The Coquette and the Thane

PART III | Chapter XXVI

3:26 | Dark Alleys and Other Upscale Places

For the record, Kedean wasn’t actually considering taking Baisyl against a brick wall in a filthy alley in the middle of the night in a city with active warrants out for their arrest. 

He wasn’t.

He was just…temporarily indulging the man.  That was all.  Right.  Right?

For a drunk, Baisyl was good with his hands. 

Even completely sober, Kedean sometimes wondered how they got to the places they did without him noticing until they were already there.  Such was the case now.  When a sudden shock of barely calloused, chilled fingers brushed along his abdomen, he drew a sharp, startled intake of breath, his body giving a brief jerk in response, and if he hadn’t known better, he would have said Baisyl purred at his reaction.

“Have I…ever mentioned to you…” Baisyl spoke into his mouth, his words softly slurred but not so much as to make them unintelligible, “…how…fantastic your body is?”  His fingers skimmed, like impressionistic dancers, in a lackadaisical, pattern-less trek over Kedean’s stomach and under his clothes, and Kedean wondered how it was that his skin responded so intently to every inch that Baisyl graced with even the briefest of his attentions.  “There are so many…details…I love it.”

There was a quick tug at the waist of his pants, which Kedean immediately identified as Baisyl’s fingers getting up to things they had no business getting up to here. 

Unfortunately, halfway between realizing this and actually reaching for Baisyl’s wrist to stop him, a slick, heated flick of activity along the shell of his ear – Baisyl’s tongue – sidetracked him, and by the time Baisyl’s hands made it into his pants, Kedean was pressing his knee between the other man’s legs, digging his fingers into his hips and ass, growling into his irritatingly perfect throat and otherwise not doing anything to further the chances of them making it indoors before he fucked his charge stupid against a brick wall.

In a filthy alley where anyone could see them.  And get them arrested.  And thrown in jail.

He took his frustration out on Baisyl’s aforementioned irritatingly perfect throat.  Not that Baisyl seemed to mind, if the way his hips twitched forward to grind against Kedean’s leg and his fingers fumbled in their efforts to unlace his underclothes meant anything.  Then, Baisyl made it past the last barrier. 

His bare palm – already partially heated thanks to the time it’d recently spent under Kedean’s shirt – pressed flat against Kedean’s healthy erection, drawing a rough, low groan from deep in his chest, and Kedean conveniently forgot, for several long blissful seconds as Baisyl’s fingers wound expertly around him, that there was anything wrong with the situation at all. 

Baisyl’s hand jerked in its pace – twice fast, once slow – stumbling irregularly through the motions much like he’d stumbled on his feet when walking.  His breath teased Kedean’s neck and shoulder in hot, humid little puffs as irregular as his touches, and his body squirmed against Kedean’s.  Writhing.  Pressing up into Kedean’s palm with a chopped moan like he needed something when Kedean broke down and reached forward, cupping Baisyl through his clothes and feeling him shake at the attention.

What could possibly be wrong with something that felt like drowning in good fire?

“Kedean…take…” Baisyl’s spare hand tugged, clumsily, at Kedean’s vest, “…thisoff…”

“Hn?”

“Take your…this…off…” Baisyl insisted again, identifying the ‘this’ by giving another tug to Kedean’s vest, “…an’…put it on the…down…the ground.”

After the second or two it took Kedean to piece that sentence together, he asked, “What for?”

“B’cause…” Baisyl paused, and Kedean momentarily lost track of his train of thought anyway, zeroing in on the path of Baisyl’s tongue as it darted over his lip to whet it and consequently causing it to gloss and catch the moonlight.  “I want…to suck you, but the…this place…the ground…s’not…” His brows knit together, as though in deep thought – or a grimace, “…sanitary.”

Only Baisyl would initiate drunken sex in a back alley and still find time to express concern about getting his knees dirty.  Kedean might have derived more amusement from the latent irony if his brain hadn’t stalled up on ‘suck you’ and largely lost track of the sentence from there on out.  Baisyl helped him out of his vest.

“Ahh…wait, Baisyl, you don’t…” Kedean shook his head as he drew himself into the present, “…you don’t have-”

Baisyl scoffed – a small sound that fell somewhere between amused and disbelieving – and he cut off Kedean’s sentence with a kiss that turned wet fast.  Something about the combination of the patient, twisting little tugs his hand was still providing to Kedean’s cock and the languid, fucking motion that his tongue engaged in as it slid into Kedean’s mouth made Kedean wonder – as all other thought processes faded into the periphery – why he ever bothered to argue with Baisyl at all.

“Relax, sweetheart…” Baisyl murmured when he drew back.  Having successfully removed Kedean’s vest the rest of the way, he dropped it to the ground between them, and Kedean’s cheeks warmed.  Had Baisyl really just called him—?  “I think…we’ve been over this…but on the off-chance that I’m mistaken: I offered…” 

When Baisyl sank to his knees, gripping Kedean’s thighs for balance and then tilting his head up to lock their eyes, Kedean suddenly wondered if his own knees would cooperate long enough to keep him standing through this.  A single, slow swipe of Baisyl’s tongue over his cock that lasted just long enough to make Kedean fight the need to squirm only strengthened his self-doubt. 

