PART III | Chapter XXVII
3:27 | Questions of Mercy
Wind whistles through dark air in a space that goes on forever. The sky is endless and black, empty of stars, and the ground is barren, nothing but dirt and stone. Nothing grows. Nothing moves but the wind, and for a moment, Baisyl is absolutely alone. Then, soft, breathless weeping joins in with the wind, and he sets eyes on the child for the first time. It sits on the edge of a precipice, the lip where the tiny speck of land that they share in the blackness ends, and in an instant he knows that if the child falls – ‘Or is pushed…’ a whisper of a thought points out – it will never be seen again. He steps towards it. As he approaches, the weeping continues – quiet, broken sobs and catches of breath – and Baisyl wants to swallow, for he feels guilty, though he’s not sure why. Instead, he asks, as gently as he can manage, “Child…what’s the matter? Why do you cry? Surely, there’s no cause to weep…” The sobbing comes to a slow, shaky halt, and when the child looks up, he tries to tell if it’s a boy or girl but can’t. Its skin is dark – not near black, but a rich, milk chocolate brown – and its eyes are either deep brown or sea green; they seem to shift as he looks, variations on the same theme. After long enough that Baisyl is no longer sure he’ll get an answer, the child answers, its voice as brittle and soft as the wind, “It’s my father,” it says, “…my father, he…he doesn’t want me…” and Baisyl’s guilt solidifies, like a knot pulling taut and hardening under strain. “Nonsense,” he argues, ignoring the tightening dread in his gut. “Why wouldn’t your father want you? Fathers love their children, even if they sometimes fail to show it. Perhaps he is merely angry-” “No,” the child replies, so certain of itself that Baisyl’s heart sinks and stills. “He’s not angry. He’s scared.” A moment passes where there is only wind. Then: “Scared?” Baisyl runs his eyes over the child’s face, wishing he could make out why it looks so familiar. “Why would he be scared? What’s he have to be frightened of?” The child meets his eyes, and for the briefest second, he recognizes its expression – because it’s his, Baisyl’s, expression – a tiny, curving twitch at the corner of its mouth in a barely-there smirk that doesn’t reach its eyes. It’s a smiling-but-not-smiling look where the hurt and fear and sadness bubble behind a mask that’s not quite thick enough to be convincing to anyone who really looks. “Me,” the child answers, “He’s afraid of me…” and Baisyl experiences a chill. He wants to take a step back, but holds his ground. “Go to your mother, then.” The child snorts, turning its head away and glaring off into the blackness. “You know I don’t have a mother.” “I’m sorry…” Baisyl means to ask how he was supposed to know that, but instead he says, “…I didn’t realize you’d lost her.” To his surprise, the child turns its scowl on him. “I didn’t lose her. I never had a mother. I don’t, and I won’t ever.” “That’s impossible,” Baisyl clips, irritated that there doesn’t seem to be anywhere to get away to. He’s trapped with this child that he didn’t ask for. “All children have mothers.” “Why can’t you accept me?” “I don’t know you.” “You could, if you gave me a chance-” “I didn’t ask for this.” “Few parents do.” Baisyl looks sharply to the child. “Now you must listen carefully to me, child…while I realize that you are troubled and upset, you must know that there is some mistake. I am no one of consequence to you, and I cannot care for you.” “Then you will let me die?” “You are not my responsibility-” “But I am-” “You’ve come to the wrong person,” Baisyl insists, his tone rising and the wind with it. “I’ve no room in my life for you. You must find someone else. Find a woman, a mother who will care for you-” “But you are my-” “No!” Baisyl shouts it, so harshly that the child shrinks back and curls in on itself as though struck, and the sight alone jars at his own heart as potently as any physical blow. He sinks to his knees. “Please,” he begs, “…you must understand…” “You only want rid of me…” “I don’t wish to hurt you…” “But you don’t want to keep me.” “I’m not ready for you,” Baisyl insists, begging the child to understand. “I’m not…I’m not right for this, I can’t do it, I don’t know how…” “But you must…” “I can’t-” “You must or I’ll die. Keep me, please, don’t make me go!” “I-” Light is breaking in from above, the fragile ground they’re on shaking. “Don’t make me go-” “I won’t hurt you…” Baisyl wonders if he’s lying, his own voice fading out as the child’s rises. “Don’t go-” “It won’t hurt.” “Father…father, don’t go, don’t leave me, I’m scared—please!”
…
Baisyl jerked awake, lungs burning, throat constricted, and fists quivering, knuckle-white in the thin sheets, and he wanted to-
Cry.
Or be sick.
He gave a choked, breathless sound and shut his stinging eyes, dropping his weight back flat onto the straw mattress and scant pillow below him and forcing a fresh breath deep into his pinched lungs. ‘
Cry?’ he mentally repeated to himself, more blatantly perplexed than ashamed. He hadn’t cried in…in…
Years?
Gods, he couldn’t remember the last time. He’d been furious, yes. Terrified, probably. But torn enough,
broken enough to cry? No. Not even when he’d contemplated suicide.
