It's hard not to feel as though it's something personal, the way he had just sort of been a presence one moment and then vanished the next. It weighs on his conscience, darkening his mood and leaving him a little sulkier and more withdrawn than usual; Felix needles him about it and Ashe asks tactfully after him and Dedue simply dotes in his quiet, solemn way, but nothing really does anything to help. Even Byleth takes a minute out to remark on his change in demeanor, and the fact of the matter is he almost confesses everything to the professor right then and there, except that some odd twinge of bashful shame gets the better of him, and he winds up simply making excuses instead.
He knows, rationally, that it's nothing he did or didn't do. It's not a result of dissatisfaction with his...his...conduct, probably. And he hasn't turned up in Manuela's infirmary so it couldn't be that he somehow hurt his omega, so —
"His omega". He's got to stop thinking like that. It had been one thing to indulge the whim in the heat of passion, but he has no real claim on Yuri Leclerc and he knows it.
He just wishes the alpha in him would recognize that, too.
But then, one day, he goes to dinner in the dining hall, and like some miracle from the Goddess, Yuri is there. And not just there, but there and sitting with...Sylvain. Sylvain, who seems to be telling some sort of joke or making some variety of quip. Sylvain, making Yuri laugh. Sylvain, with his arm around Yuri's shoulders —
A hand falls on his arm. Byleth. He's told to put his fangs away and stop snarling in public. He hadn't even realized he was baring his teeth to begin with. And Byleth is a fellow alpha, and one whose strength he respects, but even that isn't necessarily enough to calm him entirely.
Moodily, he stalks over to the table where Sylvain and Yuri have taken up residence, reflexively scenting the air in search of Yuri's scent even as he approaches like a dark little thundercloud.
"Sylvain," he says in a voice so ragged it's nearly a growl, his blue eyes sharp as sapphires. "You normally sit with Felix and Ingrid, don't you?"
A curious prickle tingles its way down the back of Yuri's neck as a familiar scent finds its way into his nostrils. It's enbuogh to pull his attention from Sylvain to the young man approaching with table like so much thinder: Dimitri, his gaze piercing and the line of his mouth as hard as it is in battle.
It's an interesting moment for a vareity of reasons. Firstly, Yuri notices a flicker of genuine surprise cross Sylvain's expression when Dimitri halts by their table. Perhaps he hadn't expected his prince to be the one to put a stop to his flirtations; Yuri knows well enough that it's usually Ingrid or Felix who steps in to that particular role. Secondly, there's the fact that Dimitri has even bothered to approach at all. Yuri can't help but wonder how much of his actions are the result of a hot surge of Alpha hormones; an inherent revulsion at the idea of another person putting their hands on an Omega he so recently knotted.
Thirdly, and perhaps most concerningly: there's the fact that Yuri finds himself liking it. He shouldn't — not when the whole point of sleeping with Dimitri was to get him hooked, not vice versa — but he can't stop the pleasure curling into his own scent as Dimitri non-too-subtly growls for Sylvain to back the hell off.
"Not all the time," he replies with his usual charm, clearly attempting to try and overlook Dimitri's dark mood by brushing it off with a smile. "You know me, Your Highness. How could I turn down the opportunity to have dinner with the prettiest guy in the hall?"
Yuri just rolls his eyes, then rests his elbow on the table so that he can put his chin in his palm. To anyone else it might seem like a casual gesture suggesting he's bored of the situation, but in truth?
He needs Dimitri on side. With any luck he'll interpret it as a subtle attempt to remove himself from Sylvain's touch — which, of course, it is.
"Yeah, yeah," Yuri chuckles, giving Sylvain an amused look before letting his gaze settle back on Dimitri. "And I was just telling him how I look forward to swapping notes with all the boys who've been deemed 'the prettiest' before me."
He winks at Dimitri.
"Unless you're here to defend my honour for me, Your Highness?"
He can't pick a fight with Sylvain; that much is for certain. For one thing, it would be the height of improper for a future king and alpha to reduce himself to snarling at one of his vassals. For another thing, there's nothing to fight over — Sylvain is his friend, and one of his oldest ones at that, and Yuri is...Yuri isn't his. No one here has done anything wrong. The fact that he doesn't like it, that he's taken some sort of bizarre affront to it, is all entirely on his own shoulders.