“Means I want to…an’ you don’t have to feel obligated t’ turn me down.”

“I-”

Baisyl went down on him, and Kedean’s hand fell forward to the wall for support.  His fingers bunched up against the brick, a broken groan spilling from his lips, and he dug his teeth into his lip to bite back another unseemly sound because fuck.  “Baisyl…”  The name came out breathless and so low and ragged that he barely recognized his own voice. 

He strung a hand into Baisyl’s hair – soft – and drew the pads of his fingers along the warm nape of the man’s neck, heated skin interrupted only briefly by the thin, cool metal chain of the charm around his neck.  The charm keeping him male.  When his explorations elicited a muted, encouraging moan around his cock, Kedean shut his eyes and swallowed.

He didn’t need to look to know Baisyl’s lips were slick and wet.  He didn’t need to see to picture Baisyl’s face, etched out down to the last detail in his mind: flushed and warm, his eyes shut and mouth and lashes dark against his otherwise strikingly fair skin as he sucked, long and slow and needy like he really did enjoy this.  And gods, it was all Kedean could do to keep himself in check not to look.

Even so, it couldn’t have been more than a matter of minutes before he tightened his grip on Baisyl’s hair in warning, tugging meaningfully because as indescribably good as the man’s mouth felt down there – all hot, slick suction and twisting friction – he wanted something more from Baisyl than to finish in his mouth.  Baisyl took his cue, and rose, albeit a tad unsteadily, to his feet.

Seconds before wondering aloud why Baisyl’s knees were failing him, Kedean mentally checked himself, ‘Right, alcohol…’ and then his heart stopped up at the actual sight of him.  Dark hair mussed, parted lips sleek and swollen, and eyes half lidded and barely focused on him from under his lashes, he looked used and wanton and so painfully beautiful that Kedean silently berated himself for finding such uncharacteristic vulnerability so appealing in the man.

Long, clutching fingers reached up, curling loosely around his biceps and then sliding down his arms, leading him in, and Kedean fell into the offered kiss like he might have died without it. His hands found Baisyl’s belt and a variety of other irritating fastenings, but managed to do away with them without sparing them a glace, and sometime between then and the point where he succeeded in shoving all interfering materials down to a workable level somewhere high on Baisyl’s thighs, Baisyl mumbled out, “Oil,” indentifying the contents of the small vial he pressed into Kedean’s palm.  Kedean wasted no time putting it to use.

When Baisyl made to turn and offer his back, Kedean caught his shoulder, stilling him.  “Don’t.”

“But-”

“We’re not doing this with your face to the wall.”  Reaching forward around Baisyl’s body and down, Kedean watched Baisyl’s face, his eyes locked on the man’s expression as he painted a careful stripe with his oil-slicked fingers down the cleft of Baisyl’s ass and in.  On contact, Baisyl’s breath tripped up, and when Kedean’s fingers reached the tight, clenching ring of muscle at his entrance, his lip disappeared between his teeth, muffling a reluctant, needing whimper.  “I want to see you this time.”

Baisyl’s body quivered under his.  His hands – at Kedean’s waist, now – dug a fraction more fiercely into his sides, and when Kedean pushed, slotting one finger, then two, gradually up, up into the heated, clinging confines of Baisyl’s body, Baisyl’s lip fell from between his teeth.  It dropped out with a fractured mewl and an, “Ohfuck, yes, Kedean…” and Kedean doubted his name had ever sounded better.

“Are you still sore from—?”  It was hard to believe that the first and only other time they’d done this ‘all the way’ was earlier the same day.  His limited time with Baisyl thus far already felt disproportionally large in juxtapose with the course of his life, as though they’d known each other for months – years, even – when in truth it hadn’t yet been two weeks.

It jarred Kedean’s heart – With panic? Wonder? – to think how quickly, how effortlessly this man out of nowhere had entrenched himself in his life.

“Fast healer, remember?” Baisyl panted out, jerking him back to the present.  “Don’t…” He shook his head, “…stop.”

So Kedean obliged. 

Easier to twist his fingers in Baisyl’s body and watch the man’s throat convulse as he worked his body open than to think about what the personality inside that body meant to him.  Simpler to focus on the concrete certainty of the blunts of Baisyl’s nails – on his shoulders now – digging into his skin hard enough to leave marks, than to try to somehow define what it was about the prospect of never again having Baisyl’s skin under his lips that terrified him.  Or even to admit that it did terrify him, because why should it?  It had no right to.

Kedean pressed his mouth to Baisyl’s Adam’s apple.  He swept his tongue over it, feeling up close the symphony of strangled sounds and vibrations that fell from his charge’s lips as his fingers found the raw bundle of nerves that set Baisyl’s body atremble.  And right now, he promised himself, nothing but this – the safe, reliable, definable present – mattered. 

The rebellious part of his mind that drew up an image of Baisyl’s smile lit by a sunrise and said You’re lying to yourself…you know you’d take a bullet to save him… could kindly shove it and curl up in some dark distant corner of his conscious, never to see the light of day, preferably.

