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“Claude.”
Snow crunches underneath Dimitri’s sole when he steps out from the warmth of Sylvain’s home and into the brisk cold of winter snow. He shuts the door a little harder than he should’ve—which only gives him a mental reminder that his nervousness is bound to get him in trouble more than once as long as he is with Claude. However, he’s not allowed to scramble back inside because he was the one who asked for Claude’s presence outside after all.
Because well, Dimitri had a good reason to.
Today was going to be the day where Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd was going to confess his year-long, undying crush to a Claude von Riegan. For what advice Sylvain has already told him: if everything went well, Dimitri would try to ask him out too (however, that was solely dependent on that fact that Dimitri didn’t get straight up rejected).
“Hello dear prince,” Claude says teasingly, grinning with a smile just as blinding as pure white snow itself.
“I—Claude…” Dimitri mumbles, face aflame at the nickname. Knowing what he’s about to even say to Claude, it’s embarrassing to hear Claude talk to him like that.
Claude laughs at Dimitri’s reaction, which is only more noticeable with the plume of his breath forming in the cold. Claude’s known well enough that Dimitri prefers to be called by his own name, but it doesn’t stop him from teasing the other with the nickname every once in a while. Eventually, Dimitri didn’t mind hearing it from Claude.
Maybe he just likes Claude’s voice, who knows.
He steers his attention back to the boy in front of him. Dimitri can very obviously see him shiver, especially when Claude’s fingers grasp the corners of his jacket to pull it flush against his body. He’s bundled in a green parka, a mass of fur lining up at his hood with a golden scarf wrapped around his neck. The fabric is pulled down ever so slightly to reveal the touch of pink of his nose. And with the way Claude had his hands in front of his mouth earlier suggests that he had been warming up only his hands with his own breath.
Dimitri finds the sight extremely cute (yet also terribly apologetic because who knows how long Claude had to wait while Dimitri finally mustered the confidence to meet him outside). However, he can’t be charmed by Claude’s looks for right now; he’s here to tell him something. Something that causes his heart to run rampant in his chest like it’s about to burst. Something that Sylvain tells him it can only be solved with a confession. So, he steps forward to join Claude at the edge of the wooden floor and pulls his own blue winter coat tighter across his body.
He thinks he’s ready.
Well, maybe. When Dimitri sees the crinkles at the corner of Claude’s eyes as he comes closer, it’s almost stupid how in love Dimitri realizes he is. He can picture Felix looking at him with disgust smeared across his face while Sylvain cooes about him having “heart eyes” and whatnot. Yeah, he’s definitely gone for Claude.
“Sorry, it’s hard to resist when everyone at Garreg Mach likes to call you the ‘Prince of Faerghus’. You have quite the amount of secret admirers, Dimitri.” Claude stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jacket before leaning closer to Dimitri with curiosity twinkling in his eyes. The added proximity really isn’t helping Dimitri’s case right now. “Anyways, I assume you need my assistance for something? Are you planning on surprising a little something for someone special? I can only guess that it’s someone in your little friend group.”
Well first things first, Claude wasn’t completely wrong. He was actually pretty much spot on to Dimitri’s surprise. Perhaps he’d been so blatantly obvious all this time. He winces and squeezes his eyes shut, tilting his head back because he doesn’t think he’d be able to maintain eye contact with Claude if Claude’s known all this time.
“Actually Claude, I came here to, well, ask of you…” Dimitri forces his eyes open to stare up at the stark white ceiling since he knows he's making a fool of himself. He'll continue to do so at this point forward actually, as his eyes make contact with something he never planned on seeing today. "To ask of yoooouuu …” The way his voice dwindles down when he sees the cluster of berries and leaves hanging from the ceiling is extremely embarrassing, but he can’t handle it when everything he’s practiced goes out the window.
Sylvain.
Now that's why Sylvain told him to go outside. Go outside where it was “private enough” for the two of them, when Sylvain really had set him up with one of those generic Christmas tricks and getting him under the mistletoe with Claude.
He wasn’t planning on kissing Claude at all today! Nor anytime soon either! Dimitri’s gaze immediately drops towards Claude, who he finds is looking up at the mistletoe too.
