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Dimitri tossed and turned in his bed. The ball had ended hours ago and yet sleep felt like a distant concept. His conversation with the Professor kept running through his mind and he groaned to remember his own foolishness.
Perhaps it would make more sense for me to wish that we'll be together forever.
It was one thing to feel it, but another thing entirely to say it. Even if she had believed he was joking, it was still reckless putting such things into words. And if she hadn't believed his poor attempt to brush it off? Dimitri tried to remember the shape of the frown on her face, to discern if it had been disapproving or disappointed.
Dimitri threw off the covers with a sigh. There was little point in staying in bed when he was being plagued by such thoughts. A walk might clear his mind, at least. He pulled on his boots and a cloak over his nightshirt to guard against the chill and stepped out into the hall. The moon was full in the sky, illuminating the familiar hallways and corridors with its cool, grey light. Dimitri walked without aim or direction and was relieved to find not a soul in sight. With each step, he found his thoughts becoming clearer; the moment in the Goddess Tower was a moment best forgotten, a madness brought on by the sentimental air, nothing more. He vowed to himself that he and the Professor would continue as before, without the needless complications of his feelings.
Dimitri stopped when he reached the classrooms and noticed light spilling out from beneath the door of his own. Perhaps one of his peers was suffering from sleeplessness as he was? Concern overrode any hesitancy he might have had and he opened the doors to step inside. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. One of the hearths had been lit, filling the room with warm light; between that and the moonlight spilling in from the window, the room was as clear as day. The Professor was leaning against her desk, still wearing the dress uniform she had worn to the ball, and it seemed she had not been to bed at all. He found himself softening at the sight of her despite his earlier agitation.
"Can't sleep, Professor?" Dimitri asked lightly as he approached, his footsteps soft on the stone floor. She shook her head, her eyes pensive and full of late thoughts, same as he. "Nor can I," he admitted.
"I was thinking about…" She looked at her hands, a furrow in her brow. "You." A shock ran through him.
"Me? What about exactly?" Dimitri asked bewildered.
"About what you said in the Goddess Tower." Byleth paused, her dark eyes lifting to regard him. He couldn't read the expression that resided there. "Tell me, Dimitri. Why can't I be with you, like a woman wishes to be with a man?" She asked, her voice low. The air felt warm and close suddenly, his tongue too heavy for his mouth.
"I…" Dimitri swallowed against the sudden lump in his throat. "It wouldn't be right."
"Why not?" Her gaze was on him still, curious and intent.
"Because… we're not just a man and a woman." He hesitated; it pained him to give voice to all the objections that circled in his mind. "I'm a prince and, forgive me for saying so, you're a commoner. It wouldn't be right for me to… take advantage of you." Byleth hummed at his answer, noncommittal.
"Is that how you think of it? As taking advantage of me?” Her eyes flashed with concern. “Or even the other way around? I am your professor, after all," she pointed out. Dimitri shook his head. He knew her by now and she was not one to manipulate or hide her intentions.
"No, of course not," he quickly assured her, "but others would think it." Byleth was silent then. Dimitri barely breathed as he waited for her response. He had resolved to put that moment behind him, but here it was again, muddying the waters between them, making everything grey when it should have been clear. Her eyes met his without a hint of hesitancy.
"No one else needs to know," she said finally. Dimitri drew a sharp breath. Deadly words. They pierced the fragile border of his buried wants and desires; now there was little left to stop them from overflowing. "Dimitri. I care about you. I desire you. I don't feel that way about anyone else," Byleth said, her voice clear of ambiguity or deception, as it always was. "But I'm content with whatever you decide." There was no sound in the room except for the crackling of the fire and their breaths. She watched for his reaction, not afraid or nervous, simply waiting.
Dimitri closed the space between them quicker than even he thought possible, bending his head to hers as she leaned up to meet him. Soft, he thought to himself, her lips were as soft as he had imagined. Warm, he thought as they parted under his own, the brush of her tongue careful against his bottom lip. He had meant to say something, words to express what all this meant to him, but if there were words to replace this language of touch, he didn't know them. One kiss blurred into the next. He felt the gentle huff of her breath as her hands grasped at his lapel, pulling him closer. The cloak fell from his shoulders to the floor with a soft thud, the sound of it bringing him back to himself for a moment.