Still, when Baisyl opened his eyes again and tried to focus on the ceiling, his vision came out mottled and blurry, and he had to repeat the process of closing and re-opening them several times before he successfully brought the room into focus. It was longer still, after that, before he secured control of his renegade heart.
The question remained, though, even as he stared upwards, frowning at the yellow, dawn-lit ceiling and counting the paces in his head as he drew his breaths in and out to a measured tempo: what had shaken him up so?
He’d been dreaming, that much was obvious, but no matter how he grappled with his mind to remember it, its memory eluded him, and eventually, after too much struggle that bore no fruit, he sighed in defeat and let his eyes shut again.
About then, it occurred to him that his head hurt. A
lot.
It was a sort of throbbing, pulsating hurt that dizzied his senses and helpfully distracted him from everything else, and the original sickness to his stomach didn’t seem to be going away with the calming of his nerves, either. If anything, it roiled with more vigor with each passing minute. Pursing his lips and stomping down a grimace, Baisyl let his head drop to the left in order to eye the opposite side of the bed critically.
Empty. Naturally.
A cursory sweep of his hand over the space told him Kedean had left some time ago, as the bed had long since lost the mark of his body heat, and, muttering indistinct curses, Baisyl heaved his weight over to flop onto his stomach, effectively face-planting himself in his lover’s vacated space. Damn the man for being an early riser.
He tucked his nose into the cool cloth of Kedean’s pillow. Damnable, irritating, frustratingly ideal man. Damn him for leaving Baisyl like this, hung over and alone with a splitting headache in an empty bed. Hell, damn him for letting Baisyl drink his fill the night before and then damn him twice over for letting Baisyl have his way as far as sex and brick walls were concerned because fuck, Baisyl’s back and neck and
body hurt, nevermind that Baisyl had probably done virtually all of the convincing on both of those fronts.
He drew a breath, pulling the lingering, familiar musk of his lover into his lungs and then holding it there, eyes shut. Damn him for smelling like security, peace of mind, strength and happiness.
Baisyl screwed his eyes tighter shut. Damn him for being something Baisyl was going to miss terribly when it came to their parting. Damn him for his patience and his morals, his quiet intelligence and power; for his soft smile and warm eyes and the deep, rippling music of his laugh. For…
“Fuck,” he whispered aloud, fingers knotting up in the pillow case, “…Mele help me for my folly, I love you, Kedean Akuwa…have I mentioned that yet? No?” His lips pursed into a thin line, brows knitting together and fingertips biting tighter still into the cloth of the pillow before he murmured, resignedly, “Well, just as well I suppose. Probably all my own…damn…” He rolled, back onto his back, dragging the pillow with him and keeping it folded over his face, “…fault. Kill me.”
On second thought, perhaps he could just go back to sleep like thi-
Two raps sounded at the door, and Baisyl instantly shoved the pillow off of him and back into its designated place on Kedean’s ‘side’ of the bed. Never mind that it was a tiny bed and barely had one side, let alone two. How had they both fit on it, again?
“Yes, what?” he snapped, taking his headache out on his unidentified visitor.
“Are you decent?”
Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Baisyl shut them instead and pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, my darling,” he answered, “…I’m actually a disgustingly wicked, cruel man, but if you have yet to figure that out, you likely never will. Never in my life have I been even half-decent, let alone fully so. That said, this is
your room if my patched and pieced together memory of last night’s events is to be trusted, what in the Great Mother’s name possessed you to knock in the first place? I-”
Kedean opened the door.
Baisyl’s eyes flicked to him, and over him, taking in the details, broad and small: shirtless and barefoot, Kedean’s skin caught the light, faintly, from some combination of physical exertion and moisture in the air, but would probably be cool to the touch, if Baisyl had to guess, given the nip in the outside air that signaled oncoming winter. He carried his boots and a small paper bag in one hand, his vest and tunic slung over one shoulder and his hair loose, unfastened and thick, down about his shoulders for once. Baisyl tilted his head, propping himself up onto his elbows and watching intently as Kedean approached.
“What’s in the bag?” he asked.
Kedean deposited his vest and top at the foot of the bed, sat down on the side of it – careful not to interfere with Baisyl’s legs in the process – and drew an oddly familiar-looking vial from the bag by way of answering. Holding it out to Baisyl, he said simply, “For your headache,” and as Baisyl took it, unquestioningly downing its contents with a pinched grimace at the flavor, Kedean added, “There’s also breakfast, but…I wasn’t sure you’d be up to that immediately.”
“Nnh…” Baisyl, eyes squeezed shut, swallowed several extra times in an attempt to rid himself of the aftertaste as quickly as possible. “And what does this…alleged ‘breakfast’ entail?”
“A honeyed roll, grapes, and…” Kedean held out a canister, at which Baisyl blinked, “…water,” Kedean explained.
“Mm.” Baisyl gratefully accepted the offer and sat up further, the blanket falling to his waist as he lifted the canister to his lips and made quick work of washing his mouth. At a pointed look from Kedean, Baisyl arched an eyebrow. “What?”