“Nnnh…enough,” Baisyl asserted in a tremulous voice quite at odds with his decisive instructions.  “I’m ready.  Fuck me.”

Thankfully, that provided distraction enough for Kedean to shove his traitorous thoughts well enough away for the time being, and after a last, lingering stroke to the hard nub of Baisyl’s prostate – and the startled, needy jut of Baisyl’s hips that the extra attention earned him – Kedean dutifully withdrew his fingers. 

“Yes, m’lord,” he murmured with the sole purpose of drawing Baisyl’s attention.  He got it, and by gods if the man’s eyes weren’t breathtaking.

“Kedean—?”

Kedean lowered his mouth onto Baisyl’s.  He made it a soft, silencing kiss, and held it until Baisyl relaxed against him.  Then, in one quick, efficient motion, he drew back and hoisted Baisyl off the ground entirely – much to his charge’s abrupt, vocal surprise. 

“Kedean-”

“Shhh,” Kedean pressed the sound – and a smile – into the convenient nook between Baisyl’s jaw and neck.

“You…insufferable…ass,” Baisyl growled out the words, “…you might ‘ave…warned me…” but the sharp scolding weakened into something of a muted whine by the end, presumably because of Kedean’s newfound interest in the soft patch of skin just below his ear.  It tasted good.  “An’ we can’t…dothislikethis…”

“Can’t we?” Kedean responded, only half paying attention because Baisyl’s thighs were shaking: long legs wrapped in an unrelenting cinch around Kedean’s waist, ankles locked behind his back, and arms wound around Kedean’s neck and shoulders as fiercely as though he thought he might fall to his death otherwise. 

It left virtually no space between them, pressing Baisyl’s body warm, flat, and tight to his own, so that the small, chilly pendant around his neck dug into the both of their chests where they pressed together, and as far as Kedean was concerned, the close proximity was a positive development.

“No, ‘m…too heavy-”

Kedean snorted, wordlessly conveying what he thought of that, and aligned himself with Baisyl’s entrance.  When his cockhead found its mark, the tip grazing over Baisyl’s slickened, waiting pucker, the readied bud twitched with awareness at the touch and Baisyl’s legs jerked to tighten their hold on his hips.  Kedean took that as a go.

The soft, kittenish mewl of a sound that Baisyl made as Kedean made that initial press – forcing the taunt, resistant ring of muscle to stretch and consequently clench around the head of his cock – probably hadn’t been intentional on the noble’s part, but it made Kedean swallow and shut his eyes.

What followed felt like an eternity.  An eternity of tight, sleek heat, and Kedean had to devote all his attention to keeping his movements careful and precise: rocking in and then out, driving progressively a little bit deeper each time, bit by bit farther into Baisyl’s waiting body as it opened up to him without ever rushing in too fast.  By the time he finally made it, entrenched to the hilt, Baisyl was shaking like the last autumn leaf on an oak, long fingers crushed into his hair and heels digging into his backside as if Kedean were the last thing remaining in the world to seek support from.

Kedean made himself draw a full breath, pulling the starkly chilled night air once deep into his lungs before asking, “Baisyl…?  Are you-”

“Please…” The response came out shaky and muddled, but the intent behind the loosening of Baisyl’s grip in his hair and the meaningful, impatient squirming of his hips and body was transparent.  “Please, gods,” he repeated, “…move…”

Who was Kedean to deny him?

Baisyl made the most beautiful sounds when fucked. 

He was no more a quiet lover than he was a quiet man, and Kedean found himself reminded, as he watched and took of Baisyl’s body, that he selfishly wanted more still than this.  As lovely as Baisyl looked flush-faced with his back to the bricks, Kedean wanted him in the sheets.  As thrilling as it was to have him dizzy with intoxication, he wanted him in a time and place where both of them were sober and level headed, somewhere where he could really kiss and explore and discover, without time constraints, not one or two but all the places on Baisyl’s body that made him moan. 

He wanted to undress him.  Slowly.  To feel the warmth of his naked skin under his palms before they even started with ‘the rest’ of the process.

At a particularly vocal groan, Kedean reluctantly shifted his grip to free up a hand and reached up.  Folding his palm over Baisyl’s mouth, he caught and held his charge’s surprised gaze before driving once, hard into the man’s body.  Baisyl didn’t disappoint.  Back arching and head falling back to the brick, his heels dug sharply into Kedean’s body, and the vibrations of his response sank perfectly into his palm.

“Someone’ll hear you,” Kedean explained.

Baisyl – eyes half-lidded and cheeks scarlet – made an indignant noise.  And licked Kedean’s palm.  In the startled moment that Kedean pulled a half inch back, his charge mumbled, “Fuck…you.  Whad’d’you know ‘nyways?  Let ‘m…hear, I think.  Teach ‘m a lesson in good…good…” He trailed off before finally adding, vaguely, “…sex…”

Don’t laugh.

Whatever you do, do not laugh, Kedean privately instructed himself, because laughing during sex was one of the absolute worst possible-

Something nipped his finger, distracting him, and he looked up to see…

Baisyl, catching his fingers with his teeth and pulling his hand back, closer, to a more convenient position before folding his lips over Kedean’s fingers and sucking to draw them into his mouth.  Kedean sort of forgot about laughing.  And everything else.  And swallowed.

