Work Text:
The walk to Seteth's apartment isn't very long.
Most days, Byleth opts to take his bike, but Yuri texted him and said he'd pick him up after his shift today and he doesn't feel like trying to jam a bicycle into the trunk of Yuri's little car. So he walks, and he makes it to Seteth's apartment right as he and Flayn are stepping out on the landing, muffled shouting in their wake. He jogs up to them.
It sounds like Flayn is consoling him, and then Seteth sighs deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose. When he opens his eyes, he catches sight of Byleth and lowers his hand. "Ah, just in time. Thank you for coming on such short notice. I will leave her to you. Have a good night."
Byleth rocks back on his heels to let them pass, returning the waves he and Flayn toss over their shoulders. "You too, sir."
He watches them until they leave the building, and then he opens the front door of the apartment and lets himself in, leaving his shoes at the door. Sothis is sitting on the island, her hands wedged under her swinging legs. Byleth stands at the threshold of the kitchen and eyes her warily, until she sighs and hops down to sit on a stool instead.
"What was that all about?" he asks, swinging his bag off his shoulder and planting it on the stool next to her so he can dig through it. "Did you two fight?"
She rolls her eyes. "What else is new," she mutters. "He's so overprotective."
Byleth hums, locating and pulling out a notebook and pencil before dropping his bag onto the floor at his feet so he can sit on the stool himself. "What was it about this time?"
She groans in frustration, dragging her hands over her face and sliding them into her hair. "He won't let me pierce my ears. He's not even my dad! It's so stupid."
"Yeah," he agrees, flipping to a clean page. "But he cares about you just the same. Do you have your work?"
Sothis drops her hands to the counter with a thwack and side-eyes him. "Do you only love me for my English homework, be honest."
He grins and shakes his head. "Come on, we only have a few hours to get this done before Seteth and Flayn get back."
Sothis groans again but slides off of her chair and drags her feet into the living room, where her backpack is sitting on the couch. While she's rummaging through it, his phone dings in his pocket and he fishes it out. Yuri.
I get off at six. See you then mwah.
Byleth chews on his lip while he responds. Sounds good. Can't wait to see you.
Sothis comes back with her laptop and a folder stuffed with worksheets, all mangled at the top from being shoved in her bag. He shuts his phone off and sets it face-up on the counter. The folder hits the counter with a slap and she flips it open.
"What do you need to do first?" he asks, idly scanning the worksheets as she hands them to him.
She slumps back into her seat and jiggles her leg into his while she waits for her laptop to boot up. "I need you to look over my essay. It's due tomorrow morning."
He puts the papers down in a neat pile and scoots his stool a little closer to hers, dutifully looking away when she gives him a glare so she can type in her password.
"Here," she says, sliding the laptop over to him and planting her cheek in her palm. "I don't think we're being graded on it but... We're supposed to write about our favorite teacher."
Byleth nods, fingers hovering over the trackpad as he reads, and then he sees his own name and he stops, gaze flicking to Sothis.
"What," she asks. "Is it bad?"
"I'm your favorite teacher?" he asks, instead of answering her question.
Her eyes widen for a split second and then she's blushing, ducking her head and shrugging. "I dunno," she mumbles. "Not if you're gonna be weird about it."
"I won't be weird about it," he promises, but he can't help but smile. If she notices at all she doesn't say anything. He's about to go back to looking over her essay when his phone dings with another text. Embarrassment all but forgotten, Sothis leans her cheek further into her palm, her elbow sliding a little over the table as she cranes to get a look at the screen.
"Oooh, who's that? Your girlfriend?" she teases.
Byleth peeks at his phone and even though his fingers itch to respond to Yuri, he doesn't. "My boyfriend, actually," he corrects, his attention firmly back on her essay.
She blinks, but she recovers pretty quickly. "What'd he say?"
"I don't know, I didn't check."
"So check! I'm not gonna tell on you for looking at your phone," she assures him, rolling her eyes at the idea.
He glances at his phone again and chews his lip—"Come on, what if it's important!"—then sighs and picks it up.
Oh? ;) Bringing dinner too, any requests?
Byleth leans away when Sothis scoots closer to try and read the message. "Tell him I say hi. Does he know about me? Tell him anyway."
He nudges her back with an elbow and types out his response, tacking on Sothis's at the end. Surprise me. Sothis says hi btw.
His response is swift this time. Hello Sothis. And then another. Break's over gotta go love you mwah.
Sothis leans away again and wrinkles her nose. Byleth sends Love you, followed by a little heart, and then he turns his phone off again and drops it in his bag.
