you?” you ask sharply.

“I’m looking for an explanation, (y/n),” he retorts, in a voice that is so irritatingly, frustratingly calm, “something to make sense of why you knowingly went back to that man when you knew what he’d do.”

Something inside you breaks, and all of your attempts to keep cool implode. You whip around to face him, eyes full of hot, frustrated tears, and it takes all that you have in you to keep from shouting. “I don’t owe you anything,” you sniffle, still trying to be as threatening as possible as you meet his gaze, “least of all an explanation. This is my burden to bear, it always has been—”

With maddening grace and unmatched speed, Yuri closes in on you, pinning you against the wall opposite the door to meet your gaze head-on. When he reaches up to thumb your tears away, you flinch at first, and it takes his gaze softening, and his hands gently cupping your cheeks to get you to relax. “They care about you,” he explains softly, “we care about you. Had we known, we would’ve done something to ensure your safety.”

You hate him. It’s the one thought you cling to as you dissolve into tears all over again, still raw from your stupid fuck up with Annette, and from all the stupid, stupid things you’ve done since returning to the monastery. It was never supposed to be like this. How did you let it get this bad?

“You aren’t alone. Please don’t shut us out.” That he’s so adept at reading you is frustrating; he hasn’t even been around you since coming back, and he still knows exactly what you’re thinking. With him right here, offering some of his vulnerability in return for yours, you aren’t sure what you want, other than for everything to just go away: the war, your stupid personal problems, all of the mess you’ve caused your friends by trying to do things yourself.

You only realize Yuri has leaned in close once his scent is everywhere—freesia, magnolia, black cherry, just a touch of tangerine—and you’re simultaneously terrified and comforted by his presence.

If Yuri knows everything, then there’s no reason to handle this delicately. With him this close, and your sole de-escalation tactic being what it is, you meet his gaze with as much bravery as you can muster, and resolve to end this before it truly begins. “I haven’t been shutting anyone out,” you begin quietly, and from the way Yuri’s gaze sharpens, he catches that malicious edge before you’re aware that you’re using it, “quite the opposite. Everyone’s welcome inside, apparently.”

It takes you a long moment to realize Yuri’s entire demeanor has changed, and that his gaze is even more indecipherable than usual. At the very least, if he’s mad, then the plan will have worked. This is exactly what you wanted, but it doesn’t prevent the pain in your chest at the thought of Yuri looking at you like your would-be father does. Just as you’re telling yourself that this is for the best, Yuri leans in to press his mouth to your forehead, gently, reverently.

“He told you it was a bad thing, didn’t he? Your fault, probably, that you draw the people around you in with your kind spirit and earnest demeanor.” This is absolutely not what you expected, or want; you realize too late that whatever this is, it isn’t anger, but that it’s just as threatening, if not more so. “A man like him likely held your biology against you, until you were ashamed of it. It’s your fault that alphas like him are tempted by you.”

“Shut up,” you hiss, sharply, quietly, moving to shove him away, but Yuri intercepts your hands gently, holding your wrists with just enough force to stop you. When you pull away, he lets you go, but you don’t go far.

“It was your professor who asked me to help, but I already suspected something was wrong. I know abuse when I see it.”

That brings no comfort whatsoever; you blanche all over again, the idea that there’s something readable there for people that aren’t your professor or Yuri to notice almost more than you can bear. Pretending that nothing was wrong was the only thing that kept you sane during your time at the academy, and the idea that it fooled no one is—it’s—

“I don’t think anyone else knows,” he supplies, quieter, almost whispering in your ear, “you’re very good at smiling even when things are at their worst.” You don’t know what to believe anymore. What you were convinced was successful obfuscation now feels like the entirety of the outside world humoring you; you’ve known your friends are incredibly intelligent, but now it seems like you’re the only one who isn’t, and they’ve simply been too kind to tell you to your face how pitifully obvious you are. But Yuri, in all of his devastating, frustrating, infuriating, beautiful glory, reads you easily.

“The man who had everything to be ashamed of shoved all the blame onto you,” he begins quietly, still caging you against the wall, but with only his gaze. His arms are at shoulder level, leaving plenty of room for you to escape, but as hard as you urge yourself to do so with the last vestiges of the same arguably rational mind that had you bail on Annette, you’re stuck here, rooted to the spot. “What better way to ensure you’d tell no one than by making it your fault, and saddling you with all of his shame?”

