A/N: I can't believe how much reception the first chapter received. Thank you all for reading and enjoying this fic. I love writing it and I'm glad people like reading it.
Byleth stood awkwardly in front of the three children, not sure what she should do. She could easily leave them to themselves, her hot coffee and new comic book awaiting her in the kitchen, but she knew that wasn't right. She would have to pull through until nap time to be by herself. Whatever. She could entertain them, she supposed.
She took a sweeping gaze over the three of them sitting before her. Edelgard had pulled out her book from her backpack, sitting cross-legged and focusing solely on its contents. It was... a pretty large book, actually. And there were no pictures? What kind of kid was this? That looked like the kind of book Byleth should have been reading for a school assignment.
Dimitri held his lion backpack close to his chest, chin tucked in the mane of the bag. He was staring at his blue shoes - Byleth realized belatedly that he was extremely color-coordinated, or maybe just really liked the color blue - but his eyes seemed to not really be seeing them. He was probably lost in thought. ... Lost in thought about what? What do kids get lost in thought about? Maybe he was daydreaming about being a knight or a prince.
Claude was...
Wait.
Somehow, while she was looking over Edelgard and Dimitri, Claude had vanished. Panic had settled in her stomach but she hid it with a blank expression. "Edelgard, Dimitri," the two kids looked up at her, "h-have you seen Claude?"
Edelgard turned back to her book with little interest to Byleth's dilemma. "Isn't it your job to look after him?"
Byleth balled her hands into fists to prevent her from taking out her anger on a child. She decided to turn to Dimitri, who obviously seemed more likely to help than Edelgard.
Seeing her gaze fall onto him, Dimitri looked back towards his shoes. "N-no, but I could help you look for him?"
He didn't sound too confident. Edelgard really had taken the wind out of this kid's sails and left him a moping mess. And after he had worked up the courage to come here by himself and introduce himself with the utmost confidence! She would need to work on getting him back to himself.
Byleth let out a long exhale. "Edelgard, you stay here-" because you obviously don't care about anything besides your book- "Dimitri, come with me."
Dimitri all but jumped to his feet. "Okay!"
Byleth almost felt a surge of whiplash at how fast he had perked up. He was painfully anxious and unconfident until he received any kind of positive reinforcement. It seemed that, as long as she kept Edelgard from slathering the boy with mean comments, he would be the most well-behaved and tolerable.
Edelgard hardly gave a response that she had heard Byleth, but she took Dimitri with her without a second glance. The girl wasn't running away anytime soon, that was for sure. Besides, this would get Dimitri away from Edelgard, and it was important to find Claude.
"Huh." The teenager cupped her elbow with her hand and put her other hand to her chin in a thoughtful look. Dimitri seemed to like theatrics, so she would play into this a little. "I wonder where Sir Claude has gone?"
She looked down at Dimitri, who seemed confused at her language. She decided to really get into character. She knelt down - still ending up slightly taller than him - and held out her hand to him. "Prince Dimitri Adrien Bracehelm-"
Dimitri's smile fell. "It's Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd-"
Byleth refound her vigor. "Prince Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd! Your fellow countryman is lost! What shall we do?"
The boy's face lit up, as though Byleth had not fumbled his ridiculously long name. "We have to find him! What if he's being attacked by monsters?"
Byleth couldn't help but smile. She turned towards the kitchen, cupping a hand around her ear. "Oh no, I think I hear growling from the kitchen!"
Edelgard, from the other side of the living room, didn't even take her eyes off her book. "I don't hear anything."
Byleth felt her eye twitch but refocused on her acting. "I think I see one in the kitchen," she took Dimitri's hand, "let's go check it out!"
Dimitri bounded on slightly behind her, but Byleth found his grip reassuring in her act. His grip was kind of tight, to be honest. Regardless, they made their way into the kitchen. Byleth glanced around, looking for Claude. When she didn't see the boy, she decided to look for anything that could pass as a "monster".
Spotting a blanket on the tiled floor, she pointed at it with a gasp. "Look, Dimitri! It's a... a..."
His blue eyes opened wide and he leaned closer to Byleth. "It's a slither-er!"
"Right, a slither-er!" She echoed, finding some stray bendy straws on the counter next to her microwave. "Your highness, catch!"
