Chapter Text
FIVE DAYS UNTIL THE FINAL BATTLE
Of all the dangerous things in the world- of which there were many, too many for her to ever know or count- Claude’s hands were her favorite. At first glance they were innocent enough. Large, warm, with thick, strong fingers and calloused from years of wielding bows and steering wyverns through the skies. They were the hands that had guided her through her first weeks as a teacher, hands that had traced over maps with her, plotted courses to victory and strategies for success, hands that had held her when she grieved for the first time, finally learning what it meant to despair. Hands that had greeted her when she had awoken, weak and confused from her five year long nap. Hands that had clasped her shoulder, gripped her arm, stroked her hair behind her ears, cupped her cheek. Hands that had twined with her own, under the war table when no one was looking, offering her support in a way that she couldn’t verbalize.
Hands that were currently busying themselves with the clasps of her armor.
Byleth wasn’t sure when their Thing had become A Thing. It had all started innocently enough. Claude had asked her to stay behind after a meeting one afternoon, a few weeks ago. They had been talking, reviewing a plan C strategy, when he had come up behind her to look at the map, just as he had dozens upon dozens of times in the past. His broad chest had pressed into her back and she had suddenly become startlingly aware of how perfectly he fit against her, and as he reached around to point at something she couldn’t help the breath that had caught in her throat. He had noticed too, his body stilling as the air around them blazed to life with the heat of the moment, her back unconsciously arching when his bare hand brushed the skin of her arm, a simple movement that sent spikes of crackling electricity straight through her core.
Seteth had walked in then, luckily for them, or she would have let him take her right then and there, bent over the mahogany table like some sort of wild animal.
Last week he had finally kissed her, needy and desperate, his mouth latching onto hers as she had moaned, pliant and willing and desperate and needy beneath his careful ministrations.
If she hadn’t known better, Byleth would have called it loving.
But Byleth did know better. He was her friend. They were confidants, not lovers, not like that. Besides, the final stretches of a war was not the time to confess that she had been hopelessly and irrevocably in love with him for months. Even if he somehow managed to not laugh off her confession it would ruin their relationship, which they desperately needed intact for their plan for their final face off with Nemesis.
It was a stupid plan. A risky plan. An all-or-nothing kind of plan that only someone as tactically brilliant as Claude could come up with.
Claude’s hands finally slipped under the edge of her shorts, and she was pulled from her musings back into the present.
Claude had her pushed up against a wall, just outside of the library, her legs wrapped around his waist as he supported her with one hand firmly grasping at her thigh. He squeezed and kneaded her heated flesh in time with the kisses he laved against the junction of her jaw and her neck. His beard scratched against her neck as he dragged his mouth down it, nibbling and licking at the bared arch like a man starved. His blunt nails lightly scratched at the top of her mound, just over her thatch of minty curls and she gasped his name, high and breathy.
“By,” he groaned, begging her as he repeated the motion. “Say it again. Say my name like that again, please.” Byleth squirmed and mewled with desperation, tugging on his hair as he continued teasing her.
“Please, Claude, I need you.” She cried, pulling his head up from neck so she could kiss him again, his tongue hot and slick against hers as she writhed beneath his touch, waves of pleasure crashing through her body, shaking her frame viciously as he teased her closer to an edge she had recently become too familiar with, alone and desperate in her room as she thought of these exact hands on her. She was close, so close and he hadn’t even fully touched her yet. Claude moaned into the kiss and finally, finally slipped his hand down to cup her bare skin fully.
Byleth keened, her back arching and pushing her breasts into Claude’s chest as he began to stroke her outer lips, his fingers reverently soft and gentle against her as they teased back and forth, making her clench desperately around nothing. She was close, so close, if he would just-
“Oh, Claude there you- OH!” Marianne squeaked as she realized the compromising position she had found Claude and Byleth in. Startled, Claude dropped Byleth, letting go of her to turn around with hands raised and face brightly flushed. Byleth managed to land on her feet- thank you mercenary training- and rushed to re-situate her clothes, hiding behind Claude’s much larger body as she attempted to regain some of her dignity. Marianne was very pointedly not looking at them, her own face an almost fuchsia shade of pink.
“Marianne, how can I help you?” Claude asked, all smiles and professionalism once again. He ushered her away, waving a cheeky farewell salute to Byleth as she leaned against the wall, watching the two rapidly walk away, talking supply lines and plans for transporting medical equipment to their final front line.
Byleth sighed and slid down the wall, groaning as she sat. Her core still throbbed with want, even after the sudden interruption. She would just have to help herself to completion that night, once again. Perhaps tomorrow they could pick up where they had left off.