“Ah…Baisyl—?”

“Mmn?” was a soft, non-verbal reply that came paired with the twitching flick of a flexible, wet tongue curling around and then between his fingers.  And Baisyl was tilting his head, leaning in, and-

Fuck that.

Baisyl was performing oral sex on Kedean’s hand, sucking to the pace of Kedean’s thrusts, and Kedean felt a coarse, thick sound escape his throat of its own volition.  Without thinking, he let his hand curl, just barely, feeling the pads of his fingers draw along the hot surface of Baisyl’s tongue before he stretched them back out again, pushing back in.  Baisyl made a small, wanting sound around his mouthful.

When he glanced, Baisyl caught his eyes and gave a tiny nod, and so, swallowing down a groan, Kedean found a rhythm as Baisyl had.  He matched the drive and withdrawal of his fingers in Baisyl’s mouth with that of his cock in Baisyl’s ass, enraptured by the sight of Baisyl’s brows knitting together with a tight moan around his hand as he did.  And when Baisyl’s lashes fluttered on his cheeks, jaw dropping slightly to take Kedean deep and Adam’s apple bobbing as his throat convulsed-

Fuck if this wasn’t going to last long at all.

He could tell when Baisyl was getting close.  His semi-structured licking and suckling degraded into half and half unstructured sucking and slack-jawed moaning.  He also shook more – or writhed, more accurately – half trembling and half bowing his back like a dancer in a desperate attempt to get some sort of friction on his leaking (and as of yet untouched) erection, currently trapped between the two of their stomachs.

Except Kedean couldn’t help, not with one hand dedicated to holding Baisyl up and the other preoccupied with his charge’s mouth.  But he couldn’t finish before Baisyl either, fuck, and he grit his teeth, feeling the approaching wave of orgasm and fighting it back as Baisyl shook in his hold.  Then, seconds from jerking his hand out of Baisyl’s mouth and looping his fingers around the man’s cock, one of Baisyl’s hands left his neck, dropping to slip between them, and Baisyl made a single sharp, keening noise.

One stroke…

Kedean could feel the brush of Baisyl’s knuckles against his stomach; the sporadic, desperate nature of his movements as he pulled at himself.

Two, three-

Baisyl’s body gave a full-body quiver, and his teeth clamped down, digging into Kedean’s fingers as he came.  Not a half second later, Kedean dropped his head to bury his hiss and groan against the cool chain and hot, sweat-damp skin at Baisyl’s neck as he followed immediately after, sinking his release with several deep, shaking thrusts into the pulsing, clenching channel of Baisyl’s body.

He wasn’t sure how long it took them to come around after that.

It couldn’t have been that long, but it was – oddly enough – a strange, heated tingling somewhere along the back of his shoulder that first drew him out of his lull, unlike any sensation he could pin down, and he frowned.  Blinking his eyes open, his sight focused just in time to watch as Baisyl pulled a hand down from around his neck, staring curiously at his own hand because, well, it was…glowing.  Or faintly luminous, anyway, with an insubstantial sort of white, fading aura around it.

As he watched, Baisyl drew a slow stripe diagonal-wise across his chest, and the white energy sank into his skin.  Kedean pursed his lips.  “What…” he asked, arranging himself so as to carefully disengage their bodies as he did, “…was that?”

Baisyl gave a tired wince when he pulled out, but otherwise shook his head.  “What?”

Kedean resisted the urge to roll his eyes.  “What you just did,” he clarified.  “Magic, of some sort…?”

“Mm…oh,” Baisyl mumbled, “…the light, yes…it looked…pretty on your skin.  Was ‘n accident…”

Right.  So.  Obviously, now was not the time to attempt to hold a rational conversation with the man, Kedean discerned.  Perhaps later.  “Baisyl…” He spoke more gently this time, because other than dropping his forehead sleepily against Kedean’s shoulder, Baisyl had yet to move – that is, unwind his arms from Kedean’s neck or unlock his legs from around Kedean’s waist, “…you will have to get down eventually…”

“Mnngh…” Baisyl shifted his head, turning his face in to Kedean’s neck, and his words tickled, warm and humid, along Kedean’s skin.  “I don’…” He huffed, wearily frustrated, “…think…that my legs’re…working.  Properly.”

Oh.

Kedean, biting back a smile, asked with all due politeness, “You’d like me to carry you, then?”

Baisyl made an unintelligible, disgruntled reply against his shoulder, which Kedean took to mean, ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I mean, you infuriatingly difficult man, but there’s no way in all the hells you’ll ever hear me admit it because I’m a stubborn git with the pride of a lion and a superiority complex to rival kings.’

Carefully, helping Baisyl along as he went, Kedean stooped to a knee without comment.  From there, he aided Baisyl in maneuvering himself onto his back, and aside from the occasional indistinct muttering, his charge cooperated without complaint.  Halfway through, though, Baisyl stilled, and a second before Kedean asked, his attention caught on Baisyl dangling something loosely before him: the charm that counterbalanced his curse.

