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Wartime is perhaps not the best time for jokes. Nonetheless, Byleth finds herself hunched over with silent laughter.
“What?” Claude asks, his voice the same as it always is. “I just told her if it was something stupid like—” His voice goes into falsetto. “—my ancestors were cursed therefore I’m cursed—”
Byleth nearly falls out of her seat again, her chest heaving.
“What? ” Claude feigns angry confusion. It’s not very convincing: the corner of his mouth keeps turning up of its own volition.
“You are insufferable,” Byleth informs him, for once unable to readopt the stoic expression she wears like armor. She covers her mouth with her hand and laughs so hard she gets a stitch in her side. That’s a little worrying, actually; enemy warriors can barely touch her, but laughter makes her come undone.
“Aw, Teach,” he says, pouting. “You don’t mean that.”
“I most certainly do,” she says, heaving in a breath. Claude waggles his eyebrows again and Byleth is forced to hunch over with laughter again.
“You’re very giggly tonight, my friend,” Claude observes. Very astute.
Byleth takes a moment to gulp in lungful after lungful of air. “Is that so?” she asks, as soon as she’s managed to regain her composure enough to speak. Giggly is also kind of a funny word, though not one often used to describe one green-haired mercenary.
They’re sitting in Claude’s room. Claude is perched at the edge of a chair, while Byleth’s sitting back on Claude’s bed, legs loosely crossed. For the first time since she woke up, she feels like she can feel the stars twinkle, even though they’re indoors. She casts a cursory glance out the window at the empty pathways of Garreg Mach.
Most are asleep right now. They continue their campaign in about a week, when they leave for Ailell. Claude has scarcely left her side, arguing that should she fall off another cliff or suddenly faint again, he will be there to forcefully rouse her again.
“It’s a nice look on you,” Claude says, his smile genuine. It’s a stark contrast from the one he puts up during war council. Byleth’s face flushes and Claude lets out a laugh of his own. “My point exactly.”
“It’s your fault,” Byleth says. She thinks back to late nights at taverns with the rest of their merc crew: salt, shot, lime. Boisterous laughter and thinly veiled want.
“I’m honored.” Claude swings his legs over the bed and drops them unceremoniously across Byleth’s lap. “You are, of course, quite a sight with all those emotions.”
Byleth raises an eyebrow, making no move to push off Claude’s limbs. “A good one, I hope?”
“The best.”
She flushes a bit again. Claude practically howls with laughter.
The funny thing is: they haven’t even been drinking. Both of them are entirely sober, and entirely aware that there is no reason to be as entertained by all this as they are. But war has been draining, and if Byleth’s being honest, she sometimes regrets sending Claude out as a wyvern scout — like if she takes her eyes off of him she’ll disappear, just like she did five years and some moons ago. Five minutes translated into as many years. She’ll close her eyes and her students will come back gray and withered, asking her where she’s been all their lives.
So sitting here, warm, a flicker of Claude’s skin grazing her calf, Byleth is more than content. She is, dare she say it, happy.
“Your silver tongue has better uses than idle flattery,” Byleth says, then immediately wants to punch herself. A smirk winds its way across Claude’s mouth.
“Oh?” He leans forward in his chair. “Do enlighten me, my friend.”
“I have to refuse.” Now that Byleth’s thinking about it, she flushes even hotter. She finds herself tracing the outline of his lips with her eyes. Imagining that quick-witted mouth on her skin. This time, Claude does not laugh; he does not even make a sound aside from his words.
“I see.” His legs fall to the ground as he stands to hover over Byleth. “Then might I take a guess?”
“Experimentation is the root of discovery,” Byleth says. Claude grins and leans forward, his eyes focused on her lips, bringing a hand up to her cheek and gently smoothing away stray hairs.
“May I have the professor’s approval before kissing her senseless?”
Byleth groans. “I’m no longer your professor.”
Claude’s Cheshire grin does not falter as he zeroes in on her lips, his thumb tracing his path before he takes it, ever the strategist. Finally, finally, he presses his mouth to hers.
He pulls back before Byleth has the chance to hold him in place. “How was that?” he asks, in perfect falsetto. Byleth is unable to contain the surprised laugh that pulls itself from her lips, lips he’d just kissed, and leans into his shoulder, laughing.
“You’re something else, Claude.”
Claude winks at her. “Don’t ever forget it.”
Byleth fists her hands in his collar and pulls him back toward her. Claude’s yelp is cut short by Byleth’s mouth.
With the stars painted across the back of her eyelids, Byleth kisses Claude until she is sure there is no space between them.