“You’re…ah…your…” After a vague, unhelpful gesture on Kedean’s part, the man cleared his throat and apparently gave up, shaking his head, “…nothing. It’s nothing.”
Baisyl pursed his lips and folded his arms over his bare-
Breasts. He blinked. Right. Because he was naked from his…from…his…
Er…well, he was naked. Just naked. Completely. Everywhere.
He pinked. “Oh.” After several seconds of sifting and weighing his options, Baisyl huffed and determinedly dropped his hands, forcefully ignoring the way his cheeks bloomed into life at the exposure. “Well, it isn’t as if you haven’t seen it all before,” he clipped. “We’ve slept together three times, gods, let’s not be children about it…and in any case,
you’re topless.” He reached over Kedean, snatching up the paper bag. “Why ever shouldn’t I be?”
Kedean opened his mouth, eyes darting distractedly up and down once over what of Baisyl was exposed, and then he shut it again, making no comment.
“So, you helped me out of my clothes last night, then?” Baisyl asked off-handedly.
“On your request,” Kedean clarified, but at Baisyl’s slightly pained sound on glancing at the contents of the bag, his brow instantly furrowed with worry. “Is something wro—?”
“Nothing,” Baisyl said quickly, though the hasty manner in which he shut the bag – and his eyes – and placed it off to the side somewhat belied the credibility of the statement. On catching sight of Kedean’s unconvinced and concerned look, Baisyl’s expression softened. “Honestly,” he insisted, gentler. “I’m feeling a bit…ill, is all. Nothing out of the ordinary after the amount of intoxicants I riddled my body with last night. My stomach’s simply proving to be a touch temperamental. I’m confident it will pass shortly.”
“If you’re sure…” Kedean responded, comforted but still eying him carefully, “…because if you like, I can get you something else. It’s really no trou-”
Baisyl moved easily and efficiently, notching his hand into the nook between Kedean’s neck and shoulder for support and then leaning forward, decisively cutting off the remainder of the offer with a press of his lips to Kedean’s open mouth. Kedean’s eyes shut, and the kiss lasted longer than he anticipated. By the time he drew back, Kedean’s hand lay warmly on his waist, unmoving but intrinsically protective, and Baisyl smiled.
“Relax,” he said quietly. “It will be delicious, I’m sure, when I’m feeling more up to it…you’re better to me than I deserve.”
Kedean gave a soft huff of disbelief, a puff of warm air that he sank into the hair by Baisyl’s temple before kissing it, and Baisyl felt him shake his head. “I don’t believe that’s possible,” he said as quietly. “I…” Whatever he meant to say trailed off, and when a second hand joined the first on the opposite side of his waist, Baisyl only shut his eyes, settling subtly closer and relaxing into Kedean’s hold as his two thumbs circled simultaneously up, drawing twin warm paths with his calloused fingertips over Baisyl’s skin.
“What is it?” Baisyl prompted finally, unhurriedly, and Kedean breathed a sigh against his neck, nearly enough to make him shiver.
“I’ve worried greatly for my brother,” he said, barely a murmur but close enough to Baisyl’s ear that it didn’t need to be any louder to be heard. “I want…desperately to secure his safety, and in that regard, I have looked forward to this day. I care for him. I can’t think to abandon him, and yet…there’s a part of me…”
When he drew back, just enough to meet Baisyl’s eyes, Baisyl needed no words to read the turmoil in his expression, the conflict bubbling just beneath the surface. He frowned as Baisyl watched, drew back further and reached out, lifting one hand from Baisyl’s waist to curl around behind the shell of his ear and tuck a renegade lock of hair into place.
“A part of you…?”
“It was a selfish thought,” Kedean said ruefully. “I shouldn’t have started down the road to try and explain it…”
Baisyl’s lips twisted into a wry smile. “You?” he challenged. “A selfish thought? Somehow, I find myself struggling to believe you…”
Kedean scoffed shortly and dipped in to kiss Baisyl’s forehead. “I’ve been known to have one or two,” he admitted, “…especially when it comes to y—” He shut his eyes, “—certain…aspects of my life,” He corrected quickly, but not smoothly enough, “which have developed as of quite recently…”
Baisyl’s eyes flicked to him, necessarily suspicious. “’Certain aspects?’” he repeated, dubious. “By which you mean wha—?” In a strategic move, Kedean leaned in, brushing a gentle, fleeting kiss over Baisyl’s lips, and Baisyl’s lashes dipped to half mast. “That-”
“You should put some clothes on,” Kedean murmured, the pitch of his voice just low enough – as he grazed his lips down the bare column of Baisyl’s throat – to stoke a buried ember in the pit of Baisyl’s gut, and he blinked twice in stuttered succession, curbing the urge to swallow.
“W—nh, clothes…?” he responded, and
felt the curve of Kedean’s smile as it formed against the naked skin of his shoulder. Kedean kissed it.