“I’ll be…lighter,” Baisyl offered, by way of explanation, and Kedean almost objected on the basis that he could carry Baisyl’s full weight, as a man, without issue.  On the other hand, he had been holding the man up through their entire…encounter, and there was no sense in not making things easier when they could be.  So, he took the pendant, felt Baisyl’s hand on his back shrink and his weight against him lessen, and shortly after, stood, Baisyl’s chest to his back, arms around his neck and legs again around his middle.

“Mmth’s…odd,” Baisyl mumbled.

“What’s odd?”

“Usually when I…shift…doesn’ affect what’s…on me, like…’f I’m dirty, there’s still grit, ‘f I’m bleeding, there’s still blood, but…I can’t feel your…errm…that is…marsisclen…”

The last “word” was such a jumble that Kedean didn’t even pretend to understand it.  “What?”

“My.  Arse,” Baisyl repeated with slow, over-emphasis, “…is…clean.  Feel s’like it…anyhow…”

In that moment, Kedean spared a very brief second to wonder if ‘while one’s body was filled with fresh semen’ was perhaps not the best of times to shift over into the female.  He dismissed it a moment later.  Baisyl was drunk and rambling, and all his statements ought to be taken with a certain degree of moderation.

Surely, there was nothing to worry about.

If anyone who witnessed their return thought anything of their state at the time, no one said anything, and when Kedean helped Baisyl into bed and Baisyl caught his hand and asked him to stay, he couldn’t find any reason not to.  So he did. 

Tomorrow, they would speak with the fairy captain, terms would be laid and crucial details discussed; tomorrow, he could arrange to see his brother and negotiate his freedom.  Tonight, though, there was no harm climbing into bed with his charge, settling onto the thin mattress with the warmth of Baisyl’s back fitted up against his chest and his arm looped over Baisyl’s waist.  No harm pressing a kiss to the wealth of thick, waved hair at Baisyl’s neck and back before falling soundly asleep surrounded by a scent that was uniquely Baisyl and unerringly calming to his senses.  No harm in that.  Not just this once. 

Carthak City, Southeast Quarter

“Ouch-”

“Shhh!”

“You stepped on my foot—!”

“Perhaps you oughtn’t to have put your foot in my way then, hm?  If you didn’t want it stepped on…”

“In your—?  The least ya could’ve done was-”

“…and if you don’t intend to cease your racket-making immediately, you can save us both the trouble and return to your cell now.  It won’t do either of us any good if we’re both caught…”

Zyric huffed into the darkness, scowling ahead at his companion but otherwise making no reply.  Using only the arrival and departure of the man who came to serve Zyric his dinner as a marker for the time, they guessed it was night, and – with no forthcoming options for better scouting out an escape route before hand – they’d collectively agreed to improvise. 

Frankly, Zyric was still half surprised Rhyan had consented to taking him along without complaint.  Unless they were caught, he was nothing but a dead weight on the other boy’s tail, useless and potentially dangerous.  One more target for getting spotted.  And if they were caught, what were the chances his skill with hand-to-hand combat would be enough to do them any good against better armed and prepared guards?

Low, he suspected.

Still, here they were, making their way up a long, narrow corridor, lit only by a small, efflorescent bead of light in Rhyan’s palm – without the faintest clue where they were going, mind – and, risks notwithstanding, a part of Zyric couldn’t help but feel…giddy. 

Certainly there was an element of danger to it, but in many ways that only added to the thrill.  Rhyan’s dry, stone-faced attitude and semi-constant state of irritation with him aside, it felt like an adventure, a real shot at freedom not only from his current physical captors, but from everything that had ever tied him down before.  Outside of this enclosure, he had no obligations, nowhere he had to go, and no one to dictate what he ought and ought not be getting up to.  Neither his father, nor his brother, would have any sway over him.

He felt free.

A clatter sounded ahead of them, and they froze in unison.  A voice reached them – young, male, and cursing, by the sound of things – and it was coming their way.  Zyric swallowed.

“Press yourself against the far wall,” Rhyan instructed in a quiet, rapid-fire manner.  No hesitation.  No questioning.  “I’ll dim our light.  When he comes close enough to spot us, detain him immediately and be sure to cover his mouth.”

He failed to mention ‘Hope he doesn’t have a weapon.  Hope there aren’t others with him.  Hope he doesn’t turn out to be a four-hundred pound hulk of a man who just happens to have a boyish voice,’ but a half second after opening his mouth to ask who made Rhyan leader here and why Zyric had to do the dangerous man-handling, it became painfully obvious.

Rhyan was leader because Rhyan had just taken the lead, and Zyric was to do the manhandling because Zyric was stronger and faster and it made sense.  Also, neither of them were getting out of here if they didn’t act quickly.  So, Zyric shut his mouth and obeyed, silently begrudging the fact that Rhyan didn’t even seem to consider the possibility that Zyric might not act as his willing subordinate in a pinch.

It was just a boy.  Thirteen or fourteen, tops, Zyric guessed by his size and gait.  He didn’t fit into his clothes, all gangly limbs and angles, and his clothes suggested a lack of money; a servant or cabin boy, then. 