“O—Oh, it’s just a silly Christmas tradition,” he sputters out, not even thinking twice on what he’s saying. Dimitri’s probably making crescent indentations in his palms with how tight he’s clenching his hands. “Neither of us need to partake in something like this, I—”
And Dimitri buries his reddened face in his hands. By the goddess, please just let him crawl deep into a hole and never come out.
There’s gentle laughter coming from Claude. And then a soft, “Dimitri.”
Claude pulls Dimitri's hands away from his red face and replaces them with his own before he leans in and presses their lips together in a simple, chaste kiss. For a good five seconds, Dimitri’s shocked to the bone about what’s going on. He stands there awkwardly, hands just hovering over Claude’s sides before he rests them at his hips and just absolutely melts.
They’re both pretty inexperienced (it’s both of their first kisses), where their noses keep bumping into each other's every once in a while, but somehow it works. It works because to Dimitri, it’s Claude. It’s Claude and that’s all that matters. Everything else just doesn't seem as important to Dimitri at this very moment. Eventually they break apart for air, but Dimitri chases after him and pushes their lips together again. He doesn’t like to be greedy so often, but it’s hard when he’s thought of kissing those lips before. And for once, he’ll indulge himself. So he allows himself to pull him closer and closer, his grip just tightening at the slightest.
They break apart again and Claude lets out another laugh (this time it's a breathy one) as he presses their foreheads together. “So I guess it’s me that’s your ‘someone special’, huh?” A vivid blush spreads across his face and Dimitri would be pleased to be the reason why Claude’s become so red, but he’s not allowed to make such a point because he knows that he’s at least equally as crimson as Claude. He manages to give Claude a subtle nod, but he lets the redness of his face speak for most of it.
Because well, he had just kissed Claude von Riegan.
Claude’s hand slips from his face to the back of his neck and he smiles sheepishly. “Dimitri, I’ve had a crush on you since like freshman year.” He pauses for a moment and he casts his gaze away from Dimitri, looking almost terribly shy (which Dimitri thought was impossible, knowing that this is Claude von Riegan he's talking about). “I actually was, uh, planning on confessing sometime soon. Guess you beat me to the chase, buuut I was the one who kissed you first.” Claude winks at him, making Dimitri mumble a string of incoherent words and bury his face in Claude’s shoulder.
He is, first of all, embarrassed that Claude’s been crushing on him longer than he has and he hasn’t noticed at all during these two years. And secondly, he’s pretty overwhelmed with all that’s happened. Honestly, it’s absolutely surreal—having Claude in his arms and flush against his body. There’s also a giddy smile across his face that won’t go away.
Claude brings Dimitri to look at him and chuckles on at the blond mess of hair in front of him (as Dimitri buried his face in Claude's shoulder to mask his embarrassment). For sure, there’s a genuine grin pulled across his lips at both the sight and what they have officially become. However, there’s suddenly a loud commotion coming from inside Sylvain’s house that startles the both of them and Claude definitely can see Hilda’s pink hair peek out from behind the curtains. They stand there in utter silence for a few minutes before Dimitri speaks up.
“...Sylvain brought this up to me,” Dimitri mumbles almost shamefully, hands still at Claude’s waist. “Perhaps I should talk to him later.”
Claude lets out a huff of amusement and he slips a hand into Dimitri’s. “I think we both have people to talk to,” he says, green eyes twinkling with mischievousness. “But how about we go inside for now? It’s cold and as much as I like the idea of you being my human insulator, I think it would be better for both of us to not get sick after kissing in the cold.” He shoots Dimitri another of those blinding smiles, but it warms his heart even more to know that it’s meant for him.
Dimitri squeezes Claude’s hand slightly and smiles in response. “You always never could withstand cold weather too well,” he states, chuckling when Claude lightly smacks his shoulder. He lets Claude lead the way back in, but Claude stops as soon as his hand grasps the doorknob and all Dimitri can do is look at him in confusion.
“Hey Dimitri?”
“Hmm? Yes, Claude?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s holly, not mistletoe, but you were so sure that it was mistletoe. It was really cute and I couldn’t crush your dreams.”
He doesn’t let Dimitri get a single word in before he opens the door—he's laughing on how fast Dimitri's smile dropped into absolute shock and how red his face turned in at least three seconds flat.
“Claude!”