When he kisses you, you let him, welcome him, like you’ve been waiting years for this, and it only occurs to you now that maybe you have. Five years has brought new understanding to your time at the academy, like maybe this surprising thing you’ve landed yourself in has been a long time coming, and you were too young, too afraid, too ashamed, too naïve to see it, that perhaps you’re the only one who didn’t see it—

Yuri kisses you again, slips his tongue into your mouth, and thoughts evaporate into the air, harmless curls of smoke over your brain boiling away, thinking too hard. What comes isn’t clarity, but quiet, the absence of obsessive pre-planning, accounting for every possible misstep and eventuality, having contingency plans for your contingency plans. Yuri already knows, has known, and there is something liberating about not having to build yourself around what you’re prepared to die to protect. That freedom is equal parts thrilling and terrifying, as if you’re standing on the cusp of something you aren’t sure you fully understand, but it takes minimal coaxing from the man opposite you to run with it.

Your kisses and his kisses bleed together, marked only by frenzied breaths taken between long lip locks, sucking on his tongue until you have trouble telling which is his and which is yours. When he pulls away to do more than just inhale, you’re dizzy, cloudy-eyed and kept upright only by your white-knuckled hold on his robes, and you think of nothing outside of falling inside Yuri, drowning in him. When you meet his gaze, you’re as startled as you can be to see his composure faltering, that he’s just as affected as you are by all this. he sees the beginnings of thought in your misty eyes, and bends down to kiss you again, intent to exert his control on your ability to piece together rational thought, rather than himself.

“You still see yourself as that rail-thin urchin, don’t you? The one that stole food to survive, that slept on public benches in the capitol, that was never seen or heard, to avoid scorn from those that found you unsightly.” It takes a long moment for you to realize what it is he’s saying; your demeanor changes from hazy urgency to defensive confusion, upset all over again that he’s still able to read you like this. Belatedly, you realize that Yuri’s probably seen a thousand and one homeless orphans like you in Abyss, and what begins as a cacophonous reminder that you’re not special, and that there are and always will be people who have it worse than you, abruptly derails when he all but waves his hands and your blouse and jacket are open, as if done by magic and not fingers that have been trained to deadly precision.

“He probably told you something similar, didn’t he? That no change in circumstance would change your unfortunate origins, that you should be grateful he plucked you off the street to make you more. You grew up with nothing, and to be his little wife, his plaything, was more than you could ever hope to be.” It stings, hearing it from outside your own head, outside the room beneath the stairs, but this is different. Yuri’s hands shift, gloved palms resting on the curve of your waist, supporting, holding, because he knows how tired you are, and wants to help you carry the weight you’ve dragged with you for so long. When his hands move up, skim your ribs, you gasp, the warm, worn leather dragging slowly, purposefully across your skin, and you’re shaken all over again.

“Your father has never gone to bed hungry, has never spent a Faerghus winter without a home, has never spent heats in storm drains or aqueducts to hide from those who’d take advantage of him. He is a man that knows nothing of suffering, yet he has the gall to belittle yours.” You seek Yuri’s mouth, a desperate attempt to make him stop, but he’s one step ahead of you, ducking to kiss a fading mark on your collarbone. You’re reasonably sure that one’s from Sylvain, and before you can castigate yourself for being unsure of who it’s from, because you’re exactly the omega whore he always said you were, Yuri bites into your skin, eager to make the bruise fresh again. “You know how ugly Fódlan can be, and yet you open your arms for your friends without second thought. They could never possibly understand how much you’ve suffered, and yet you love them deeper than even I can fathom.”

When he touches you again, his gloves are gone, bare skin on bare skin as he cups your breasts kisses downwards, lingering between them to speak again. “Deeper, I suspect, than you can fathom. You dread the day they all find out about how welcome they are inside, as you put it, as if they don’t already know, and don’t care.”

Reality reconnects painfully for a disastrous moment, the closing of walls around you, everything coming to its inevitable, deafening, screeching conclusion, where your friends wise up and leave, but Yuri’s mouth closes firmly around a nipple to suck, and everything is drowned in rainfall: thoughts, worries, fears, and only he remains. His mouth is warm and his tongue is firm as it presses against your skin, traces your areola before dragging slowly across your pebbling nipple, and you aren’t sure you make noise in response. He himself groans, a sound you feel more than you hear, so you figure you must have, but it ceases to matter when he sucks again, firmly, and places warm hands on your hips to hold you there. Your hands find his hair, thread through the silken strands to hold him close, and he growls in response, something almost feral, and if your bouts of painful lucidity lasted longer than a few seconds, you might be able to piece together the thought that you’ve never heard him this unrestrained before.