"Professor… no, Byleth, I-" He let his hand drift to her cheek, tracing the perfect curve of her face. "I care for you, too. Deeply. More than I should."
"Dimitri," she said, her voice tender, "you can have me." With those simple words, she knocked the breath out of him. All the protestations and hesitations fell away at the look in her eyes. He crushed her to him as their mouths met again with urgency. Her hands trailed through his hair, against his arms and chest, leaving fire wherever they went. Tightness in the pit of his belly tugged at him, demanding more. He surprised himself with his boldness as he unbuttoned the neck of her dress, opening the high collar to reveal the soft expanse of her throat. Pressing his mouth against the skin there, he could smell the sharp tang of sweat and the faint lingering scent of perfume. A few more buttons and he could see the barest curve of her breasts. He brushed a finger along the lace border of her breast band, tantalized by the hint of her skin.
"You're beautiful," he uttered, meaning more than her body, more than he could convey with speech. His fingertips dipped under the edge of the lace, feeling the skin soft and smooth and warm. Byleth sucked in a breath as his hand cupped the fullness of her and his thumb traced her nipple. Dimitri could barely reconcile the sight before him: his hands on her skin as the Professor looked at him with eyes burning with desire. She pushed at him, maneuvering him until their positions were reversed and he was sitting on the desk and she was the one pressing him against it with hunger. She climbed after him, drawing her closer until she settled in his lap, her thighs straddling him, impossibly warm. It surprised him, how hungry she was.
"Dimitri," Byleth sighed. With her arranged in his lap, he could feel himself hard against her softness. It was too late to be embarrassed about such things. Surely she already knew what she did to him.
"Show me," Dimitri asked because he wanted to be good for her, "please." She nodded tightly, then her fingers were over his. Byleth bit her lip as she guided his fingers to push her underwear aside and delved into the space between her thighs where all was dark and soft and slick. At her guidance, he gentled his pressure, slowed his fingers, gliding over and around the tight nub that made her shudder when he brushed it.
"It's good, Dimitri. It feels good." He nodded, pressing a kiss to her ear, behind it, anywhere he could reach without stopping the movement of his hand. His fingers slipped lower and he could feel it, the entrance to her, where all the wet flowed from. He dipped a fingertip inside, watching carefully for her reaction. Byleth gasped, her head falling back slightly in surprise. Dimitri did not see that as a reason to stop. He let his index finger slide deeper until he felt resistance. It felt natural to wait, his finger gently coaxing until she relaxed and he could press in further past the knuckle. The wet had only grown with his ministrations, pooling sticky in the palm of his hand and against her thighs.
"Not enough," Byleth said through bitten lips. Her eyes were heady when they met his. "Another finger?" He nodded, pressing another kiss to her lips. She groaned when another finger joined the first, tighter now, not as easy to bear. She was starting to move her hips a little, her breaths coming faster as she ground down against his hand in a movement that made his head spin. Dimitri was surprised when she stopped him with a gentle hand on his wrist. He paused immediately, carefully withdrawing his fingers, his pulse racing to know what he should do next. "I was going to come, if you kept going like that," Byleth said with a breathless laugh, which struck Dimitri as a strange reason to stop because wasn't that the point? He wanted to be the one to make her feel good, to feel satisfied. No one else.
In his focus on her, Dimitri had almost forgotten his own arousal straining against the thin material of his breeches, but now it was brought back to his attention as her hands found him. A groan escaped him, though he tried to stifle it. Her fingers were deft, stroking the length of him from base to tip with a thoroughness that made him feel dizzy. She was watching him closely as he had done with her.
"I want you inside me," she said eventually, her voice low. He thought he spied a blush on her cheeks, but he couldn't be sure in the flickering firelight.