He did have a weapon, because when Zyric tripped him up and snatched his wrist as he lost his balance, he reached for it, but Zyric jerked him back and up and twisted him around before he got a chance to reach it.  In a matter of a scarce few seconds, he had the boy maneuvered into a position much like he’d had Rhyan in on the day of his appearance, however long ago that had been: arms restrained and wrist-locked, and mouth muzzled.

He was shaking, and Zyric felt a spike of guilt.

“He won’t hurt you,” Rhyan’s voice was quiet, but so unforgivingly pragmatic and removed that Zyric had to wonder whether it could possibly be considered comforting, given the circumstances.  “Do you know your way around?  A nod or a shake of the head will suffice.”

A nod.

“If he takes his hand off your mouth, you must promise not to scream.”

Another nod.

Zyric glanced up to Rhyan, and at a tilt of his head to give the go-ahead, Zyric let his hand drop.

“We need you to show us a way out.  One where we won’t be seen or hindered.  Do you know one?”

“M-most of the masters’ve gone to bed a’ready…sir,” the boy blurted, tremulous in both voice and stature, and Zyric wanted desperately to let his arms go as well; how much of a threat could he be?  “B-but if I tarry long-”

“You will help us,” Rhyan said point blank, “…or he…” A nudge of his head indicated Zyric, “…will break your arms.”  The boy – already pale – went white, and Zyric felt his gut drop.  “Are you ready to show us out?”

“Y-yes, s…” He swallowed, “…sir.”

“Good.”  Rhyan glanced to Zyric.  “Let him go…but stop him again if he tries to run.”

Gratefully, Zyric loosened his grip, but when the boy sank on unsteady knees, he caught below his elbows, supporting him.  “Relax,” he said quietly, the word falling out before he could censor himself, and at Rhyan’s curious, but only mildly reproving look, he added, “We just wanna get outta here, is all.  You ain’t gotta be scared…just, let’s go, okay?”

To Zyric’s relief, the boy made no attempt to run, and the complex was simpler than he remembered.  Making use of servants’ passages and secondary stairways, they made it out in a matter of minutes.  Where they wound up, he couldn’t begin to guess.  A dingy alley of some sort which the servants apparently used as a garbage dump, judging from the over spilling bags of refuse that lined the walls just outside the door they exited from. 

Even so, Zyric immediately noticed the difference in the air quality – fresh and cool and breathable – and he drew a deep, cold breath into his lungs.  Yes, they were definitely back above ground.  He grinned.

“Zyric.”

Attention darting back to the present, Zyric turned his eyes to Rhyan, who looked…uncertain?  Reluctant?

“Can you knock him out without hurting him?” he finally asked, and Zyric had to catch the boy’s arm and clamp a hand over his mouth again to silence his panicked outburst, but he leveled a sharp glower on Rhyan.

“I’m not going to hurt-”

“I know,” Rhyan snapped, impatient.  “Do you truly think I am that cruel?  I-”  He bit his lip, pausing sharply and holding his silence for a long moment.  Finally, quieter, he continued, “I know you will not hurt him, and I would not ask you to, but it was a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question.  Can you or can you not?”

Zyric hesitated, anxiety twisting in his gut as the boy’s squirming lessened again, giving up, it seemed.  “I…I’m not…sure,” he said finally.  ‘Dee could,’ a voice in his mind provided.  ‘Dee could find a pressure point easy.  You should have paid more attention…see what you get for being negligent?’  He stomped the voice down, frowning, and aloud, he said, “No.  I wouldn’t wanna risk it…”

Rhyan sighed, resigned but still visibly apprehensive, and turned his attention on the boy.  Zyric’s eyes flicked to the noble’s hands, fascinated as a bug to a light as pale, shimmering blue energy gathered at his fingertips.  “This won’t hurt,” he promised softly, and this time, the words were gentle – quiet and regretful as he lifted his hand to the boy’s forehead.  “I am putting you to sleep…” His fingers painted a thin circle of energy, then filled it with a more complicated pattern that Zyric couldn’t keep up with.  “Your dreams will be more pleasant if you relax your mind…and thank you, for helping us.  We are grateful.”

The boy made a tenuous sound into Zyric’s palm, and then, like water slipping through a sieve, the tension in his body petered out, and he went lax as a puppet with its strings cut.  Carefully, Zyric supported his weight, catching it and then lifting him.  There, he hesitated, uncertain.

Rhyan nodded his head towards the door they’d just exited through, looking weary.  “Leave him inside the door and shut it.  It’ll be warmer.”

Zyric complied, settling the boy just inside the door with his back propped into a corner.  On returning to Rhyan’s side, he asked, “Are you…alright?”

Rhyan frowned.  “I…”  He faltered.  Then, whatever it was, he shrugged it off.  “I’m fine.  We should go…before someone notices something’s amiss.”

“Yeah,” Zyric agreed readily, “yeah we should…go.”

‘Going,’ as it turned out, when one had no idea where they were, let alone where they were going to, was somewhat of a loose process.  Zyric kept as close to Rhyan’s side as he dared, tempted to offer support in light of his obvious fatigue but too keenly aware of the boy’s pride to bother.  The occasional, unsettlingly over interested looks that they received – Rhyan in particular – from the street-side urchins and other late night rabble gave him all the more reason to stand close and wary, and by the third or fourth turn, he wanted them off the streets.  Like, now.