“Yes, Baisyl,” he replied gently, the heat of the words dancing down over his skin. “Clothes. Garments for the body…articles of dress…wearing apparel…”
Baisyl meant to scowl, but then Kedean’s tongue dipped into the hollow at the base of his throat and his hands slid a half inch higher on Baisyl’s waist, and something in Baisyl’s body went soft and slick and
hot, and he made a weak, encouraging noise in the back of his throat instead, his chin tilting back. “Kedean-”
Kedean swore – a low, growled expletive that felt heated and close against Baisyl’s chest – and Baisyl’s fingers looked entirely too delicate when they circled Kedean’s upper arms, clasping for some root of support but barely making it half way around, like thin vines clinging to an oak. He felt Kedean’s muscle shift under his skin as he shuddered to restrain himself, and when Baisyl didn’t
quite succeed in keeping his hips from rocking forward or his chest from pressing up into Kedean’s seeking mouth, another muffled curse spilled forth from Kedean’s lips across his breast.
“Baisyl…” There was a low, buried promise in his tone; not a threat, but a warning all the same, “…this is the part where you tell me to stop…”
Baisyl opened his mouth. Nothing came. The suggestion made sense, but he didn’t
want to stop. He liked the way Kedean’s hands felt larger still against him, the way Kedean shook, subtly, as he kissed him like
he was the one powerless in this situation, not Baisyl, and desire beat powerfully in his chest and through his veins, painting all logic with a red, hazy shroud.
So, biting his lip, Baisyl reached downwards instead, and caught Kedean’s wrist. Tentatively, he led the man’s hand up: past his waist, over his ribs, and finally, to the lower curve of his breast. When Kedean glanced up, Baisyl dipped his head and caught his lips, tangling the command, “Touch me…” into a slow, inviting kiss. He felt the ripple of Kedean’s shudder as the last of his restraint fell away, and with Baisyl’s permission granted, his hand moved of its own accord.
Slowly, as though still wary of startling Baisyl into shoving him off, Kedean drew his hand up, cupping his breast until he held the full weight of it in his palm, and Kedean’s skin felt rough, but warm, and his touch, by contrast, was painstakingly gentle. He took control of the kiss, parting Baisyl’s lips with his tongue and then delving in, and each slide of his skin against Baisyl’s seemed to blow oxygen onto the continually warming coals in his gut. Then, Kedean’s thumb circled up, the broad, coarse pad of it brushing flatly over the sensitive nub of Baisyl’s nipple, and a small, needing sound broke uncalled for from his lips.
Baisyl’s thighs tensed, his toes curling up briefly and fingers digging tighter into their hold on Kedean’s biceps, and fresh heat rushed to his cheeks as raw desire gathered elsewhere. Kedean broke the kiss and planted a chopped hybrid between a pant and a groan on the hinge between Baisyl’s neck and jaw.
“Baisyl.”
“Nnh?”
“Lay back.”
Baisyl’s pulse startled, his heart tripping on a beat like a nervous jester stumbling through a juggling act, but with Kedean’s coaxing, he obligingly wound up on his back moments later: unreservedly exposed, sheets pushed down to the foot of the bed, and Kedean a single, solid mass over him like a human wall of body heat and unbridled strength. Baisyl swallowed thickly. Because Kedean was
not a small man, and there was something about being one third his size, naked, and helplessly aroused underneath him that seemed to drill that point home with almost painful insistency.
Baisyl opened his mouth.
Kedean kissed him.
And insecurity melted away like winter before spring.
Baisyl wasn’t sure where they were going with this. There were certain things they obviously wouldn’t be doing, but he knew that and Kedean knew that, so he didn’t find himself particularly concerned so much as curious, and for once he felt contented enough to let Kedean drive the show, seeing as he at least seemed to have some idea of what he wanted.
When Kedean leaned in, he pressed close. Close enough that the hard shape of his chest and stomach slid along the full length of the contrastingly soft curves of Baisyl’s upper body; close enough that Baisyl’s skin tingled attentively at each scrape of heat and pressure along his breasts and belly, and close enough that the temptation for Baisyl to arch his back and press himself into that rigid source of friction and sensation was all but overpowering.
Yet, for all that Kedean teased the entirety of his body along Baisyl’s – for Baisyl felt certain this was purposeful – emphasizing every inch of his strength and fitting them together like puzzle pieces, he simultaneously managed to never once put an ounce of actual
weight on Baisyl. He bore the full brunt of his own heaviness, holding himself aloft so that Baisyl never felt pressured or even trapped so much as encompassed and secure. Baisyl found himself quietly envious of that sort of effortless, perfect exhibition of power and control that Kedean didn’t seem to have to so much as think about to exert flawlessly.
It was no wonder women fell hard for this man.
Kedean’s hands moved freely but slowly over his skin, taking their time as if re-mapping each detail, teaching himself the hills and valleys, exploring every shadow; the distinctions between this body and Baisyl’s rightful one. When he broke from the kiss, Baisyl found himself pinned, for a moment, under a gaze so riddled with unashamed desire that he forgot in that instant to breathe. Then, Kedean dipped his head lower, kissed his neck – slotting his fingers gently into Baisyl’s hair there to push the waving, heavy red tresses back from his skin – and then his collar bone.