If only the alpha in his blood were willing to concede to that. If only Sylvain's coaxing smile weren't making irritation and possessiveness boil in his veins, the precise opposite of its obvious intention of setting him at ease.
But he knows better than to cause a scene in the middle of the dining hall, and especially so over the lord of an entirely different house when it's one of his own prompting his chagrin. He hasn't turned around to feel Byleth's warning gaze burning into the back of his head, but he doesn't have to. He knows it's there, nevertheless.
"It sounds a lively conversation," he says at last, terrible liar that he is, and pointedly keeps his eyes on the table instead of on either of the two young men in his midst. "Would you allow me to join you, then?"
In retrospect, it's not such a bad way to play all this. This way, they can all pretend he hasn't just brought them to the verge of making a scene, but he can still insert himself into the little exchange in the way the possessive alpha in him demands.
Yuri's scent is all but smothered right now; he must be back to keeping his nature under wraps. But Dimitri has claimed him before, and knows what scent to look for, even when it's being suppressed; faint as it is, he can still just barely find it in the air around the table, sweetly pleased. He can only hope that it's like that because of him, and not Sylvain.
"Surely between the three of us, everyone's honor will be safeguarded," he adds, still terrible at navigating this sort of discussion, and sort of awkwardly finds his seat before anyone has the opportunity to deter him.
At this, Sylvain seems to deflate a little bit. Yuri suspects it's becaus ehe knows he won't be able to get away with such gratuitious flirting while in the presence of another of the 'Faerghus Four' — something Dimitri probably knows too, or perhaps even something that he's counting on by sitting with them.
"Surely it will," Yuri chuckles, raising an eyebrow at Sylvain as a little smirk touches his lips. "Tell me, friend: has His Highness made it on to your pretty list yet?"
"Gimme a break, Yuri," Sylvain laughs, before clapping him on the shoulder and tossing Dimitri a slightly strained (but no less rakish) grin. "Dimitri here is way outta my league — princes can't be seen getting cosy with just anybody, you know."
Yuri nods in agreement, casually avoiding eye-contact with Dimitri so as not to stir up too many memories of when he fucked him into a stranger's mattress. 'Getting cosy' wasn't even the half of it, was it? His focus wavers for a moment, and he uncrosses and recrosses his legs beneath the table as a little twinge of something begins to warm the space between them.
Saints, but sometimes being an Omega is trying work.
"Mm, I suppose there's gonna be some truth in that," Yuri muses, as though considering it for the first time. When he finally does glance in Dimitri's direction there's mischief in his eyes, and he takes a deliberate sip of his water as he feigns a moment of consideration.
"But that doesn't necessarily mean there's no-one he has his eye on. Right, Your Highness?"
Alpha or not, there's a part of Dimitri that's still Dimitri, and that's the part of him that blushes bashfully when the topic of conversation shifts onto him, rather than staying on Yuri and Sylvain. Not that he's not grateful for it, of course — anything to put a damper on Sylvain's flirting — but still, being the center of attention usually comes with a harsh spotlight attached, and Dimitri's always been privately of the opinion that he looks worst under that sort of direct scrutiny, when there's nowhere to hide the myriad of flaws and inadequacies that lurk just beneath his surface.
Case in point: he's now trapped at a table with two of the smoothest flirts in Garreg Mach, one of whom he's painfully attracted to, and the other of whom he's trying his best not to throw the table at, for daring to lay even a finger on the former's shoulder in Dimitri's presence.
"My role doesn't come with many liberties, as Sylvain observed," he says at last, as he tries to shove his thoughts away from how good it had felt down in Abyss to be no one but Dimitri for a while, to set aside all the lordly trappings and just indulge as a man for a little while.
He tries. It doesn't work.
And of course he sees the mischief glittering in Yuri's gaze, and he can't help but answer it very subtly with retaliation of his own — a soft, inaudible purr that rumbles in the back of his throat, one that could easily be explained away by a bit of soreness or some other idle alpha concern, because of course, everyone at this table is supposed to assume that everyone present is one.
