Two hours after the boys had dinner, as the house falls back into a complete quietness, Byleth walks down to the kitchen. She does not want to talk to anyone, neither does she want to be asked why she is ignoring His Highness, and so is avoiding her tenants the best she can without leaving them without their rightful board.
As a result of her stealthing, she could not have dinner, so she is sneaking downstairs of her own home to find herself some food. As the landlady reaches the ground floor, she hears weird sounds from the living room and she hopes no one sees she. In the kitchen, she quickly grabs some food and then she run back up to her room again.
Byleth feels alone. Alone and worthless as a person. Goddess, feeling sorry for herself never was her thing, but it certainly comes naturally. She can understand he does not want to tell her what is wrong, and she told him so. It might be painful to relive such traumatic moments of his life, and even if he opens himself to her, the tools she has to help him are very limited. However, this is a cultured, erudite, college-educated man. He must be keenly aware that he has to open up to someone, or else whatever is bothering him is going to eat him alive.
A soft knock on her door interrupts her thoughts. The green-haired woman refuses to respond. She does not care who it is; she is not in the mood for company and conversation. The person behind the door walks away after a minute and she is left all alone again.
Absent-minded, Byleth spent the rest of the night going through her phone for news of her parents in Enbarr, leisurely reading a book for the first time in many Moons and listening to music. She does hear the sounds from downstairs, steps and light conversation, but they do not bother her. Nothing does.
She does not even realise how late it is until she closes her book and look at the alarm clock on the bedside table. It is past one in the morning. The house is already silent and the tenants must have gone to bed. She wants to follow suit, but just like last night, the haunting sounds from Room 10 keep her awake.
With her mint-green eyes wide open, she lays in bed, staring at the beams on the roof and contemplating whether she should get up or just forget about it and buy a rug first thing on Monday. She does not want to help him, and he certainly does not deserve any sympathy from her, but she knows he needs her.
While Byleth is contemplating whether to help Dimitri out or not, the sounds from downstairs get progressively worse. The man is moaning and mumbling feverishly once again. Sighing, she gives up on whatever little dignity she managed to preserve in her years as a glorified hotel maid and waitress. The woman gets up from her single bed and walks to Room 10.
As the door opens, the landlady freezes with the scene unfolding in front of her eyes. It is the exact setting as last night. She opens the window and sit at the edge of the bed.
"Dimitri, calm down." Byleth begins the routine with a soothing voice, but it is as if he does not hear her.
The woman tries to get him more comfortable and folds the sheets on his waist, letting the cool wind run through his upper body. She sighs when she sees that Dimitri is wearing that damn pyjama set again. A little blessing it is, but at least his arms are limp along his body tonight and taking the shirt off is not as hard.
"Dimitri, I'm here. Can you hear me?" Byleth whispers once more. "No one is hurting you. You are safe here."
As the hours go by and her usual metier of strategies run out once again, the woman starts to consider drastic measures. No matter how many times she brushes her hands on his cheek, no matter what sweet nothing she whispers, no matter how much she fans his feverish skin, the stupid man keeps squirming and moaning. She really does not want to sleep in his bed again, and neither does he. He obviously did not like it when she attempted doing it last night.
Alas, she does not see any other option, and unpleasant as the fallout might have been, it has worked swimmingly. A bit frustrated and more than rather humiliated, the green-haired woman climbs over the sleeping man and lies next to him. His body follows her movements and, as soon as her body touches the mattress, his strong hands grasp her waist and pull she closer. She feels his unsteady breath on her cheek and his heartbeat on her chest.
"Byleth…" He mumbles and she freezes. "Byleth… 'm sorry… So sorry…"
"I know you are." The woman whispers back and stroke back the man's blond curls that have fallen in his face. His forehead is sweaty and warm.