“Do you really think they’re upset? That they share your father’s pitiful insecurities and jealousies?” Your reply is a pitiful wail, torn between wanting more of his mouth, his hands, of him, and wanting him to stop unraveling the suffocating cocoon you’ve built to keep yourself alive. “Your father showed his hand the instant he began licking Empire boot. They all know the kind of man he is, even if they aren’t aware of the particular details, and they know you’re nothing like him.”

“Please,” you hiccup brokenly, unsure of what you’re begging for, but knowing that something has to give. Yuri’s mouth closes around your nipple again, briefly, before he kisses his way down your body, stopping to nuzzle at your ribs, and then your soft belly, and then your navel. For a long moment, there’s silence, and it fills the spaces in the room, is so massive that it threatens to crush you against the wall.

“It’s okay to love and be loved,” he murmurs into your skin, so quiet that you’re convinced you imagined it, but he says it again, and again as he kisses his way back up to your neck, pressing his nose against your scent gland with just enough pressure to make you gasp. It’s the only thing he offers you as he yanks your smallclothes from beneath your skirt and hefts you off the floor like you weigh nothing, pinning you up against the stone wall with his body. In your heightened state of vulnerability, you grab onto him, arms around his shoulders and legs tight around his hips, and you realize only when he’s hard and heavy and hot against your thigh that this is precisely what he wants.

This is your last chance to change how this plays out, you think desperately, but Yuri’s kissing you again, sliding that skilled tongue into your mouth to sweep the intrusive thoughts away. Teasingly, he rubs himself against your slick labia, and the thought that you’re shamefully wet is gone before it’s even fully formed, effervesced by Yuri’s mouth and scent and presence. When he pulls away, you’re still struggling to keep up.

“You’ve done nothing wrong. We all know this. If you stopped trying to plan twelve moves ahead, you’d see what’s right in front of you.”

Yuri maneuvers you carefully to push inside in one hot, wet, aching slide, stretching you open all at once to make you outright squeal. He devours that noise, his kiss wet and messy, coaxing your tongue into his mouth as he begins to move. He focuses on power rather than pace, driving into you so deep that you swear you feel him in your guts, pushing up against your cervix with each stroke as he kisses you to pieces. The wet sound of his mouth against yours is matched only by the sucking noise your pussy makes each time he tries to pull out, but embarrassment would require the thought Yuri has since robbed you of; you manage to hope against hope that no one is outside to hear the way he fucks you apart, but thoughts vaporize the next time the thick head of Yuri’s cock kisses your cervix.

“Your insides are so wet, they’re sticking to me,” he grunts, and you’ve never heard him like this, disheveled and gravelly and restrained only by a thread. “You’ve got a cunt as pretty as the rest of you.”

Your attempt to admonish him comes out breathless, accompanied by your heels digging into his ass. He feels so good that you can barely think, reduced to the same garbled pleading that Sylvain and Byleth and Felix have managed, and you manage a pitiful more against his mouth between breaths and tongue-first kisses.

“Your wish is my command, sweet girl.”

Yuri fucks you like he intends to demolish you, turning to drop and pin you to the floor, bringing you as close to him as he physically can, nose pressed into your neck as he helps himself to mouthfuls of your scent. That barest taste of tangerine gets stronger as Yuri gets closer to finishing, and you can almost taste it on the back of your tongue when you open your mouth. You might be trying to say something, to ask for more, but it’s gone before it’s done; orgasm rips through you in molten hot waves, prolonged almost painfully by Yuri’s desperate thrusts. The universe itself is only space; there is nothing keeping you together except Yuri’s weight on top of you, and the only thing that reminds you how to inhale is the feeling of Yuri’s knot locking him in place. What began as a scream turns into this painfully long and ragged and cold inhale, so sharp it scrapes against the insides of your trachea, filling your lungs with air as he fills you with his release. You can feel his balls throb against your ass, and the head of his cock pulsing against your cervix, and struggle to pull him closer, like sinking beneath his skin is the only way to make this moment last.

You think you might black out, or fall asleep, or something, because you blink and Yuri’s kissing you again. There’s less urgency, and he isn’t trying to swallow your tongue anymore, but the feeling is still incredibly intense, and he still feels out of control. You realize only now that this is a side of himself that he has never shown, and you aren’t sure how you feel about this kind of vulnerability.

It’s a blessing that you’re too fucked out to think. Yuri and Sylvain are, perhaps, a little too good at countering your strategy.

“Nothing you’ve done will bring it crashing down, (y/n),” he insists against your mouth, almost as breathless as you are. “You’re one of us, for better or worse.”

You don’t have the energy to argue, accepting his weight on you, his kiss, and for now, the fact that, maybe, things aren’t as awful as you’ve made them out to be.