“It’s a fortunate thing for the men of this world that you weren’t born a woman, Baisyl,” he murmured, speaking into the skin of Baisyl’s shoulder, and Baisyl’s eyelids flicked up just enough for him to regard his lover through a veil of dark lashes.
“And why is that?” he asked, his voice surprisingly cooperative despite his pulse’s refusal to settle on a beat and stick with it.
When Kedean glanced up, Baisyl’s heart lurched anew, and he wondered if it were possible to feel for a man more in a moment solely for the look in his eyes in a given instant. “You’d have had them one and all at your absolute mercy,” Kedean answered, so baldly honest in both voice and expression that Baisyl’s lips curved into a smile before he spared it a second thought.
Almost of their own volition, Baisyl’s fingers moved out, tracing a slow path along the span of Kedean’s cheek before folding loosely into the dark hair at his nape, and he shook his head, though never breaking eye contact. “How fortunate for me, then,” he said, “…that I got the one I wanted even so…” A minute pause ensued. Then, tilting his head curiously, he asked, one part teasing and two parts entirely serious, “Do I have
you at my mercy, Mister Akuwa?”
Kedean’s exhale broke halfway through into a small, breathless laugh, and he smiled in response, but his eyes weren’t joking when he said, “Wholly and utterly, my lord.”
Something unnamable in Baisyl’s person relaxed, then, as though he had just voiced some unspeakable ‘
Do you…?’ and Kedean had unreservedly answered ‘
Yes.’ For now, they needn’t be any more specific than that to satisfy him.
When Kedean lowered his lips to Baisyl’s chest, he glanced up, hovering over a single breast so close that the heat of his breath and the unfulfilled
promise of contact dried Baisyl’s throat, but not yet moving, silently begging permission first. Biting his lip to muffle his frustration, Baisyl arched his back in wordless answer. Obligingly, Kedean’s mouth took him in, lips circling the hardened bud of his nipple and palm coming up to cradle the healthy swell of his breast as he sucked, and Baisyl’s relative composure happily disintegrated.
It was strange and foreign, at once quite like and utterly unlike being made a virgin all over again in that everything was new, and yet wasn’t, because it was only this skin, this body that didn’t recognize these touches. But it unhinged him near effortlessly all the same.
He was peripherally aware of Kedean’s hand on his thigh, drawing warm, kneading stripes along the trembling surface of it with his palm, but the attentions he balanced between either of Baisyl’s breasts dominated most of his limited capacity for rational thought. At least, until the hand on his thigh slid
in, grazing cautiously along the inside of his leg and down, dangerously close to the core of where half of Baisyl most desperately wanted it and the other half recoiled in panic at the thought alone, and Baisyl drew up rigid as blade.
“Kedean,” The name fell in a startled, instinctive fashion from his lips, “wait-”
As instantly as that, Kedean stilled. His hand retreated to Baisyl’s knee, far away from the source of Baisyl’s anxiety, and he lifted himself up off of Baisyl enough to meet his eyes square on. “Stop?” he asked.
And he meant it. Baisyl knew without question that he did, that if he asked it of him, they would stop, right here, no questions asked, and that Kedean wouldn’t hold it against him for an instant.
The knowledge comforted him, eased the tension on his racing heart, and after a cursory glance towards the tiny table by the bed – and, more specifically, the magicked pendant that could hold off his curse – he drew a controlled breath into his lungs, and shook his head determinedly.
This was his body too for as long as he inhabited it, the gods and all their hells be damned, and it oughtn’t have any right to make him so unspeakably uncomfortable that it controlled his life. If Kedean could see past the shape his body took, than surely so could he.
“No,” he said aloud and watched Kedean’s face as he spoke, “…just-” The words ‘go slowly’ lingered, unspoken, on the tip of his tongue, but even the thought of them made his face heat with embarrassment at their virginal quality. So, instead he finished, “Kiss me…” because there was a familiarity in Kedean’s kiss, and thus a reassurance to be derived from it, “…but don’t stop.”
Wordlessly, Kedean leaned forward.
Baisyl focused on the kiss. He devoted his attention to the warm, encompassing caress of Kedean’s mouth and then the slow, hungry slide of their tongues as they drove into and out of each others’ mouths, sharing each others’ flavor. Kedean tasted fantastically addicting, and it fascinated Baisyl how, despite the rapid succession of their encounters as of late, the potency of this addiction seemed only to increase with each pass, like snow piling up on the ground after several falls, gathering far faster than it melted.
Never before had he wanted to possess someone – to have them and to keep them entirely for himself – so intensely as he wanted Kedean. He
needed this man to be his, and the stark nakedness of the want in his mind made him shudder. Where would he be if – when – he lost him?
Forcefully, Baisyl shoved the thought aside. Not now. He didn’t have to think about this now.
Instead, he forced his attention back to the pull of Kedean’s mouth, the brush of his fingers, close now again on the inside of his thigh, teasing and patient, waiting for his approval, the taste of Kedean’s breath in the short, panted intervals when their lips came apart. Stamping down any remaining nerves, Baisyl gave a small, encouraging roll of his hips, parting his legs a fraction farther and opening himself to Kedean’s advances.