But he knows Yuri isn't. He knows. And it feels good, dark and dangerous, to take a swing at affecting him right back, in that slight and subtle way.
"Still..." he continues, feigning a touch more ruefulness, "Not being at liberty to act isn't the same thing as not being at liberty to look. And there are — of course, I'm sure it goes without saying that some of the residents of this monastery are...pleasing to the eye."
He clears his throat. "To my eye, specifically. Yes, I'll concede that."
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It's hard not to feel as though it's something personal, the way he had just sort of been a presence one moment and then vanished the next. It weighs on his conscience, darkening his mood and leaving him a little sulkier and more withdrawn than usual; Felix needles him about it and Ashe asks tactfully after him and Dedue simply dotes in his quiet, solemn way, but nothing really does anything to help. Even Byleth takes a minute out to remark on his change in demeanor, and the fact of the matter is he almost confesses everything to the professor right then and there, except that some odd twinge of bashful shame gets the better of him, and he winds up simply making excuses instead.
He knows, rationally, that it's nothing he did or didn't do. It's not a result of dissatisfaction with his...his...conduct, probably. And he hasn't turned up in Manuela's infirmary so it couldn't be that he somehow hurt his omega, so —
"His omega". He's got to stop thinking like that. It had been one thing to indulge the whim in the heat of passion, but he has no real claim on Yuri Leclerc and he knows it.
He just wishes the alpha in him would recognize that, too.
But then, one day, he goes to dinner in the dining hall, and like some miracle from the Goddess, Yuri is there. And not just there, but there and sitting with...Sylvain. Sylvain, who seems to be telling some sort of joke or making some variety of quip. Sylvain, making Yuri laugh. Sylvain, with his arm around Yuri's shoulders —
A hand falls on his arm. Byleth. He's told to put his fangs away and stop snarling in public. He hadn't even realized he was baring his teeth to begin with. And Byleth is a fellow alpha, and one whose strength he respects, but even that isn't necessarily enough to calm him entirely.
Moodily, he stalks over to the table where Sylvain and Yuri have taken up residence, reflexively scenting the air in search of Yuri's scent even as he approaches like a dark little thundercloud.
"Sylvain," he says in a voice so ragged it's nearly a growl, his blue eyes sharp as sapphires. "You normally sit with Felix and Ingrid, don't you?"
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A curious prickle tingles its way down the back of Yuri's neck as a familiar scent finds its way into his nostrils. It's enbuogh to pull his attention from Sylvain to the young man approaching with table like so much thinder: Dimitri, his gaze piercing and the line of his mouth as hard as it is in battle.
It's an interesting moment for a vareity of reasons. Firstly, Yuri notices a flicker of genuine surprise cross Sylvain's expression when Dimitri halts by their table. Perhaps he hadn't expected his prince to be the one to put a stop to his flirtations; Yuri knows well enough that it's usually Ingrid or Felix who steps in to that particular role. Secondly, there's the fact that Dimitri has even bothered to approach at all. Yuri can't help but wonder how much of his actions are the result of a hot surge of Alpha hormones; an inherent revulsion at the idea of another person putting their hands on an Omega he so recently knotted.
Thirdly, and perhaps most concerningly: there's the fact that Yuri finds himself liking it. He shouldn't — not when the whole point of sleeping with Dimitri was to get him hooked, not vice versa — but he can't stop the pleasure curling into his own scent as Dimitri non-too-subtly growls for Sylvain to back the hell off.
"Not all the time," he replies with his usual charm, clearly attempting to try and overlook Dimitri's dark mood by brushing it off with a smile. "You know me, Your Highness. How could I turn down the opportunity to have dinner with the prettiest guy in the hall?"
Yuri just rolls his eyes, then rests his elbow on the table so that he can put his chin in his palm. To anyone else it might seem like a casual gesture suggesting he's bored of the situation, but in truth?
He needs Dimitri on side. With any luck he'll interpret it as a subtle attempt to remove himself from Sylvain's touch — which, of course, it is.
"Yeah, yeah," Yuri chuckles, giving Sylvain an amused look before letting his gaze settle back on Dimitri. "And I was just telling him how I look forward to swapping notes with all the boys who've been deemed 'the prettiest' before me."
