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Claude plans to confess to Byleth.
He has been planning to for a very long time, an idea fermented in a five year long wait and by the way her smile curves just that little bit extra whenever he stands slightly too close. Which is all the time.
So he thinks he has it all planned out, that after the war and after he secures his place on his own throne, he will regale her and court her with everything she deserves, Lorenz style. With a Reigan twist, of course.
He stays up late some nights thinking about what could go wrong, just so he can plan countermeasures in his head. One that always crops up unbidden is the idea of Byleth dying. And besides the fact he can never find any backup plan, no contingencies to this, the plain matter of his heart aching desperately, his arms feeling hollow without her and his bed surreptitiously empty, is enough for him to constantly doubt that decision.
He sees the way Lorenz and Hilda tiptoe around one another. Sees how they flitter about the truth, knowing yet never quite. Hilda bemoans the fact to Claude often, and probably to Byleth as well. He fiercely wonders what it is she tells her, if only for a guide that what he is doing now is right. Would she rather he hold in his feelings until after they are out of danger, knowing he would be leaving her at some point either way? Or is it less cruel to have loved and lost, to have captured the fleeting moments in between the war on the likely chance one of them would perish? To have left each other moments after finding their own little heart shaped crevices?
It is because of this Claude merely gives Hilda non-answers. He can see her frustration, guesses she may even be divulging just to get Claude to open up about his own love life, to see the parallels and just make a damn decision. It surprised him still sometimes to find, after he has left Hilda and their conversations behind, how often they seem to talk about one thing and really be talking about another. They trade secrets in facades and lies in tidbits and anecdotes.
All this thinking results in headaches and heartbreak, but Claude pretends his resolve is strong. He pretends he doesn’t moon over every little gesture Byleth grants him, that he doesn’t daydream about touching her hair and planting feather kisses wherever he can reach whenever she allows.
He desperately craves to touch her and to be touched in return. It makes him irritatingly aware of how he could never be just her friend. It makes this awkward limbo of fleeting glances and the hold of fingers for slightly too long torturous. Her lacy tights make him feel hot, counteracted by how her smile, the way her nose crinkles ever so slightly, makes him sigh with a gooey heart.
It is why tea time, now in her room, alone just the two of them, is a favourite of his. And yet, it is also not. How is he supposed to resist telling her he wants to stay in that seat forever, surrounded by her scent, as long as he can keep smiling at her with his heart in his hands? He is sure it is really on his sleeve, the way Byleth catches him off guard sometimes. Claude is sure she must have noticed his tells, with how observant she is. It is tea time, after all, that often makes him question his timeline for them. Assuming, as he so ardently did (please please, if he was going to be right at any time in his life, let it be then), that she returned his feelings at all.
Claude liked to think, elbows stretched languorously in interest across the table, that he remembered quite well all of their tea times. He knew that he always leaned slightly too forward and that his arms tended to take up as much physical space as possible, anything to get her closer and aware. He knew that he held eye contact with Byleth too much, making prolonged silences heavy with the weight of each other’s gaze.
He knew that she kept her legs pressed against each other, surprisingly prim and proper, with her hands in her lap. Byleth did not fidget and did not look away.
Even now, as Claude leaned forward on the table and resisted hiding his face in his forearms, she did neither of these things. But something, other than the bright blush gracing his face, was different this time.
The tip of her toe grazed Claude’s knee under the table. His face went scarlet crimson, Byleth’s eyes never leaving his. Her legs were crossed femininely and she rested her head in her palm, elbow supporting herself on the table. Her face was open, plain curiosity and a hint of something he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, identify waylaid before him.
Claude didn’t think she noticed the way they leaned forward into each other’s space. He was heady with the knowledge, love drunk on possibilities despite that unresolved part of him needling him to put distance between them. Yet, that didn’t stop Claude from gazing at her, struck by the glimmer of coquettish happiness stuck in Byleth’s eyes. It didn’t stop him from being painfully aware of how she unconsciously was nudging her chair to get closer and closer to him.
Normally he could break the intimacy of sharing snacks over a small table in her room. He could tell himself, at least she was opposite him and not close enough for him to carefully study the fall of her lashes. At least they wouldn’t accidentally engage in a round of footsies, like in the trashy romance novels he knew Hilda was trying to force on Leonie and Marianne. At least there was that physical barrier divided by their sides of the table, even as he eeked past his own side through his leaning almost every time.
But this time there was something different. She fluttered her lashes at him, making her constant gaze unnerving in an entirely new way. She pushed her body up and into the space he crowded, making him intoxicated by the idea of her closeness. It was the stare, however, that really broke him, even as certain quips and banter stole his breath and reddened his cheeks.
Claude took a sip of tea, a suspiciously familiar one he’d never told her about, to distract himself. But when he glanced back up to find a small, pleased smile on Byleth’s face, he burned a brighter red then he ever had before.
“I-is there something on my face?”
Byleth merely hummed, a content little sound that caused Claude’s eyebrows to pinch contritely. He could feel the way the left one stuck into a pinched curve, while the other raised slightly. It was a slightly too genuine reaction that he knew probably made him seem like a shy schoolboy baffled by the compliments of his leading lady.
She smiled, ever minuscule.
Claude cleared his throat roughly, resisting sticking a hand to the roots of his hair for a harsh tug. He couldn’t help but waver, as if it was something he could not fathom, when he said, “What, you must think my face is real interesting then, huh?”
He almost choked on his own spit when Byleth’s smile gained a little extra radiance, when her form inched closer and she nodded.
Claude’s forearm brushed against hers, and he tried to ignore the zing that zapped through their clothes to make his arm hair stand on end. His face was still embarrassingly flushed, and his breathing a little quicker, when he leant forward to lock slightly abashed and heady eyes with her.
Byleth’s smile grew a little more. Claude thinks he may have stopped breathing. All the blood for his brain is now squarely spread across his cheeks, but when he looks back, it is most certainly this moment, with Byleth’s unadulterated happiness at spending time with him, with just looking at his face, that lets him decide he will confess this all consuming love for this all consuming woman the bloody second this damned war is over.
It might take him months, even years, to get everything settled back home, before he can come back. But Claude decides, mooney eyed as he is, that he would rather wait that time apart with memories like these ones firmly at the forefront of his mind. He will wait until after the war, as far as his self compromise will go, before he takes the chance to find out what her smile tastes like captured on his lips.