When Kedean’s fingers finally delved between his legs, Baisyl felt adamantly certain that his pulse metamorphosed in a single instant into a physical, liquid fire presence in his throat, utterly blocking off his wind and depriving him of oxygen, and that that was the only thing that saved him from crying out loud. Kedean buried a groan into his arching throat.
“Fuck, Baisyl…” The words were low and coarse, the sound of them thick vibrations against the frantic beat of Baisyl’s pulse. “You’re so…”
“Don’t,” Baisyl panted out the word, “…say it…”
Wet. He was soaked. Slick and wanting where he ought to have been hard as a rock.
His body wanted this;
he wanted this, so desperately that it shook him to his core, and Baisyl swallowed as he quivered, toes digging into the sheets and fingers biting into Kedean’s shoulders so tightly he might have worried about breaking skin if he’d had the spare consciousness to think on it.
“Do you have any idea…what I would give to have you, right now, like this?” Kedean’s voice slid under his skin, raw and needy, edging him on even as his body rocked and trembled against Kedean’s fingers, and it scared Baisyl to realize that if Kedean hadn’t had the will to hold himself at bay, he wasn’t sure he’d have bothered trying to stop him. Wasn’t sure he’d
want to stop him.
Baisyl urged his heavy eyelids open, made himself look at his lover, study the hard, conflicting lines that desire and self restraint etched into his face. Carefully, he reached out, narrow fingers catching beneath Kedean’s chin.
“Look at me.” He whispered the command, but Kedean obeyed instantly, his deep brown eyes greeting Baisyl suddenly and sharply, so darkened by arousal that they looked almost black. Baisyl reminded himself to breathe and reached down with his spare hand.
Finding his goal, he caught the laces of Kedean’s trousers, tugged and unstrung them, and slipped deftly inside a second later. Kedean’s full-body shudder excited every living part of Baisyl, no longer simply stoking coals but feeding a hungry fire, and he watched with rapt attention as Kedean’s eyes grew weighted and fell shut. His glance dropped to the movement at Kedean’s throat as the man swallowed.
“Baisyl…” Kedean’s voice shook: coarse, rough around the edges and low, “…
please…I can’t-”
Baisyl shivered, dizzied by the overwhelming sense of empowerment in hearing Kedean – this huge, powerful man looming above him – reduced to begging. He pressed his lips to the curve of Kedean’s jaw. “Let me touch you.” He spoke the words softly against Kedean’s skin. “I cannot give myself to you this way, but I can do this much for you, so let me…I want to feel you.”
There was a shudder, and then a tiny jerk of motion that might have passed as a nod, and Baisyl’s fingers curled around the painfully hard length of Kedean’s arousal. It felt larger in Baisyl’s smaller hands, more than he was accustomed to, and while he certainly wasn’t the sort to be intimidated by a cock, he silently decided that perhaps it was a good thing Kedean had solid reason not to try to fit that thing inside him after all. Baisyl wasn’t a small man, but he was a small woman, and he half feared an attempt might break him.
“I’ve been with smaller women,” Kedean murmured aloud, distractedly. “I’m sure I wouldn’t break you.”
Baisyl’s eyes jerked up, so startled that for an instant he couldn’t form words. Because he
knew he hadn’t said that out loud—?
Kedean’s hand moved, changing tactics. In a single go, he drew two fingers down and slotted them up inside him, large enough on their own to stretch and provide tantalizing friction along his inner walls without hurting, and Baisyl made a soft, choked sound at the abrupt change in sensation, swallowing hard on an undignified whimper as he felt his body clench down around the invasion. Then, Kedean brought his palm down, pressing it in a tight, unrelenting circular motion over the slick, sensitized nub of Baisyl’s pleasure center, and in tandem with the slow drive of his fingers into and out of his body, Baisyl more or less forgot everything else in existence, ever.
Concern about unprecedented bouts of telepathy could wait.
“F-fuck, Kedean…” His own hand nearly lost track of its own pace, stuttering to a virtual standstill before he remembered himself, and he curled his fingers with renewed purpose, determined to provide Kedean with an outlet even as his head dug back into the pillow beneath him.
The breath of Kedean’s resulting groan stirred the hairs along Baisyl’s neck, warm and close, and he said something throaty and tangled in his native tongue, the words wholly unintelligible to Baisyl but heated enough to make his blood rush in response. Then, “Like this?” he asked, and Baisyl’s head twitched with his nod – a tiny, unfocussed motion.
“Yes…” he panted, forcing out the words in a single breath, “…yes, fuck, exactly like that…” He tucked his head in, fitting it into the groove of Kedean’s neck and shoulder, and allowed himself to cling with his free hand as the muscles in his lower body wound up. He felt himself shaking, was vaguely aware of his breath hitching up and catching on itself one after another, stacking up like blocks that could only reach so high before they toppled, and he knew things couldn’t possibly last much longer.
Then Kedean drew away from his neck, and Baisyl almost objected – until he dipped his head low instead, reclaiming one of Baisyl’s breasts with his mouth: lapping gently over a rapidly re-hardening nipple and then gathering it between his lips and
suckling like it provided him with lifeblood. And Baisyl’s orgasm hit like the tide.