"I…" He hesitated, a lone thought piercing the haze of lust. "I don't have a charm, for this." He felt embarrassed to say it and yet, what if she took with child? What if he tied her fate to his forever? This act alone was reckless enough and to invite further complications wouldn't be right.
"I do," she said softly. Her eyes were pools of glittering black in the moonlight. "We don't have to, but if you want, I-"
"Yes. I do, I want-" He kissed her, proof of his desire, as well as other feelings he would not name. Goddess, he wanted everything. She breathed into his mouth, a sigh of relief, and he felt a measure of tension within her relax. Her no-nonsense hands reached for him again, guiding the hard length of him between her legs, no movement wasted even in this. He felt her softness part at the touch of him and then, her mouth open with small panting breaths, she sank down onto him. Byleth moved torturously slow, her tightness making his heart pound as she stopped to adjust when the stretch became too much. He pressed his forehead to hers, so enraptured by being within her, of her so close to him that he could think and feel nothing else. A few more inches, one final groan, and Dimitri was there, surrounded and utterly consumed by her. Byleth breathed, the sound raw in the moonlight. Concern for her lanced through the heat.
“Byleth, are you-”
“Yes,” she said, the word raw, pulled somewhere from the depths of her; Dimitri felt something primal within him rise in response. Byleth moved, her hips rocking down against him, and there were no thoughts, just movement and heat and bright, sparking pleasure. It was all he could manage to rest a hand on the small of her back, to steady her, to hold her close. He could hear it, the sound of himself moving inside her, wet and sweet and perfect. It was only right that she should fill all his senses, occupying them as easily as she filled his mind; he would never extract himself now. “Dimitri, I-”
Her hips began to stutter, her rhythm jerky. He tightened his grip on her hips, no longer simply guiding, but pulling her down against him, like if he could get deep enough then perhaps he would never have to leave. He moved for both of them, desperate and urgent, inexorable towards the edge. Byleth made a sound, a thin cry that he heard echo through the classroom and within him; then she was tightening around him, shaking and trembling like waves. Dimitri had only a brief moment to savour the wonder of it before he was coming, too, a heat so bright that made him shudder to feel it.
It was done. It could never be undone. Whatever had existed between them before was swept away; now something new would take its place.
When Dimitri returned to himself, Byleth was pressing fluttering kisses to the corner of his mouth, his eye, his nose. He laughed, albeit weakly as he helped her disentangle herself from him, the evidence of what they had done together smoothed away under their wrinkled clothes, except for what had changed within them. "What now?" He whispered, barely daring to break the fragile moment that felt more dream-like than real. Her serious eyes regarded him.
"We can continue on as before if you prefer it. But I would be happy to be with you like this again." Byleth brushed the hair from his face. "This is ours, Dimitri. No one else's," she vowed quietly. The tightness in his chest loosened at her words.
"Ours," he repeated, sealing that promise. Dimitri drew her close for a lingering kiss. When they parted, there was a smile on her lips, happier than he had ever seen on her. In the moonlight, with her face upturned to his, she was as ethereal as the carved face of a deity, only greater than all that because he loved her so much. The knowledge lodged within him with the keen sharpness of a blade: Dimitri loved her. The words willed themselves to be spoken as brashly as he had in the Goddess Tower. He did not let them.
"You should go first, Dimitri. I'll head back to my room after you leave," Byleth suggested, pragmatic as ever. He nodded mutely, still devastated by his realisation. Each step away from her felt like moving against dragging tides. He managed to get halfway across the classroom before he stopped. Dimitri wished he could blame it on the lateness of the evening or the light of the full moon, but deep inside he knew it was nothing but greed.
"Professor, I do not wish to leave you alone tonight," Dimitri said finally, his voice unrecognisable even to himself. "Come to my room and stay with me." He turned and held out his hand to her. Slowly, Byleth closed the distance between them and took it, her grip warm and strong. Together they walked hand in hand under the moon's pale light across the monastery grounds.
Let the Goddess judge him, or anyone else who dared to look — they could think whatever they wished. Dimitri loved her and he would burn the world itself to keep holding her hand.