She threw him a blue bendy straw, which he blinked confusedly at before recognition lit up in his eyes. "My sword - thank you!"
Byleth held her green straw as if it were a sword. Now she would just swing it at the blanket and act like she was slaying the beast-
She stumbled back when the blanket growled.
Dimitri took a step forward, undeterred. "Don't worry, Miss Byleth! I'll save you!"
The teenager felt instinct creep into her thoughts. What was under that blanket? It couldn't have been a real monster. But what had growled at them? Maybe having Dimitri approach it was a bad idea.
"Dimitri, no-!"
Grubby hands sprang forward from under the shroud of the blanket, pulling Dimitri off his feet and onto the floor. Claude emerged from under the blanket with a laugh, a comic book in his hand - wait a minute that was her comic book!
Her desire to swipe the book out of Claude's hands was pushed aside when she looked back at Dimitri, who was laying on his back and reaching his hands up weakly to cradle the back of his head. Tears were welling up in his eyes and he was sniffling to hold them back.
Instinctively, she reached down to Dimitri, picking him up and pulling his close to her chest. "It's okay now, please don't cry..."
She frowned down at Claude, who was wearing the blanket like a cape and was currently thumbing through her comic book. "Claude, you owe Dimitri an apology," she narrowed her eyes slightly, "and I want my comic book back."
"Sorry," Claude huffed, closing the book and walking to put it back on the table. He reached about the height of the table, so he had to get on his tippy toes to put it back. If she wasn't mad at him, she might have found it cute. "It looks like I can't have fun here."
Dimitri clutching her shirt served as a reminder of what Claude deemed fun. "Fun isn't hurting someone else, Claude. That's something bad people and monsters do."
The blond pressed his face into her shoulder. "I was gonna hurt him first-" His voice was muffled against the fabric of her shirt - and he was still sniveling, making it even harder to make out what he was saying. "Doesn't that mean I'm the monster?" He clutched her shirt tighter. "I don't wanna be a monster, Miss Byleth, I don't wanna-!"
Byleth pressed a reassuring hand to Dimitri's back, rubbing circles into the blue fabric of his shirt to calm him down. She hoped it was calming him down, at least. She was really just winging this whole babysitting thing. And she still wanted a more meaningful apology from Claude, as the latter had seemed to say it offhandedly and not really mean it. With Dimitri holding onto her like she was his lifeline, she was left wondering if the pain from falling was that bad or if he was attached to her for some other reason.
She looked back to Claude. "Well now that we found you, we can go back to the living room." She said the next part with utmost sarcasm. "I'm sure Edelgard is dying of boredom back there. She definitely wants someone to talk to after being alone."
Byleth was sure she was getting a glare from the other room. Whatever. She couldn't care less if a six year old didn't like her. She turned back to Claude. "Can you go bother Edelgard or something?"
Claude, with that mischievous glint in his emerald eyes, scampered back to the living room. Good. That got Edelgard annoyed and Claude out of her hair. Now she could tend to Dimitri.
"Do you want ice to put on your head?" She asked with as much sympathy as she could muster. He did hit the ground pretty badly if the thud that resounded throughout the kitchen meant anything. She adjusted her grip to hold Dimitri slightly away from her to see his face. His fingers were still deeply gripped into her shirt. His eyes were still watery and he nodded with a sniffle. "Hold on a minute..."
Byleth prayed to the goddess that she could pull off this kind of multitasking as well as she pulled off doing homework and watching her TV shows at the same time. She used one hand to hold Dimitri and used the other to open the freezer. She looked around the best she could with one free hand, but after scouring the entire freezer she found no ice packs or even ice cubes that she could put into a zipper bag. Well. She would have to do this the old fashioned way and use a makeshift ice pack.
She reached for some paper towels, ripping them off the roll with slight difficulty with her one hand, and then grabbed a bag of frozen vegetables. She wrapped the bag with the paper towels and used her elbow to shut the freezer door. She placed the bag against the back of Dimitri's head, and she cringed when he winced back from the touch.
Tentatively, he took his hands off Byleth and reached up to hold the makeshift ice pack against the back of his head. Byleth, now with her hand free, readjusted her grip on the boy so he wouldn't fall and need another makeshift ice pack. She walked back to the living room, and the sight almost made her wish she never agreed to babysit at all.
