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"You have a visitor."
The simple statement was enough to rouse Felix from his stupor, one that he hadn’t known he was even in. But that was becoming a frequent occurrence: when the meetings dragged on, even the surrounding Lords and their words became nothing but added background noise. So when the courier looked at him in earnest, Felix knew the meaning of his pointed look. He barely managed to get his hastened apologies and pardons out, but those present shared a look as soon as his back was turned. Truthfully, he knew they would – such a presence, unannounced, only meant one thing.
And she hadn’t bothered to send a raven – anything – before arriving at his (their, if she ever decided she wanted it so) doorstep.
Three long strides was all it took for Felix to cross the threshold the entrance hall and into his own personal training room. There she stood -- Byleth, archbishop, his wife -- just a few feet from him, arms crossed across her chest, in regalia that never quite suited her. While it hugged her curves and fit well against her body, it didn't do the same things to him as when he saw her in her battle garb, platemail and all, with her body tense, sword in hand.
Her eyebrow perked. "Do I need an excuse to drop in, my love?"
He must look frazzled. Felix certainly felt frazzled. There was more he liked to do when he knew she was coming. Something like preparing a meal, drawing a hot bath, making sure the sparring ground was kept prim and proper despite what would happen moments later. "No, but I like to have a heads up," he chose to say instead. The intent was teasing, but he was certain just a little frustration intoned his words. And though what he felt wasn’t quite bashfulness, he did busy himself by sliding a steel sword from its holder, tossing a second still sheathed towards the green-haired archbishop.
As always, Byleth betrayed nothing as she caught the weapon one-handed, a small quirk on the corner of her lip the only exception. "Like you ever gave me a heads up before," she scoffed playfully. "I still remember you chasing after me, hair barely out of your face, demanding we spar..."
If she was trying to embarrass him, Felix had long since come to terms with his previous antics. To think back and realize what truly motivated him then had initially been quite a shock; now, he didn't try to control the smirk that tugged at his façade.
"I'm sure seventeen year-old me would be disappointed to know I only get to see you the way I wanted when I get the rare chance to take the archbishop to bed."
To her credit, Byleth's facade remained outwardly as cool as ever as she sank down, sword drawn. "Spent a long time beside Margrave Gauntier, have we?"
"Childhood friends," Felix said as he mirrored her stance. "He was bound to rub off me sooner or later."
She laughed, a bell of a sound that he so rarely heard from his wife, and she twirled her sword so familiarly. If Felix were being honest, this was what suited her -- this was so much more natural. Her eyes sharpened like a hawk's and her lips relaxed to a calm neutral. He'd seen her when she worked and he couldn't help but to note the lack of shine in his love's eyes, the way her mouth was tense even when talking, smiling. Now, she was relaxed - now, she was Byleth.
And she still was, doubly so as she expertly blocked his blow, teeth grazing her lips in concentration at his sudden advance. It was the same dance that they had always had danced, a tango of blades accompanied by a symphony of metallic clashes as steel met steel. And, like every step to their routine, she always seemed to have the upper hand. It was almost unfair, in a way, that the revered archbishop could still be this skilled with the sword after this long on the job.
Sheen of sweat had formed on her brow, and the ragged breath that serrated through her lungs was like fire to his ears. Still, it wasn't too long before his sword went flying from his grip, and then his back hit the stone wall - like ice against his heated torso - and the tip of her blade caressed along the planes of his jaw before her lips planted firmly onto his cheek.
"Beat you again, Fraldarius," was her feathered breath, heavy and worn, and it did things to his head that he suspected had nothing to do with the adrenaline coursing through his veins.
"Okay, Fraldarius," he said breathlessly, and this time he did manage to get a reaction from her, even if it was just the faintest blush to tint her cheeks pink.
"Archbishop Byleth to you," she responded, almost dutifully. Felix couldn’t help but roll his eyes skywards as her own sword clattered noisily to the floor. “You almost had me there too,” she said, almost conversationally, and Felix only scoffed.
“Isn’t it sacrilegious to lie, Lady Byleth?”
Something between a choke and a laugh came from his beloved. She pushed verdant hair from her face, and it was really unfair how such a simple motion was enough to make his heart thud erratically. Sure, distance made the heart grow fonder – but at this rate, it made him feel like he was – many – years younger, when he was admittedly much brasher and irrevocably infatuated with his then-professor. So with her hair pushed back and eyes a liquid fire, skin positively glowing from just sparring alone, the way her regalia -- so not accustomed to any physical activity, let alone to the extent they did – clung to her body, right under the weight of her breasts…
To say that he swallowed through a lump in his throat would have been an understatement.