“C’mon,” he blurted abruptly after long minutes of dragging silence between them as they walked.  He caught Rhyan’s wrist, startling the boy but not caring, his attention on an alley to their left and a ladder in particular – the kind that started halfway up a wall and was nailed to it, used for roof access and working on windows and higher stories on the outside of taller buildings.  “Let’s try this way…”

“Where…?” Rhyan stumbled as he pulled, and Zyric adjusted his pace accordingly, slowing but still urging his friend along.  Luckily, once down his chosen alley, they were out of sight of any onlookers as far as he could tell, and he stopped under the ladder he’d spotted – a trash barrel to one side and a heap of unidentified cloth goods to the other – and squinted upwards.

“There are a lot of these, on the different buildings,” Zyric said, thinking aloud as much as explaining his reasoning, “…and as far as it looks, all the main buildings’ve got flat roofs, so I think…there’s gonna be open space up there where we can at least spend the night.  It’ll be off the streets anyhow, and safer…”

“And colder…” Rhyan mumbled, and though it was beneath his breath, it prompted Zyric to spare him a glance.  He was shivering, though barely, the skin on his arm under Zyric’s palm goose-bumped with chill.  And his lips were darker than usual. 

Zyric diverted his gaze, frowning as heat warmed his cheeks.  “Ah…well…”

“Let’s go, then,” Rhyan said, apparently resigning himself and thus turning abruptly assertive.  “It’ll be cold anywhere, and you’re right, we can’t very well stay the night on the street.  It’s a good idea.  Sounds intelligent.”

Zyric’s blush deepened, but his eyes lit and his teeth flashed in a broad, open grin.  “Really?  Never thought I’d hear ya say that to me…”  At Rhyan’s splash of confusion, Zyric snickered, and turned towards the ladder.  “’Sounds intelligent,’” he repeated happily as he started to climb, and when he tossed a glance over his shoulder, Rhyan’s lips were pursed, but he climbed the ladder after him.

“You shouldn’t…let it get to your head,” Rhyan asserted when they reached the top, more out of breath than he had rights to be, given the short distance up, or so Zyric figured.  “Making one passably useful observation does not connote intelligence as a fixed trait of character.  In addition-”

Zyric rolled his eyes.  “You know,” he asserted, smiling even as he cut Rhyan off, his eyes already scoping out their new ‘residence’ for the night –someone’s rooftop garden, he discerned quickly, potted plants lining several of the side walls and some climbing vines set up around a small decorative structure in the center, “…it is alright to occasionally just say something nice without immediately qualifying and quantifying and…” Careful not to upset anything, he cleared out a small space by the nearest wall and sat, resting his back against it and shutting his eyes, hands folded behind his head, “…re-defining it so that no one gets the impression that there might actually be a human with feelings hiding in there somewhere under all your scowling and muttering…”

Rhyan’s cheeks bloomed with heat, and Zyric took that as a personal victory even as the noble narrowed his eyes warningly.  “I’m not trying to give off the impression that I’m inhuman,” he clipped, clearly irritated, and notably remained standing.  “I just don’t see the point in being ‘nice’ if it’s dishonest or doesn’t achieve anything.”

“The point?” Zyric repeated.  He sat up a bit, opening his eyes again to pin Rhyan with a critical look.  “The point?  I dunno…maybe to make friends…you know?  Make a few other people happy?  Put a little cheer in the world…”

Rhyan pursed his lips and turned his eyes away.  “Friends are shallow and useless.  People make ‘friends’ in order to better themselves and their status.  In the end, it’s all just a petty competition.”

Zyric frowned and for several long moments found himself, for once, at a complete loss for what to say.  Finally, tentatively, he asked, “You…really think that?” and when Rhyan back and down to meet his eyes, he saw that he did.  After another drawn, uncertain moment, he asked, “Do you think I’m shallow?” and Rhyan eyed him critically.

“I don’t yet know you very well…” he said, guarded, but at Zyric’s look, he relinquished a sigh, “…but no, I don’t suppose you’ve shown much tenancy for shallowness so far.”

The corner of Zyric’s lip curved up, if barely.  “And…do you think I’m useless?”

Rhyan’s expression was dubious.  “You have your uses…” he admitted, this time openly wary.

“Well, then,” Zyric pronounced happily and flashed him another outright grin, “…you can officially consider me your first, not shallow, not useless friend.  How’s that?”

Rhyan’s cheeks looked good with color in them.  Much better than plain pale, anyway.  More lively.  “But…we only met-”

“Doesn’t matter.  Besides…we kina just broke out of a prison cell together,” Zyric pointed out matter-of-factly, not to be deterred, “…and have been sharing the same sleeping space…” He started listing them off on his fingers, “…and ate of the same food…and-”

“Alright, alright,” Rhyan conceded, and Zyric noticed that his ears were pink too, right to the tips.  His eyes followed the path of Rhyan’s fingers as they tucked a strand of loose hair back, behind one of said ears.  “I suppose we-”

“C’mere,” Zyric invited, quieter than he intended, and when Rhyan shot him a startled, puzzled look, Zyric blushed too.  He cleared his throat.  “Ah, that is…you oughta sit.  You’re tired, and it ain’t like we’re goin’ nowhere after here, so…”

“It isn’t as though we’ll be going anywhere after-”

“You need rest,” Zyric asserted flatly, and Rhyan ran his hands over his arms, frowning.