"Back to work," he says, ignoring Sothis's long-suffering sigh in favor of returning to her essay. He gets about halfway through it—it isn't very long, not even close to breaking 2,000 words—before he asks, "Is it really okay to write about me, though? I'm not a teacher."
Sothis shrugs, her hands shoved between her knees to keep herself from fidgeting—a practice she adopted when her English teacher scolded her for not being able to sit still. "You're a better teacher than she is. Why else would I need a tutor?"
He supposes that's fair. Really, he's touched. Sothis didn't say that much about him in the essay, but she called him patient and nice and it fills him with both pride and fondness. Blindly, he reaches over and tousles her hair, which makes her slap his arm away and huff.
"It's good," he says when he reaches the end, and then he realizes that he's smiling. He's probably been smiling the whole time. "Your conclusion could use a bit of polish but if they aren't being graded I think you're fine."
"Okay. Cool. Thanks." She takes her laptop back and powers it down, then closes it.
"Do you need help with anything else?" he asks.
She mulls it over for a second, sliding the thin stack of worksheets in front of her and flipping through them. "Not really," she answers. "Everything else is due next week." Then she pauses. "I guess I do have a practice test for math, but I did most of it in class today."
"Is that everything?"
She nods.
He slides off his stool and fishes his phone out of his bag, then peeks at the test. "Why don't you work on this while I set up the living room, then?"
Sothis perks up immediately, swiveling to watch him go into the living room. "What are we gonna watch tonight?"
Byleth looks over his shoulder, a wicked grin on his face. "Horror movie?" Sothis looks like she's going to throw something at him. "I'm kidding!" he pleads, holding up his arms to guard his face. It doesn't stop her from throwing a pencil at him. It smacks off his arm and skitters across the floor before it comes to a stop on the carpet.
"Seteth would kill you," she threatens, spinning back around to face her test. Well, he supposes it isn't really a threat if it's true. The last time he watched a horror movie with Sothis, she was up all night, terrified. The movie wasn't even that scary. He's lucky Seteth let him come back after that. "Can I have my pencil back."
He leans down to pick it up and places it on the counter by her elbow. "Here. Where did Seteth and Flayn go?"
Sothis takes the pencil and flips through the test. "Gymnastics meet."
"You didn't want to go?"
She scoffs. "I don't want to watch her... do whatever people do in gymnastics. The splits? I don't want to watch Flayn do the splits for two hours."
He laughs while he moves the throw pillows from the couch to the armchair. "Alright, that's fair."
Sothis goes quiet for a second—when Byleth passes to check the pantry for popcorn he notices her tongue sticking out of her mouth in thought—and then says, "Why don't we watch Kiki's?"
He pauses in his search, closing the pantry just enough to see around the door. "Again?" She looks at him and pouts dramatically. Before she can get into her spiel about how good Kiki's Delivery Service is, he sighs. "Okay. We can watch it."
She does a little jig in her seat and he continues his search, successfully finding the popcorn and putting a bag in the microwave. He fishes a bowl out of the cupboards—the big one that Sothis always makes him use, even if it's dirty and he has to wash it first. The popcorn pops and she scratches away at her practice test in relative silence, and then the microwave beeps and she flips the test shut and jumps out of her seat to put everything away.
When he turns around with the full bowl of popcorn she's just disappearing into her room to get a blanket, and she returns as he's queuing up the movie, sinking into the couch with a hefty, content sigh.
"Ready?" he asks, fiddling with the remote while she adjusts her blanket around her legs.
"Yep! Gimme," she says, making grabby hands for the popcorn. He sets it on the cushion between them and hits play on the movie.
They get about three-quarters of the way through it before Sothis starts falling asleep—like she always does, as hard as she tries to hide it—and by the end Byleth has to move the popcorn bowl to the table and scoot over so she can lean against his shoulder.
His phone buzzes on the armrest and he unlocks it to see Yuri's latest text.
omw see you soon <3
That's when the sound of voices filters through the door from the hallway, and then it opens and Flayn steps into the apartment, tapping the dirt from her shoes before taking them off. Seteth follows, closing the door behind him and leaving his own shoes in the entrance.
Flayn's eyes widen when she sees Sothis asleep against his arm. "How did you do that?"
He shrugs. "We were watching a movie. I guess she was just tired today."
Seteth shoos Flayn out of the room and she goes, saying something about dropping off her duffel bag and taking a shower.
"How was she?" he asks once she's gone, settling into the armchair on his left. "Did you have any trouble?"
Byleth looks down at Sothis's sleeping face against his shoulder. She's drooling on him. This is his favorite shirt. He smiles.
"No. She was a perfect angel."