Edelgard and Claude were currently on top of each other, punching and scratching at one another. Claude had a handful of Edelgard's hair in his hand, and Edelgard had dug her fingernails into Claude's arm. Instinctively, Byleth pushed Dimitri closer into her shoulder, hoping to shield him from the disaster unfolding before her.
She all but ran forward, kneeling down to their height. "What is going on here?"
Edelgard seemed to dig her fingernails deeper into Claude's arm, causing him to bite back a yelp. "He kept annoying me and then he stole my book!"
Claude tugged at her hair again, the purple ribbon dangling dangerously as it threatened to rip in half. "She was ignoring me. Edel needs to learn how to have fun once in a while!"
Dimitri pushed against her shoulder with one hand, the other still holding the laughable bag of frozen vegetables on his head. She took it as a sign to let him go, and he hopped onto the floor. For crying like a baby and holding onto his babysitter as if she were his lifeline previously, he looked back to normal - besides the stupid ice pack he was still holding to his head. "There's more important things to fight over than a book..."
Claude, perhaps angry over his scolding earlier, turned a harsh gaze to the blond. "Oh, shut it, binky boy," he looked back at Edelgard, pushing her book farther behind him and out of her reach. "And how about you actually talk to us?"
Byleth didn't know how to react to this. Claude was encouraging Edelgard to interact with them... by stealing her book and fighting with her? And Edelgard certainly wasn't giving up without a fight. Poor Dimitri watched on powerlessly, but something told Byleth he wanted to get involved and stop the other two from fighting.
Dimitri, with a growl, all but threw the bag of frozen vegetables to the ground. He lunged forward, ripping Claude's arm away from Edelgard's hair and pulling Edelgard's hand away from Claude's arm. Everyone, including Byleth, seemed to be surprised by how easily Dimitri had broken the two of them apart from their fight, but the four sat in a tense silence until Dimitri finally spoke.
"S-sorry," he ducked his head in shame, and Byleth realized that she was back at square one with him, "I hope I didn't hurt you guys."
Claude handed Edelgard back her book but his full attention was on the other boy. "No, I shouldn't have started it in the first place."
Edelgard snatched the book back from him and watched weakly as her ribbon fell to the ground. Before she knew it, Byleth was walking around Dimitri and Claude to take the ribbon and retie it into Edelgard's hair.
"Maybe we should go take a walk," the teen suggested halfheartedly. Getting the kids out of the house might relieve the tension, but... she was also taking the kids out into the real world. If they started fighting out there, it certainly wouldn't look good.
Edelgard looked up at her, but her violet eyes didn't hold the sharpness Byleth had grown used to. "That doesn't sound bad, actually."
Claude ran a hand over the indents Edelgard had left in his skin with a frown. "Anything to get me out of his house."
Byleth didn't know if that was an insult to her and her house but she paid no mind to it. She looked back at Dimitri who, once again, was looking down at his shoes. "What about you, Dimitri? Is going for a walk okay?"
"If everyone else wants to," he muttered. Byleth had the desire to question him about his constant head-hanging, but she would rather do it without Edelgard and Claude there too. Maybe...
"There's a park a few blocks away, let's go there." She stood up to her full height, towering over the three kids. She didn't have any of those baby leashes to keep them together, so she would just have to pray that they stuck together and stayed in her sight. She walked back to the kitchen, pouring some coffee into a travel mug and grabbing the comic book that Claude had stolen from her earlier. She also put the frozen vegetables back in the freezer, seeing as Dimitri wasn't crying over his head injury anymore.
She saw the heap of small backpacks by her couch - a red and silver one, a blue lion one, and a plain yellow one - and slung them by one strap over her shoulder. If the kids needed anything while they were at the park, at least she would be prepared. She found one of her spare pocketbooks hanging off one of the living room chairs and put her book inside before slinging it over her other shoulder.
"Alright kids," she said with as much confidence as she could find, "be on your best behavior and don't make me regret this."
A/N: This fic can be alternatively titled Dimitri Gets Bullied: The Fic. There'll be more shenanigans, but I'm still surviving band camp so not sure when I can get around to writing the next one. Until next time!