“Yes, but…this place is…”  Before finishing his sentence, he bit back the end of it.  Eventually, with a resigned sigh, he stepped over, begrudgingly settling to sit against the same wall as Zyric – with a space of several feet between them.  “Ground’s hard,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, ‘cause that’s…one of several things which separates it from bein’, you know…a nice pretty bed with fancy silk coverlets and more pillows than you could shove under yer head at once, let alone use…”

Instead of shooting him a sharp look or snapping something tart in reply, though, as Zyric expected, Rhyan’s shoulders only sank an inch against the wall and he curled tighter into himself.  “I’d settle for hay, thanks,” he responded, “…would be better than this,” and Zyric winced, mentally kicking himself.

A second later, he stood, and Rhyan glanced up.  “What is it?” 

“Wait up here a sec,” Zyric said and started back for the ladder.  “I’ve an idea…”

“Two in one night?”

Zyric flipped him off, and disappeared over the edge.  When he returned, he came carrying as much of the stack of cloth goods he’d seen piled by the ladder’s base as he could manage.  He dumped it at Rhyan’s feet.

“Bedding,” he announced proudly.

Rhyan looked necessarily dubious.  “What…are they?”

“Err…” Zyric ran a hand back through his hair, frowning contemplatively at his delivery, “…stuff…” He listed things off as he nudged his toe through the pile, “…clothes, I think, and…a sheet, some ragged towels…pillow…case?  Maybe?  A-”

“Someone’s laundry.”

“…possibly.”

“Zyric-”

“Look, it was just layin’ down there-”

“Which by no means makes it free for us to take at our leisure-”

“-on the ground by a dump bin.  I don’t think whoever put it there wanted it much-”

“Still-”

“-and…it’s a lot softer than dirt and stone, alright?  If it helps your conscience, I can put it back come morning.  It wouldn’t be no trouble…”  When Rhyan winced, Zyric rolled his eyes.  “Fine.  It wouldn’t be any trouble, happy?”

Rhyan eyed the stack.  “What if it has lice?”

Zyric shoved two hands back through his hair, shutting his eyes and turning his head to the stars as if praying for divine guidance.  “Look.  If-”

“Sorry,” Rhyan blurted.  “I’m just…worrying aloud.  You’re right.  They will be softer.  And warmer, and…” He drew a breath, “…thank you.”  The last part came quieter, but audible, and Zyric dropped his hands to his sides, eyeing the noble curiously as he picked through the bundle.  After a moment, Rhyan’s fingers stilled and he sighed.  “I mean it.  Thank you.  Now get down here and take some for yourself so that we can sleep and…worry about the rest tomorrow.”

Zyric hesitated only a second longer before relaxing and smiling, and he dropped to join Rhyan in putting together a makeshift ‘bed.’  “You should try to relax, you know,” he advised off-handedly, rolling out a torn sheet and gathering up what was probably once a respectable shirt to serve as a pillow.  “Worrying doesn’t do any good…I’m sure your brother’s fine.”

Rhyan’s movements paused, and he glanced Zyric’s way, his expression unreadable.  He opened his mouth, waited, and then a second later shut it again, his brows knitting together as he shoved his attention back into setting up his sleeping area.  “This is where I’m setting up my bedding and I started here first,” he said, ignoring Zyric’s statement entirely.  “Move yours to the side some.  It’s too close.”

“We’ll be warmer if we’re closer.”  Visible even in the dark, Rhyan’s shoulders tensed, and Zyric wondered if he’d said it with the wrong tone.  “I meant that seriously, not to imply-”

“If you touch me in the night,” Rhyan said icily, “I will break your nose.  Is that clear?”

“Ah…” Zyric cleared his throat, and then swallowed.  “Yes, that…yeah.  S’clear.”

“Good.”  Rhyan dropped onto his side, lying with his back to Zyric and his arms folded over his chest, knees half tucked up.

Zyric gave a deflated sigh and rolled onto his back, hands behind his head and eyes to the stars.  It was a beautifully clear night, the stars spread like a handful of sugar measured out over a dark blanket of navy velvet.  A shame, he thought, to spoil it by falling asleep beneath it in a sour mood.  So, “Goodnight…” he murmured, tentative, without really expecting a reply back.

To his surprise, “Sleep well,” answered him, and minutes later, after he thought Rhyan had fallen asleep, the noble added, “…I hope your brother is safe as well.”

Zyric fell asleep smiling.

---

A/N: You're right, Kedean, surely there's nothing to worry about.  Jesus, I'm too obvious sometimes.  x__x  Ahem.

That aside...I updated within a week!  Officially making this the fastest update in...a LONG time, I think.  Yeah.  Reward me by reviewing?  I gave you porn.  And plot.  And a long chapter.  Please?? ;_;