"'m sorry… Byleth… Please…" The panicked feeling makes his body tense up momentarily, as the words become more mumbled and desperate, clawing their way out on a closing throat. "Byleth… Hurt you… Sorry… Dream…"
His mumbling gets unintelligible after this point and his heartbeat slows down again. His mouth is still moving, trying to articulate words, and she cannot help but find the sight of his soft lips opening and closing rather humorous. It is also with a great deal of relief that she notes that he looks calm now, holding a vulnerable look on his face that made him look rather cute.
Byleth lets her hands wander up and down the tenant's broad back leisurely, tracing the scars with her fingers. Then, a mumble breaks her sleepy daze.
I love you, Byleth.
Dimitri speaks the words so clearly, like he is awake. In shock, she looks at him, trying to figure out whether he sleeps or not. His eyes are still closed and now his mouth is closed, too. If this is all a prank, he is quite committed to his bit, and he is not that good of a liar.
As the words settle in her mind and things gain new meanings, distress settle into her heart. Suddenly, the landlady gets very aware about every touch on her body, about their entangled legs and their hands resting in scandalous sections of their skins. She hears all the sounds in the house and yet she hears nothing.
This declaration of love comes as a surprise, of course. Dimitri has never told her he loves her. He had mentioned once or twice that he cared for her wellbeing and valued her opinion, and even managed a 'you're the best!'-type of thing on occasion, but never something so momentous as love. Not even close.
The man is notoriously stingy with the word, she notes. Annette is, in many aspects, just like a sister to him. He knows Ingrid, Sylvain and Felix for many, many years. He sees Lord Fraldarius as a father and is very close to Jeralt and Sitri. He has some sort of weird camaraderie with Dedue. Yet, in all those four years they lived under the same roof, never has she ever saw him saying 'I love you' to anyone. Not as a joke, not as a gesture, not when forced. Not even when he is drunk.
When it comes to love, at least the fraternal sort, Dimitri has his own ways of showing it to the object of his feelings. He is fond of buying trinkets on his way home from college and giving it to whomever he thought about that day, he often offers his help on chores or studies, and he often sits next to someone who is feeling down or angry at dinner and just stands there, as a soothing and silent presence. It all shows the blond does love his friends, but he never tells them, and he never did any of that for her. So, she always believed anything she would ever nurture for this man would be forever one-sided.
If Byleth was ever asked directly whether she loved Dimitri, she would say that she did. She would not have meant a romantic sort of love, strictly saying, but rather a deep fondness and a desire to protect from ill. Now, she is a straight woman and she has eyes, the Blaiddyd is very handsome, but she never felt comfortable cultivating anything other than platonic, due to that pesky glass wall of his.
Considering that Dimitri was being sincere on his mumbling, even if he did not mean to tell her, did this information change anything? Byleth does not know yet why she is kept on arm's length. She does not know why he has been remiss in confessing his feelings for her. Not to mention that, in love or not, he had been rather violent with her last morning, and this should be taken in consideration, too.
All this reasoning feeds back to the first question. Does she love him back? In a romantic inception of the word, that is. Should it be so, is her heart so flighty to take the first man who will have her? Or, rather, has she also been remiss in assessing her feelings properly?
Byleth sits up and the man's hands slide from her waist to her hips. He does not move at all. He finally sleeps peacefully, but now she wants him to wake up. She wants to talk to him, to drill him for answers for every question that plagues her rational mind. However, as not to waste hours of labour, she does nothing of the sort and lets him sleep.
He does look very peaceful with his pouting lips and his eyes a little squeezed, but as she looks at Dimitri, his nasty words echo through her head.
I don't need help. I don't need your help.
The tone, his face and the words. He certainly means what he said. He does not want any help or meddling from her, and how can it be? How can she care for a person who does not want her to care? How does she love a person who does not want to be loved?
It is best to let sleeping dogs lay, and on this note, it is best if the aristocrat does not catch her on his bed once again.
Careful not to wake him up, Byleth leaves his bed as stealthily as she laid on it in the first place. Dimitri is far off in the land of Morpheus. On the tip of her toes, she climbs the stairs back to her room.
The woman lets herself fall in her bed and closes her eyes. Despite being back in her room, alone, she cannot help but smile.