He winks at Dimitri.
"Unless you're here to defend my honour for me, Your Highness?"
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If only the alpha in his blood were willing to concede to that. If only Sylvain's coaxing smile weren't making irritation and possessiveness boil in his veins, the precise opposite of its obvious intention of setting him at ease.
But he knows better than to cause a scene in the middle of the dining hall, and especially so over the lord of an entirely different house when it's one of his own prompting his chagrin. He hasn't turned around to feel Byleth's warning gaze burning into the back of his head, but he doesn't have to. He knows it's there, nevertheless.
"It sounds a lively conversation," he says at last, terrible liar that he is, and pointedly keeps his eyes on the table instead of on either of the two young men in his midst. "Would you allow me to join you, then?"
In retrospect, it's not such a bad way to play all this. This way, they can all pretend he hasn't just brought them to the verge of making a scene, but he can still insert himself into the little exchange in the way the possessive alpha in him demands.
Yuri's scent is all but smothered right now; he must be back to keeping his nature under wraps. But Dimitri has claimed him before, and knows what scent to look for, even when it's being suppressed; faint as it is, he can still just barely find it in the air around the table, sweetly pleased. He can only hope that it's like that because of him, and not Sylvain.
"Surely between the three of us, everyone's honor will be safeguarded," he adds, still terrible at navigating this sort of discussion, and sort of awkwardly finds his seat before anyone has the opportunity to deter him.
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At this, Sylvain seems to deflate a little bit. Yuri suspects it's becaus ehe knows he won't be able to get away with such gratuitious flirting while in the presence of another of the 'Faerghus Four' — something Dimitri probably knows too, or perhaps even something that he's counting on by sitting with them.
"Surely it will," Yuri chuckles, raising an eyebrow at Sylvain as a little smirk touches his lips. "Tell me, friend: has His Highness made it on to your pretty list yet?"
"Gimme a break, Yuri," Sylvain laughs, before clapping him on the shoulder and tossing Dimitri a slightly strained (but no less rakish) grin. "Dimitri here is way outta my league — princes can't be seen getting cosy with just anybody, you know."
Yuri nods in agreement, casually avoiding eye-contact with Dimitri so as not to stir up too many memories of when he fucked him into a stranger's mattress. 'Getting cosy' wasn't even the half of it, was it? His focus wavers for a moment, and he uncrosses and recrosses his legs beneath the table as a little twinge of something begins to warm the space between them.
Saints, but sometimes being an Omega is trying work.
"Mm, I suppose there's gonna be some truth in that," Yuri muses, as though considering it for the first time. When he finally does glance in Dimitri's direction there's mischief in his eyes, and he takes a deliberate sip of his water as he feigns a moment of consideration.
"But that doesn't necessarily mean there's no-one he has his eye on. Right, Your Highness?"
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Case in point: he's now trapped at a table with two of the smoothest flirts in Garreg Mach, one of whom he's painfully attracted to, and the other of whom he's trying his best not to throw the table at, for daring to lay even a finger on the former's shoulder in Dimitri's presence.
"My role doesn't come with many liberties, as Sylvain observed," he says at last, as he tries to shove his thoughts away from how good it had felt down in Abyss to be no one but Dimitri for a while, to set aside all the lordly trappings and just indulge as a man for a little while.
He tries. It doesn't work.
And of course he sees the mischief glittering in Yuri's gaze, and he can't help but answer it very subtly with retaliation of his own — a soft, inaudible purr that rumbles in the back of his throat, one that could easily be explained away by a bit of soreness or some other idle alpha concern, because of course, everyone at this table is supposed to assume that everyone present is one.
But he knows Yuri isn't. He knows. And it feels good, dark and dangerous, to take a swing at affecting him right back, in that slight and subtle way.
"Still..." he continues, feigning a touch more ruefulness, "Not being at liberty to act isn't the same thing as not being at liberty to look. And there are — of course, I'm sure it goes without saying that some of the residents of this monastery are...pleasing to the eye."
He clears his throat. "To my eye, specifically. Yes, I'll concede that."