Slow and powerful, it seemed to roll in forever, rocking his entire body and shaking him to the core, and he groaned as he buckled, teeth digging into his own lip for lack of anything else to muffle his cries. He felt Kedean stutter at first, fingers stilling briefly inside him as his body clamped down naturally and pulsed around them, but then he rode him through it, carrying him patiently to the end and lightening up his attentions only when Baisyl’s breathy moans turned to nearly-pained whimpers at the over-stimulation. He withdrew his fingers then, slowly, and for some time Baisyl was only hazily aware of the existence of a reality somewhere outside of the satiated lassitude in his own body.
He came to to find Kedean still over him, quietly stroking himself, and felt a brief pang of guilt for neglecting the other man in his state of distraction. When he made to reach for him, though, Kedean gave a quick, understated shake of the head. A second later he tensed completely as Baisyl watched him, his shoulders going stiff and his body freezing up as one, and he spilled himself with a soft, panted groan across Baisyl’s stomach.
Baisyl watched, waiting as he finished, as the tension sank back out of him and as he stilled again, sinking his weight back on his haunches. Then, when Kedean ventured to cast him his first, pleasantly wearied glance, Baisyl greeted, just barely teasingly, “Good morning,” and Kedean’s smile spread like the dawn. It was contagious.
Moments later he found himself grinning helplessly as Kedean bent forward and then imparting scattered outbreaks of quiet, breathless laughter into a series of kisses that they strung together solely for the purpose of tasting each others’ smiles. Kedean’s fingers tunneled loosely into his hair as he kissed him, each mingling of lips curious and lazy. Unhurried.
Baisyl laid a palm out, absently calling the curse-dampening pendant to him with a pulse of magic that answered his summons effortlessly, and Kedean slowed as Baisyl’s body shifted, but didn’t retreat. When the transformation finished, he lingered several seconds longer, kissing him as a man, and then pulled back, barely half a foot, just enough to draw his eyes anew over Baisyl.
“Are you going to share with me why you were laughing?” Kedean asked, his tone soft, almost playful, and Baisyl shook his head.
“No,” he answered, though his smile never dipped, and he slid the pendant over his neck; it felt cool on his chest, making his skin prickle with a shiver, but his eyes held to Kedean’s. “I’m not certain I’d have an answer for you if I tried. I suppose the best I can give is…” He paused, considerate, and then finished, “…I suppose I’m just…happy, I think.”
The corner of Kedean’s lip twitched, amusement lighting his eyes, and he leaned in, kissing Baisyl’s lips, his jaw, the patch below his ear. “Happy,” he repeated quietly, and Baisyl nodded. Wordlessly, he let his head fall to the side, tilted his chin up and shut his eyes, baring his throat to Kedean’s slow advances.
“It’s strange,” he murmured.
“Strange…to be happy?” Kedean asked, and Baisyl’s lips curved up into a fresh, but more understated smile.
“In some ways,” he said. “I…don’t think I have been, is all,” he admitted, speaking slowly, coming to the revelation in his own time. “For the past six months…everything felt like a tragedy to me. I had been so accustomed to control – over my life, over everything, the people around me, my servants – I never once stopped to think that things might change and then they
did and…” He drew a breath, “…and then suddenly I felt as though I didn’t know anything, not even my own body, let alone the world around me.”
Kedean’s lips swept gently along the curve of his throat, back and forth like the bristles of a fine brush, and each touch left warmth in its wake. “And now?”
“Now…” Baisyl’s eyes stayed shut, half of his attention slowly sifting away to focus entirely on the path of Kedean’s skin against his; he didn’t fight the shift and instead reached up, wrapped his arms around Kedean’s body and pressed his palms flat to the man’s back before drawing them slowly up, tracing the shape of his strength and studying the dips and grooves of muscle like an ancient text bared for deciphering, “…now I wonder if perhaps it doesn’t all matter so much as I once thought.”
“Mm…” Kedean’s breath brushed, warm, over his chest now, and he pressed a kiss to the flat just above Baisyl’s solar plexus. After a drawn, quiet pause, Baisyl became aware of the man’s eyes on him, silently examining him, and he opened his own, tilting his head and regarding his lover through half-raised lashes.
“You’re looking at me.” It was an observation more than an accusation.
“I am,” Kedean confessed, and Baisyl let one hand down from Kedean’s back. Absently, he traced it along the man’s face instead, feeling the hint of stubble along the line of Kedean’s jaw, the barely upraised skin of a small scar just beneath his chin and out of sight, and watching his expression as he made his trek.
“What does that look mean?” he asked finally, as softly as if asking for a secret, and Kedean’s smile did things to his heart that he wasn’t sure he’d ever have the courage to fully admit to.
“It means…that I can’t get enough of you,” he admitted, and Baisyl’s gaze flicked up from low on his face to his eyes. “Each time I look at you, I think you couldn’t possibly get more beautiful…and then you change, and I realize I was wrong, except it happens every time.”
