Chapter 0 - on the night of the ball

Byleth looks too damn good tonight, and it’s becoming a problem.

Jeralt was happy, at first, to find out that he wouldn’t miss the ball, because he was able to get back from his mission in time. Sure, things like that aren’t really his style, less so since becoming a mercenary, but it’s Byleth’s first time doing anything like this, and he knows that she handles these odd new experiences better when she has someone familiar there to support her.

Whatever the case, he’s glad to be there with her, but as soon as she joins him that night, he has to look away for a second, just to gather his thoughts. She’d said she was getting a dress for the occasion, wanting to look her best and make a good impression as the newest addition to the faculty, but he should have known anything that Manuela would lend her would leave little to the imagination.

Byleth’s ordinary attire is already quite revealing, perhaps even moreso, but there is something different about the dress that, while it covers her legs, clings to her body in all the right places, with a neckline that plunges far beyond where her neck ends, and he grits his teeth and reminds himself that this is his daughter , he shouldn’t think about her like that. Telling himself that never works for long, he already knows that by now.

But he has no choice, unable to back out of going to the ball now and certainly not willing to disappear back to his room just because, once again, his daughter has stirred up feelings in him that are anything but familial. He stays at her side, watching with her as her students dance, but she hangs back. A few of her students will ask her to join them, but she shakes her head, preferring to stay to the sides. At least, that’s what he assumes at first, but as the night goes on, he isn’t so sure.

She watches the couples dancing past them with a look in her eyes that he never thought he’d see in her. Before coming here, her eyes were always so empty, but now she’s gotten to a point that she can hardly hide her emotions from him at all, and he sees a look of longing in her eyes, like she wishes she could be out there with them. But she doesn’t want to dance with any of the students who have offered, so what is she going to do about it?

Jeralt can’t stop himself before he says, “Hey, kid, how about you dance with me for a little while?”

He doesn’t know what answer he is expecting, but she surprises him with her eagerness, looking up at him with wide eyes and saying, “Yes, I’d love to.”

“Alright, but let me warn you, it’s been way too long since the last time I did something like this, so I might take some time to warm up,” he says. This is a terrible idea, but it shouldn’t be. To anyone else, it will look innocent, a father and his daughter spending time together, and that’s how it should be.

If it weren’t for that damn dress, and how beautiful she is, and how hard this has been for the past couple years, he…
Byleth takes his hand and he leads her to the floor, and he can’t resist pulling her close to him. She’s so small next to him, so warm up against him, but he knows her better than anyone. He has seen her battle off three men at once without breaking a sweat, just the same as he has seen her blush as she asks him what he thinks of her new dress. If there is anyone in the world who understands his peculiar child, he knows that it’s him, and he would not want anyone else to share her first dance.

He loves her and he always has, but it’s hard to tell when that love began to shift or distort, and hard to tell exactly how he ended up here.

~X~

The night progresses without much incident, but Byleth does not dance with anyone other than him. They’ll break at times, to catch their breath and to enjoy the hor d’oeuvres, but other than that, she wants to spend the entire evening dancing only with him. After a certain point, students stop trying to get her attention, both because they know it is a lost cause and because, the later it gets, the more of a party this ball becomes.

The adults have their own plans for the night and the students take advantage of their distracted faculty to creep off and make good on their own plans, and Jeralt and his daughter are left to their own devices, in their own world. Things have progressed too far without anything seeming like it has changed, and it feels almost natural that he would suggest they retire to his room, because it seems like all the noise is getting to be too much for her.

Byleth accepts his offer, and he leads her away, no one noticing that her hand never leaves his. Alone in his room, his head clears enough for him to understand what is happening and what he has done, and to understand that it’s too late to turn back from it now.

His daughter is the one to kiss him first.

He doesn’t make a move on her, even with the door locked behind them and the knowledge that it’s unavoidable. She takes the steps to close the distance between them, hesitating for only a moment before she slowly presses her lips to his, giving him the reaction time he would need to stop her, but he doesn’t.

And then her lips are on his and her arms are around him, and he’s pulling her in closer, his hands in her hair. She is beautiful and perfect and his , and remembers the heat of her body against his while they danced, now replaced by an entirely new heat. With one crucial step out of the way, he feels nothing left to hold him back from taking it all the way.