The look she then gave him was sly, too all knowing – a combination of her seeing through him, like she always had, and just familiarity made it all the more easier for her to read his mind like a book.
She smirked, and said all too breathlessly, “can I at least shower first?”
“Since when?”
Of all the things Felix had learned about her overtime, this was probably the most surprising. Her body was pressed up against his, the rise and fall of stolen breaths soft in the curve of her back. She was cold - she always was, one of the first thing he'd learned about her - and so he tightened his grip, tucked in the point of his elbow softly into her chest as a sigh feathered from her lips, and he pressed his own into the crown of her head.
She flipped over, a bit suddenly, her green eyes so clear - like water, one of many parts of her he found irresistibly interesting about her - and hedging those oceanic depths, a small facet of genuine intrigue.
Felix felt the heat rise to his ears; with a twist, he craned his head into the upper part of his forearm, if anything to stop himself before his words came before his train of thought did. "Gradually, I guess," he said, carefully, and he knew Byleth so well now that he could feel the tidal surge of her stare to know she, as usual, saw right through him.
Her touch was lithe, cool, and meticulous - just the tip of her finger pad as she traced the line from his cheek, down to his jawline. And yet it was unfair how just a simple gesture, affectionate in a way she could afford, left trails of fire and ice that spread like spiderwebs across his skin.
"And the truth, this time?"
Her voice was coy, but he too knew that he hadn’t been the most forthcoming with his half-answer. And when her finger lingered on the jut of his chin, before lifting to press against the swell of his lower lip, he relented.
"I don't know, maybe the whole time?" His answer wrenched out of his attempt of control, and perhaps to any other ears could have easily ruined the tender moment between them. But the bite that would have perhaps deterred only elicited a small giggle instead, and the sound only made the already-present sparks of nervous elation catch to a slow burning fire.
If there was more that she was curious about, Byleth didn’t voice it, and Felix was not about to ask the same embarrassing question – he had no idea how she could so shamelessly say such. But he’d known her methodology, known it when she had snatched the ring-case out of his hand as he fought so hard to get the stupid words out of his mouth and then she’d dropped to one knee. “Just have to not think about it so hard, Fraldarius,” she had teased after he begrudgingly (because it should’ve been her who had to say it, Saints be damned) said yes.
She was always unfair when she saw through him that easily.
As she did again, when her eyes caught his, and they were nothing but inviting as he pushed himself up, hovering over her body. “Sappy,” he said simply, and then he lowered himself and let his lips feather along the angle of her jaw.
“Determined,” she responded, his particular area of interest vibrating as she spoke. “You were too, back then.”
He couldn’t help the soft laugh that overtook him before he reclaimed her lips; she sighed into the gesture, just lightly, before the tips of her teeth tugged at his lower lip.
Felix pulled away before she could deepen the kiss any further. “I still am,” he said, very seriously, and his beloved underneath him bestowed him with a signature smirk.
“Are you asking me to spar, Fraldarius?”
“Haven’t you bested me already once today?” he responded, coolly, into the soft spot in her neck as she shifted, a breath wafting against his ear. And then, just as suddenly, those lithe fingers curled around his chin and pulled him up – and Felix found himself staring into endless green depths, depths he adored endlessly even if the journey through the abyss was spiralling.
“Please,” she whispered, and it was barely a question.
Yet he couldn’t resist her – he never could.
It was hard to put it into words: the realization had been shocking, but also in a way, comforting. It offered an explanation to everything, every calculation that had missed and every desire that had been fronting as something else. But to narrow it down to a single moment was more or less impossible; made even more so when the subject to the question offered so many other ways to occupy his mind – and mouth – just inches away from him.
The words fluttered at his lips, half formed as they were, and it simply became easier to ignore the raging inferno that seemed to burn at his tongue and redirect it to her collarbone – her shoulders – the swell of her breasts, unbidden from that frivolous regalia that did nothing to really accentuate how perfect his wife was.
“Easy Felix,” she said somewhere above him, words like little kisses of light underneath the heavy blanket of his arousal. “I’m here for a week, this time.”
“And you still couldn’t have sent a raven,” he murmured against her navel. The small peal of laughter makes her ribs tense, stretching the skin just slightly underneath his touch.
Her response was so simple, so transparent. “I like surprising you.”
She always did, and she continued to, for what he silently hoped to be something close to forever.