Baisyl smiled. “’Beautiful’ is a very feminine word,” he asserted, not necessarily objecting to it, but challenging it. Kedean only shook his head.
“It’s an all-encompassing word. Mountains can be beautiful…lakes can be beautiful, powerful beasts of prey are beautiful when they move. Even a patch of grass can be beautiful, in the morning, wet with dew when the light catches it and lights it up like it’s been glittered with tiny jewels…it’s a very flexible word.”
“So now you’re comparing me to a patch of grass.”
Kedean met the teasing glint in Baisyl’s eyes with a resilient sigh. “You’re an exceedingly difficult man. Surely, you realize this.”
“Oh, absolutely. Do continue.”
“I’m merely
suggesting,” Kedean emphasized, and Baisyl leaned up, cutting the sentence through the middle with a quick kiss that ended for the sake of the second half of Kedean’s statement, “that the word oughtn’t be monopolized by women and all things fragile and delicate.”
“Mm…you make a valid point. You also make it sound as though I’ve bewitched you.”
A second kiss, this time initiated by Kedean, busied his lips almost as soon as he finished speaking. “If you have,” Kedean concluded, pulling back very little to say it, “it’s a very powerful spell…and I’d rather you not lift it.”
“Oh?” Baisyl inquired, curious.
“I’d be heartbroken.”
Baisyl’s eyes darted open. Kedean said it point blank, so forthrightly that Baisyl found himself hard pressed to doubt him, and yet, still he sought out Kedean’s eyes, searching for a hint of camaraderie: a teasing smile, a glint of mischief in his eye, or anything to denote a joke. He found only quiet seriousness.
“Heartbroken,” Baisyl repeated at last. He nearly opened his mouth to say that he found it hard to imagine Kedean experiencing heartbreak, but then after another moment he found to the contrary that he
could imagine it, and it pained something high in his throat and deep in his gut just to think on it, so he swallowed it down harshly to shake the feeling and said instead, if in a weaker tone than he intended, “Well…we can’t have that, can we?”
The breath of Kedean’s sigh skittered warmly over Baisyl’s forehead, and Baisyl shut his eyes as he kissed him there, painfully tender. Why did the man insist on being so gentle? Why did that very gentleness make it
hurt so much more sharply to think about what they had in terms of the real world and where their relationship was necessarily headed? It wasn’t…
fair.
“I’d hope not,” Kedean admitted softly, “…but I’m afraid it is entirely possible.”
Baisyl wanted to grit and grind his teeth.
Hit something. Throw a tantrum. All the while, he was perfectly aware of how childishly he was reacting to a superficially simple string of events. Thus, he forced a fresh, cool breath deep into his lungs instead and made himself open his stubborn eyes to face his lover. “Kedean,” he started solemnly, determined, “whatever there is between us, however…limited…the time we have together may be, you ought to know that I-”
A quick, sharp rap sounded at the door. And Baisyl wondered if it were in his realm of capability to melt the door’s lock into place.
A/N: So. I have never, ever, even once in my life written explicit het sex, and this is therefore the closest I’ve come to it. Truthfully, to me it still didn’t really feel like het sex, just because Baisyl is male to me regardless of what he looks like, but yeah, tits. So. Sorry about that if that squicked you, but as I said at the beginning, you knew it was coming eventually.
There was going to be Zyric & Rhyan activity this chapter, but then Baisyl and Kedean spent over seven thousand words sexing it up and then making googly eyes at each other, so…Zyric and Rhyan should appear next chapter. Along with plot. And story progression and all that jazz.
If you feel like you’ve been overloaded with sex recently, you can rest assured knowing that this is
probably the last sex scene in this “book.” (Since the story is now nearly a hundred and fifty thousand words long, I’m planning to split it in two at around chapter thirty.) If the thought of no more sex until the next book is frustrating to you, you can rest assured knowing that the sequel will probably be a significant bit more smut-laden than this one. Because, you know, the ice between our lovebirds (if not the tension) is broken and all that.
Some questions you guys had! - Is Baisyl pregnant (games for days, Anon) and will it be a normal pregnancy (rosebud101)? Yes. Yes, Baisyl is definitely pregnant. Right now. He got pregnant last chapter. It will be…mostly a normal pregnancy. I intend to make it nine months long unless there are "complications" which I haven't decided on yet.
As for when, in relation to the story, the baby will come into play…it’s a long ways down the road. I didn't write this story to be about the baby, it just happens to be one of any number of complications in their lives.
-
What’s up with K’s bad memory? Has he completely forgotten the prophecy (addiena saffir)? No, Kedean has definitely not forgotten he prophecy in the least. If it hadn’t been for the prophecy, he probably wouldn’t have thought twice about what Baisyl said, but to make a long story short(er) he (quite reasonably) doesn’t figure he has to worry about getting Baisyl pregnant as long as he doesn’t have sex with him while he’s female.
Also, it’s important to note that it hasn’t completely left his mind. What Baisyl said is still itching in the back of his mind, and from this point on out he’s going to be keeping a very close eye on Baisyl, because his suspicions are raised. He hasn’t just brushed it off entirely. I hope this makes sense. =)