Jeralt doesn’t know how long Byleth kisses him, or at what point he takes the lead, kissing her hard and desperate, He can feel how badly she must have wanted this, and can no longer even try to deny how badly he has wanted this, and the next thing he knows, he’s reaching down, ready to see if that dress is as easy to remove as he thinks it will be, a thought that he has tried to keep in the back of his mind all night.

But now that it is as the forefront, he’s pleased to see that it’s true, breaking the kiss only when it’s necessary to finish removing the fabric from her body, so that he can leave his daughter completely exposed before him. She’s always been beautiful, but now she is breathtakingly so, and he only comes back to his senses when she begins working at his clothes, a bit more complicated, but proving to be no obstacle for Byleth.

He is almost ashamed of how visibly he wants her, but her eyes linger as she looks over his body, seeming pleased with herself. She has wanted to leave him in a state like this, he can see now, and he is grateful that she has become less guarded, more expressive here, so that he is better able to understand what’s on her mind.

He kisses her again before he pushes her onto her back, following her down so that he can kiss her mouth, her neck, her shoulders, her chest, kissing all over the skin she’s left exposed for him so many times, kissing her in ways he can’t help but fantasize about whenever he looks at her. Tonight has been particularly torturous, but tonight has also become the night where he can finally act on these fantasies. Byleth lets out a soft whimper, squirming beneath him, and he is proud of himself to be able to earn such reactions from his stoic child.

He bites along her neck, but not hard enough to leave any visible damage, as much as he may want to. A very strong part of him wants to bite down hard and refuse to let up until she bears a mark that shows she’s spent the night with someone else, but this isn’t just any fling. This is something neither can risk being discovered, and as distracted as most of the ball attendees were, there’s a chance someone might recall Byleth spent the evening with only one man, and left at his side.

So he refrains, knowing that his claim to her will be something that only she knows, and deciding that that is more than enough. His mouth drops lower along her chest until he’s pressing his lips to the tip of one of her breasts, and she whimpers again as he parts his lips slowly, wrapping them around her hardened nipple. Grazing her with his tongue, he thrills in the way she writhes beneath his touch, with just a little bit of stimulation enough to drive her wild.

Of course, that is without mentioning just how much this is affecting him and just how badly he needs her, listening to the way she moans for him. If she is starved for this, then that is nothing compared to how starved he is, but now, neither have to refrain anymore. As he continues with her breast, he reaches a hand down between her legs, feeling how wet she is for him, wondering when that started. Was it when they kissed? When they danced and he pulled her close? Or perhaps...even before that, in anticipation of the night?

Rather than moving his mouth to ask, he keeps his work up and begins gently fingering her, just a precaution to make sure that she’s ready, and perhaps because he wants to hear how it will make her moan for him again. But it isn’t long before he doesn’t feel like he can wait a moment longer, and she is gasping and squirming and so close already that he knows she must feel the same way. Pulling his mouth away, he finally speaks to her.

“Byleth…” he breathes. “You’re sure about this, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she replies in a small voice, and that is the only thing he needs to hear.

Jeralt moves then so that he is properly on top of her, resting a hand on the side of her face for a moment, cupping her cheek and brushing some of her hair to the side. Then, with a slow thrust and a low grunt, he pushes into her, and Byleth cries out for him. If there was no turning back before, there is truly no turning back now, but neither would even begin to consider that in the first place.

It isn’t long before he’s fully buried himself inside of her, and she wraps her legs around him as if to hold him there, but she doesn’t have to worry about him going anywhere for now. For now, there is nowhere else he would rather be, all inhibitions gone as he jerks his hips forward, just as needy for her as she is for him. He fucks his daughter slow and gentle to ease her into it, then desperate and starved as she begs him for more, and it’s hard to tell how long either of them last like this, when it both feels like an eternity only they share in, and like it is over far too fast.

She comes first, a sweet sigh on her lips as she calls out to him, not by name but by what he is to her, and to hear her moan for her father is enough to push him over the edge as well. He leans down to press his lips to hers once more, capturing her in a long and passionate kiss that lasts well beyond either of their climaxes.

Tomorrow, they will have to return to the world, hiding the change in their relationship and going on as if nothing has happened, as if they haven't become lovers. But tonight, alone in his room, they are only concerned with one another. 

-
If you're interested in my writing updates, please follow my fanfiction twitter @WattStalf